Front line voices highlight concerns about Canadian mining companies as MISN marches against PDAC convention

Published by Brent Patterson on March 2, 2025March 2, 2025

Photo by MISN. The banner says: “CANADIAN MINING COLONIZES DESTROYS KILLS”

We are following the Instagram video posts from the Mining Injustice Solidarity Network (MISN) on the protest today against the Prospectors & Developers Association of Canada (PDAC) convention in Toronto.

Video still from MISN.

MISN highlights: “From the Democratic Republic of Congo to Sami Indigenous territory in northern Norway, from Sudan to the Philippines, from Cree to Wet’suwet’en territory to Palestine, Canadian mining kills, destroys and colonizes.”

Speakers at today’s protest include Cree and Wet’suwet’en land defenders in Canada, an Indigenous Sámi delegate from Norway, and representatives from the Palestinian Youth Movement, the Sudan Solidarity Collective, the Congolese community, and the Anakbayan collective in the Philippines.

Video still of Wet’suwet’en land defender Eve Saint.

To their voices, we add these concerns expressed about the Canadian mining companies now at the PDAC convention in Toronto and their activities in Nicaragua, Guatemala, Mexico, Colombia and Honduras.

NICARAGUA – Calibre Mining Corp.

Wangki, an organization of Indigenous Peoples on Nicaragua’s North Atlantic coast, has highlighted: “Between 2022 and 2024, the Canadian company Calibre Mining Corp and its subsidiary, Desarrollo Mineros de Nicaragua (Desminic S.A.), obtained 13 mining concessions in Nicaragua, covering 369,378.86 hectares. Of these, 7 concessions are located in titled indigenous territories, affecting 169,174.18 hectares. These awards were made without respecting the processes of prior, free and informed consultation, violating the fundamental rights of indigenous communities.”

GUATEMALA – Gold Group Management Inc. (a group of companies that includes Volcanic Gold Mines Inc.)

“Volcanic Gold Mines operates in southeastern Guatemala through its subsidiary Minerales Sierra Pacífico S.A. The company continues exploration activities under El Dorado LEXR-813, a license that expired in 2007. Despite lacking a valid Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA), Volcanic controls 2,096 km² of land across 30 municipalities, including ecologically fragile areas and indigenous territories of the Ch’orti’, Poqomam, and mestizo peoples. The Holly-Banderas project, a centerpiece of Volcanic’s operations, directly threatens water sources (Río Grande de Zacapa, Río Motagua, and Río Santa Rosa), communal forests, and sacred hills, sparking resistance from local communities. In 2021, Volcanic began drilling without proper permits, and their recently approved Cirilo I license (LEXR-017-10) is tainted by irregularities, having been explored before its legal approval.”

COLOMBIA – Libero Copper

In March 2024, Mongabay reported: “Soraida Chindoy [an Indigenous woman from the Inga community in the Condagua reservation, situated north of Puerto Asis, in Putumayo, Colombia] leads her people’s fight against the Canadian mining company Libero Copper. The company plans to mine the Ingas’ sacred mountains to extract copper… [This territory] was recognized as an Indigenous reservation, a status that implies community ownership and that is characterized as inalienable, indispensable, and non-seizable, with the condition that any project in the territory must have the approval of its ancestral owners. In spite of this, the Colombian state granted four mining titles in 2006, without prior consultation with the Indigenous community. …Since May 2018, [these four mining titles] have belonged to Canadian company Libero Copper, which operates in Colombia under the name Libero Cobre.”

MEXICO – Alamos Gold Inc.

In November 2020, the People’s Front in Defence of Land and Water-Morelos, Puebla and Tlaxcala commented in a statement in opposition to the Morelos Integral Project (PIM) megaproject: “[Then-Mexican president] Lopez Obrador’s [support for the PIM] betrays the peasant and the promise of change of his government, to favour transnational corporations [including] Canadian miners like Alamos Gold.”

We continue to follow these struggles with particular attention to the risks faced by the land and environmental defenders who oppose extractive megaprojects.

The Toronto-based Mining Injustice Solidarity Network (MISN) can be found on Instagram, Bluesky, Facebook and X.