Environmental Human Rights: News & Updates

Indigenous Maya Q’eqchi’ communities who live in the Sierra Santa Cruz mountain range in Izabal Department, Guatemala, have been battling harmful and violent mining operations for over 60 years. Recently, following peaceful occupations, protests, and complaints filed with the Public Ministry over illegal excavations carried out by mining companies, the Ministry of Environment and Natural Resources (MARN) announced on July 30 that ten environmental licenses granted for operations in the Sierra Santa Cruz had been cancelled. Despite this, Canada-based Central America Niquel (CAN) and its subsidiaries, Río Nickel S.A. and Nichromet Guatemala, have continued to illegally push ahead with mining operations in the Sierra Santa Cruz mountain range.

Following his vital work covering local resistance to these mining operations, journalist and human rights defender Carlos Ernesto Choc is facing targeted attacks of intimidation and harassment. Since 2017, Carlos Choc has faced unfounded criminal charges related to his coverage of police brutality during protests against the El Fénix nickel mine in El Estor (where 90% of the residents are Indigenous Maya Q’eqchi’), arbitrary house raids, and threatening attacks by unidentified assailants. Now, he is experiencing escalating acts of intimidation, including shots being fired near his house, an unidentified car hitting the fence surrounding his house, and defamatory messages being circulated online. We are writing to Guatemalan authorities to implement immediate measures to protect Choc. 

Hundreds of thousands of Salvadorans still lack access to potable water in their homes and many more go days without water due to existing scarcity and contamination of rivers, lakes, and streams—all of which would be exacerbated by renewed mining operations, now allowable due to the government’s repeal of its ban on large-scale metallic mining in December 2024. Since that time, the government has increased its use of the penal system to persecute those who peacefully exercise their right to organize for environmental protections of the nation’s drinking water.

Since December 2024, Catholic and Protestant churches and faith-based civic organizations have been mobilizing their opposition to the repeal. In March 2025, the archbishop of San Salvador presented petitions signed by 150,000 people urging repeal of the December 2024 law. In May, the Episcopal Conference of the Catholic Church in El Salvador reiterated its opposition to metallic mining in a pastoral letter, emphasizing that access to water is a fundamental human right and a shared inheritance entrusted to all people by God.

We echo the popular social movement in El Salvdaor—backed by church leaders—and urge that the government:

(1) reinstate the ban on metallic mining

(2) heed the call of church leaders and the UN Special Rapporteur on Human Rights Defenders Mary Lawlor to  end the persecution and criminalization of those defending the right to clean water

(3) drop all criminal charges against water defenders and human rights lawyer

The National Civil Police (PNC) and members of the Armed Forces are harassing and scaring those who publicly call for the release of jailed environmental defenders José Ángel Pérez and Alejandro Henríquez, who were arrested in May after participating in a vigil protesting the eviction of 300 families from the El Bosque agricultural cooperative.  Security forces visit people’s homes, follow them in vehicles, take photographs, and interrogate people. One of the questions they ask is whether these spokespersons for these organizations motivate them to protest against the government. "What's being set up is a witch hunt," said Carlos Flores, spokesperson for the Water Forum, as he denounced the government-led effort to dismantle civil society organizations and criminalize peaceful protest.

In July, Amnesty International declared some of these falsely criminalized environmental and human rights defenders as prisoners of conscience, including José Ángel Pérez, Alejandro Henríquez, and prominent human rights and anti-corruption attorney for the human rights organization Cristosal, Ruth López.

We call on the government of El Salvador to end the systematic persecution and incarceration of advocates for the environment, civil and human rights.

The ERC Capital group, owner of the Raaxhá Hydroelectric dam in Alta Verapaz, promotes the electric generation project as “clean sustainable energy.” The name “raaxhá” means “green water” in the local Maya Q’eqchi’ dialect.

But local Indigenous communities north of Cobán saw the threats to their water supply and rallied to stop its construction. In January 2020, the government of former President Jimmy Morales (whose 2016-20 administration was riddled with corruption) approved a permit for the project. The attorney general began a legal process against the director of MARN (Ministry of the Environment and Natural Resources) for the illegal approval. Both the National Council of Protected Areas (CONAP) and the National Institute of Forests (INAB) noted negative findings in the environmental impact study. Both institutions—responsible for managing the Laguna de Lachuá National Park—foresaw the probable harms of water diversion.  

Indeed, since Raaxhá began their operations on the Icbolay River, there has been evident depletion of the river’s water supply with the operation of its hydroelectric dam, contaminating what remains of the water and negatively affecting individuals’ health and the environment. MARN’s complicity in the draining and denial of accessible water for local inhabitants is reflective of a larger pattern of prioritizing the economic development of corporations over the will and well-being of Guatemalans.