The family of New Hampshire Gov. Chris Sununu has been in mining for decades. Their latest project would build a mine in the Colombian Amazon, raising ethical and ecological concerns.
Jemal Countess/Getty Images for TIME
Angel Pasuy stood on his tribe’s land in the Colombian cloud forest, listening to a symphony of birdsong. An Indigenous land-use planner from the Kamentsá Biya de Sibundoy reservation, Pasuy and his people have called the steep slopes of the Mocoa area home for centuries. His reservation borders a nationally protected forest reserve that connects the Amazon basin to the Andes mountains, home to hundreds of plant and animal species and the origin of dozens of waterways.
But Pasuy now worries about the forest’s future. In the past year, exploratory drilling for a prospective copper mine has picked up just outside the reserve’s eastern border, two miles from his reservation’s boundary. A Canadian mining company, Libero Copper & Gold, holds the rights to conduct exploratory mining in a 30-square-mile area that overlaps partially with the reserve, his reservation and another.
The proposed mine would be the first legal metals mine in the country’s Amazon, part of Colombia’s push to become a major copper producer. Its development is being fueled by the global drive for metals for green energy, and in part by the family of New Hampshire Gov. Chris Sununu.
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