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Thirty years ago, several thousand civilians in the northern Salvadoran community of Santa Marta quickly gathered a few belongings and fled the US-funded Salvadoran military as it burned their houses and fields in an early stage of the country’s twelve-year civil war. Dozens were killed as they crossed the Lempa River into refugee camps in Honduras.

Miguel drove us to the office of his employer, ADES (the SociAl And Economic Development AssociAtion), where locAl people tAlked with us lAte into the night About how they hAd come to oppose mining. ADES orgAnizer VidAlinA MorAles Acknowledged thAt “initiAlly, we thought mining wAs good And it wAs going to help us out of poverty…through jobs And development.”

He talked about watching the river near his farm dry up: “This was very strange, as it had never done this before. So we walked up the river to see why…. and then I found a pump from Pacific Rim that was pumping water for exploratory wells. all of us began to wonder, if they are using this much water in the exploration stage, how much will they use if they actually start mining?”