San Luis de la Paz sets the example of how to act collectively as a society for the good of the community in a peaceful and orderly manner.
Residents of the municipality of San Luis de la Paz, Guanajuato, stopped the installation of a cyanide-producing plant, one of the fastest and most deadly poisons. The project was driven by The Chemours Company, which was intended to produce 65,000 tons of this lethal susbstance per year.
The Mexican Network of People Affected by Mining (Red Mexicana de Afectados por la Minería: REMA) reports that the company gave up its San Luis de la Paz Project, “due to the pressure exerted by the local society, which openly and forcefully opposed the high risk to its people’s health and environment”.
San Luis de la Paz sets the example of how to act collectively as a society for the good of the community in a peaceful and orderly manner. (Photo: noalamina.org)
Chemours resigned after its request for authorization on environmental impact – presented in August 2016 before the General Directorate of Impact and Environmental Risk of the Ministry of Environment and Natural Resources – was strongly questioned by the people of San Luis de la Paz, who were coordinated through the “San Luis Citizen Organization for the Right to Live in a Healthy Environment” (Organización Ciudadana Ludovicense por el Derecho a Vivir en un Ambiente Sano).
“The success of social opposition against The Chemours Company cyanide plant confirms that – centered on the citizens themselves – the defense of receiving communities or potential recipients of damages caused by alleged development models, does not depend so much on the will of legal, political or economic operators, but on the existence of an alert and mobilized society capable of asserting its rights and claims against state organs and/or international corporations, and prevent any kind of work or project contrary to their interests,” REMA said in a statement.
The Chemours Company is a world leader in titanium technologies, fluoroproducts, and other chemicals, that recently made the Ranks of the Fortune 500, an annual list compiled and published by Fortune magazine that ranks 500 of the largest United States corporations by total revenue for their respective fiscal years.
Sources:
https://www.contralinea.com.mx/
http://noalamina.org/
