Mining, power and resistance: women defending land and democracy in Latin America
I was at the school when people from the mines came. They came on a tour and said, ‘In a few days there will be cyanide in the province. But don’t worry; cyanide is not bad. It exists in yucca and apple seeds.‘
– Anonymous, Aquelarre RD, Dominican Republic
In Bolivia, the Dominican Republic, and El Salvador, cyanide is used for gold mining. Tons of it. The process contaminates water, damages ecosystems and poses serious risks to the health and livelihood of nearby communities. Over time, mining has contributed to deforestation, environmental degradation and displacement in regions such as Bonao in the Dominican Republic and in some communities at the Bolivian departments of Oruro and Potosí. The consequences reach far beyond these locations.
Authoritarian regimes don’t merely enable these large-scale mining operations but actively profit from them. Across the region, profits generated by extractive industries reinforce the power of political and economic elites, making accountability increasingly difficult. At the same time, governments are engaged in deliberate attempts to undermine community resistance to mining through repressive laws, intimidation, surveillance, and political patronage.
Mining Tied with “Empire” in Latin America
Mining in Latin America is rooted in the region’s colonial history. After former Spanish colonies across Latin America gained independence, they were incentivised to continue mining and provide raw materials to countries in the Global North through a combination of international policies led by International Financial Institutions. These Structural Adjustment Programmes, promoted by the World Bank and International Monetary Fund (IMF) in the 1980s, forced governments into privatisation, deregulation, and export-oriented economic policies. Subsequent mining reforms offered tax incentives and reduced royalties to attract foreign investment, further entrenching extractive development.
Latin America has been subjected to heavy military and geopolitical intervention from United States over the last century. Today, many countries in the region are dealing with intensifying influence from the US and extractive industries, as the recent ‘Hondurasgate’ scandal illustrates. The leaked audio recordings reveal a transnational disinformation network in the region for propaganda purposes, the plot to expand special economic zones and secure strategic infrastructure and military positioning in Honduras to serve US and foreign interests in exchange for political backing.
Many Shades of Coercion
They called us foreign agents in our own territories. Activists on political issues are forbidden because of presupposed threat to national security or social and political stability of the country.
– Anonymous grantee partner, El Salvador
Authoritarian regimes use centralised power and a lack of political accountability to initiate and sustain mining operations without any consultation and Free, Prior, and Informed Consent (FPIC) from affected communities.
Mama Cash partners across the Dominican Republic, El Salvador and Bolivia are monitoring these tactics to better adjust their strategies to defend land, communities and ecosystems from extractivism and exploitation.
In Dominican Republic, Aquelarre RD, an anti-racist, grassroots feminist collective that builds autonomy and defends water, land, and life, documents the government’s strategies to fragment community organising through intimidating, criminalising, and stigmatising activists protesting mining companies. Currently, there are several laws in Dominican Republic and El Salvador that criminalise protest, labelling communities and activists as terrorists, interventionists, and enemies of the country’s economic and social development, often arresting them without explanation or due process. Laws such as the ‘Foreign Agent Laws’ are part of broader attempts to suppress and undermine resistance, which are justified by governments as necessary to the national interest. By framing mining operations as advancing development and progress, communities opposing and protesting extractivism are portrayed as obstacles to development rather than defenders of environmental and human rights.
Since March 2022, El Salvador has been under a state of emergency/state of exception, meaning that constitutional rights have been suspended and all trials are held in secret. El Salvador’s Foreign Agent Law, adopted in 2025, has increased pressure on civil society organisations by imposing significant financial and administrative burdens on groups receiving international funding, including a 30% tax. Combined with the country’s prolonged state of emergency, organisations report heightened criminalisation and surveillance, continuous human rights violations, shrinking civic space, and greater risks for advocacy and public mobilisation.
With great concern, we see that mining is directly affecting us as women. It is threatening our lives, destroying our means of livelihood – namely agriculture and livestock farming – violating our bodies, infringing upon our rights as well as those of our communities, persecuting women human rights defenders, and destroying Mother Earth. That is why we will not stand by idly. We have decided to join forces as women affected by mining to defend and ensure respect for our rights in the face of mining activities.
– RENAMAT, Bolivia
In Bolivia, the expansion of extractive industries has profoundly disrupted Indigenous communities’ way of life, many of whom regard Mother Earth as a living being with rights. Mining concessions granted to foreign companies increasingly encroach on and degrade lands that have long been considered sacred. The National Women’s Network for the Defense of Mother Earth (RENAMAT), a network of peasants and Indigenous women who defend their rights and territories, campaigns against what they call “Environmental Violence against Women” to describe the gendered impacts of environmental destruction, including threats to livelihoods, health, rights, bodily autonomy, and community wellbeing.
The environmental destruction caused by mining has therefore evolved beyond an ecological issue to a human rights and gender justice concern. While communities scale up their activities and organise in response, they face growing risks. In Bolivia, the majority of attacks faced by human rights defenders in 2025 were related to mining and extractivism, according to the Centre for Documentation and Information Bolivia (CEDIB).
Mining at the Cost of Democracy
By enabling extractive mining operations, autocrats leverage the profits and political alliances generated by mining companies to consolidate power and expand influence within their countries. Many leaders of authoritarian regimes in the region rely upon a concept called personalismo, where the people pledge their loyalty to a powerful leader or person rather than institutions. This cult of personality rests on leaders presenting themselves as uniquely capable of solving national crises and inspiring supporters to view them as saviours or messianic figures.
In many cases, these leaders have emerged from careers in the corporate sector, and gained support by framing themselves as decisive, anti-establishment outsiders on a political platform that claims to battle corruption and organised crime. Once in power, they use their authority to influence which companies and industries receive state support and protection, perpetuating the corruption they promised to tackle. One such example is Karim Bukele and Yusef Bukele, the brothers of the president of El Salvador.
Fight for the land, for democracy
For communities impacted by extractive projects, the challenge is twofold: the immediate loss of land, water and livelihoods at the same time as democratic backsliding, political repression and shrinking opportunities to influence public policy. As democratic institutions weaken, communities have less access to decision-making spaces and meaningful participation has become increasingly difficult.
Despite these pressures, communities continue to organise, innovate and resist. Across the region, activists are building alliances, documenting abuses and advancing alternative visions of development rooted in environmental justice, collective rights and democratic participation. Their work demonstrates that resistance is not futile. It remains one of the most powerful forces for protecting land, rights and democracy.