Bulletins from Bolivia: A Community Rallies to Protect Their Land

The fields of Challapata, Bolivia (and the mountain where a proposed mine threatens the community)

Challapata, Bolivia is a small town in the high Andes. Families there have lived from the land for generations. Dairy cows spot the landscape. Amber quinoa crops ice green pastures. Niños, or children, run circles around their open-air houses.

In order to survive the dry season, the farmers around Challapata have created a complex system of irrigation canals that draw from a reservoir above town. The town itself is very dry, so the irrigation provides a lifeline. It’s a remarkable labyrinth of ditches and faucets that has kept the

Yet a proposed mining project, put forward by Castillan Resources mining company, looms on the mountain just above the town and the reservoir on which its people depend. It’s a project that would pollute the precious water source and devastate local agriculture. The mine runoff would spill into the ponds where the dairy cows drink, and high levels of poisonous metals would contaminate the cows’ milk. Children would get sick and families would be left without income.

These harmful impacts are not simply hypothetical. Mine tailings from the Inti Raymi and Sinchi Wayra mines have wreaked havoc on the environmental health of nearby town Oruro and would do the same in Challapata.

Grassroots Action Makes a Difference

The mining project is ominous, but Global Greengrants grantees are leading the fight to protect Challapata. We’ve been receiving updates from the ground, and the action is inspiring. The public awareness and education campaigns of grantee organizations Colectivo CASA, CONAMAQ (Consejo Nacional de Ayllus y Markas del Quallasuyu) and Los Regantes have worked: the community of Challapata took to the streets to protest (with banners and fireworks) a lobbying-type meeting the mining company set up without permission.

They successfully disrupted the meeting. They asked all forms of media to stop any sort of transmission of messages coming from the mining company. They declared Challapata in a state of emergency to protect their natural resources and future of their agriculture and dairy farms. They have asked that anyone who directly opposes the will of the community to be considered a persona non grata—an unwelcome person.

In addition, a group of indigenous leaders met this past weekend and came to a unanimous decision that mining operations should cease in the area and that further exploration of the Achachucani Mountain above Challapata should not be allowed.  According to the leaders:

“These mining activities contaminate the water, genetically alter plants and animals in the areas, and affect the environmental health of the region. This has already happened with the Inti Raymi, Sinchi Wayra, and San Cristobal mines and can’t happen in Challapata.”

Indigenous leaders are condemning national authorities that are caving to transnational corporations and echoing the company’s deceptive message of the benefits of mining royalties. They are asking that Castillan Resources retract all their propaganda and that all future decisions be made with attention to indigenous rights.

While the long-term results are still not known, as the mining company is still trying to persuade public opinion and will still probably try to work collusively with the government, the momentum in western Bolivia is palpable. These small organizations have gained the respect and of the community and its leaders and seem to have swayed public opinion of the mine, making its realization that much more difficult.