Yes to Life no to Mining

URGENT ALERT: Mining pushes through in Palawan, local resistance rises

The Barricade at Linao, Brooke’s Point Palawan

Yes to Life No to Mining calls for the immediate withdrawal of Calmia Nickel Inc. from private indigenous lands in Palawan

Calmia Nickel Inc. (CNI) has crossed every line. At dawn on October 1, heavily armed guards illegally entered private coconut land in sitio Linao, Brooke’s Point, fencing it with barbed wire to force their way into the uplands — land that is part of the ancestral domain of the Pala’wan people.

Indigenous landowners immediately built their barricade, refusing to let mining equipment advance. Within hours, dozens of Pala’wan families gathered in solidarity. Vice Mayor Mary Jean Feliciano, SB Member Jaymart Naigue, former IP councillor Victor Colili, Church leaders, and civil society stood with them.

Calmia’s rush uphill is already destroying decades-old coconut groves, uprooting fruit trees and threatening the primary forest next. The Philippine Coconut Authority (PCA) has been alerted as communities witness their livelihoods being bulldozed.

 

 

Company armed mining guards at the barricade

Pala’wan representatives from Linao and nearby barangays are now demanding transparency from Calmia and the pro‑mining IPDO BICAMM regarding royalty funds — questions that remain unanswered. But the violations run deeper:

• Calmia is operating without a Mayor’s Permit. 

• Mining activities overlap a CADT area application, where indigenous communities hold legal rights. 

• Tenements intrude into the Mount Mantalingahan Protected Landscape (MMPL). 

• FPIC processes led by NCIP were not based on consensus, as required by the Indigenous Peoples Right Act (IPRA law), but on majority voting — a direct violation of customary law. 

Once again, NCIP, the agency meant to defend Indigenous rights, is siding with the oppressors.

Global solidarity is growing. The Rainforest Rescue petition against mining in Palawan and Brooke’s Point is nearing 49,000 supporters.

Coconut plantation being flattened by Calmia

Since 2016, mining permits in Palawan have allowed 321,066 trees to be cut or earth‑balled — a devastating trend worsening water scarcity as El Niño intensifies across the Philippines.

It is time for the Palawan Council for Sustainable Development (PCSD) to uphold its mandate, and for DENR–MGB to revoke Calmia’s permit before more irreversible damage is done.

Defending the Pala’wan people and one of the Philippines’ last great forests is not optional — it is imperative.

Defending the Barricade

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24th Provincial Seed Fair in Catamarca for the Exchange of Native and Local Seeds A transformative practical experience with a story to tell Article by BePe... explore BePe's campaigns here

 In a global context of extreme violence that has escalated into various forms of war, life—and, above all, the planet’s habitability for the human species—is seriously and gravely threatened. Meanwhile, those who hold the power to make decisions on behalf of the people remain entrenched in their many layers of denial. And today, more than ever, the relationship between the global and the local is glaringly evident.

Thus, in Catamarca, where extractive violence wages war against us by exploiting, plundering, and poisoning our sacred resources, local governments—puppets of corporate power—remain blind and deaf to the Earth’s rebellious cry. As we know, Catamarca is not an isolated case in Argentina, nor in Latin America and the Caribbean, nor in Africa, nor in the Global South. We recognize that this violence is cruel and widespread; yet the Earth’s strength and courage is far-reaching, for this strength is ancestral and the spring which gave rise to Life.

Throughout these more than 500 years of imperial, capitalist, colonial, and patriarchal wars, the Earth has made its voice heard through the Indigenous Peoples of Abya Yala and Africa, right up to the present day. Today, as the war intensifies, that nonviolent struggle has become an unwavering voice in the slogan “Water is worth more than gold,” proclaimed by countless assemblies, communities, and socio-environmental organizations throughout the world. And the Earth itself cries out with the peoples: its elements are shaken; its climates and the gases that regulate life-sustaining conditions become unstable and unpredictable; the illness caused by the long war endured manifests itself in devastation and phenomena labeled “natural” when they are not.

And we do not merely cry out and resist; we also re-exist through collective experiences that open up possible futures of lives worth living. For example, the forms of re-existence emerging in the Bolsón de Fiambalá, a land formation in the Andean foothills (1), with a landscape of immeasurable beauty and mystery. Mystery in the face of the invisible balance of living energies that combine extreme temperatures, winds, snow, semidesert aridity, brackish and fresh waters, with human and non-human cultivation—all of which generate and reproduce Life.

Photos by BePe: Seed Fair festivities in Fianbalá, Catamarca, Argentina

There, where corporate power sees only speculative profit and calls the object of imperial possession the “Lithium Triangle,” mega-corporations have set up shop under the protection of local governments that call themselves democratic. Currently operated by the Zijin Mining Group, the high-Andean Tres Quebradas lagoons are being plundered of lithium to fuel weapons of war and luxury goods in the Global North. As is well known, the destruction caused by extractive mining is never limited to the mine site itself: in this case, it irrevocably affects an entire ecosystem of perennial snowfields, surface and groundwater—both brackish and fresh—that sustain unique animal and plant species and maintain the climatic balance between the high peaks and the agriculturally productive valleys.

It is precisely in one of those valleys—the one nestled in the Bolsón de Fiambalá—that peasant families live in villages whose names allude to the local geography or recall ancient indigenous terms: Medanitos, Tatón, Chuquisaca, La Mesada, Palo Blanco, Quebrada de Zárate, Las Papas, La Ciénaga, Antinaco, Quebrada del Cerco. People, families, communities bearing the colonial wound etched into the memory of their bodies and their lands, where the monoculture of grapevines—to name just one of those wounds—accelerated the processes of soil desertification and the impoverishment of life. However, despite the imposition of a capitalist, colonial, and patriarchal system, these families came together as Peoples, transforming the stigma of those wounds into courage, dignity, and organized struggle.

It did not happen overnight; nor did it follow a linear, unidirectional path. Because becoming a community involves engaging in processes of community dialogue, the course of which is not the focus of this article. We do, however, wish to highlight the fundamental importance of these processes for wisely safeguarding the ways of life that sustain the community with sustainability and justice.

It was during the final years of the 1980s when the gatherings, the collective readings of contexts, and the critical interpretation of situations referred to as “gaps between rich and poor” (2)… gradually expanded into circles of analysis and reflection, which added complexity to existential issues and defined praxis as a form of communal struggle. When the time came to harvest the first fruits from the gardens, they felt that Mother Earth, caressed by peasant hands, had regained her power to bring forth life and had given them food…

26th Provincial Catamarca Seed Fair Poster 2026

Nearly forty years after those early organizational efforts, these farming families are part of ACAMPA, the Abaucán Farmers’ Association—named after the river that provides them with food and a sense of identity. They farm using agroecological methods and live in community with a sense of shared identity. They run a community FM radio station whose broadcasts reach all the communities in Bolsón. And, since 2001, they have been organizing—in collaboration with BePe—a seed fair featuring native and heirloom seeds.

Going against the grain of the decisions made by those who call themselves politicians and business people—but who are merely modern-day versions of the conquerors of the 15th through 18th centuries—the Peoples of Bolsón de Fiambalá re-exist in defiance of the systems of death imposed for millennia. They unmask the lies of those who claim to be representatives of democracy and agents of progress. They exercise political and economic power in the service of the reproduction of Life.

On 12th September this year, the fair—which had begun with a dozen stalls—spanned a grounds that accommodated more than 200 tables where farming families displayed the fruits they had harvested, raised, and processed. The 24th Provincial Fair for the Exchange of Native and Creole Seeds took place. What had once been a local event has spread to various parts of the province of Catamarca and to the neighboring provinces of Santiago del Estero and La Rioja. What began as a display of seeds expanded to include seedlings, farm animals, nuts, sweet and savory preserves, various types of textile crafts, wines, and fruit syrups… and most importantly; the scale of this growth also served to foster values, promote autonomous and dignified ways of life, and share transformative knowledge and practices.

While the dominant powers expand the frontiers of extraction in the Global South—currently in the name of the misnamed “energy transition”—grassroots policies have been building ecologically sustainable territories open to economically independent horizons. In the face of the denial of the future engineered by oligarchic elites, these small-scale initiatives scattered across various regions of the Global South build bridges toward possible and necessary futures.

 

References:

1. It is a depression or flat valley, completely surrounded by mountains, with no access to the sea. In this case, the basin—with an area of approximately 2,000 km²—borders the puna, a desert high plateau ranging in elevation from 3,000 to 6,000 meters above sea level. Both regions are characterized by the presence of volcanoes and high-Andean lakes (as well as salt flats in the puna).

2. An explicit way of describing socioeconomic inequality during those years; it served as a key to a critical interpretation of reality.

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Gender, Patriarchy & Extractivism YLNM position paper | 2025

Introduction

What is Gender?

Feminist Understandings of Extractivism

Extractvism & Patriarchy

Extractivism & Gendered Impacts

Women on the frontlines of resistance to extractivism

Historical & Material Connection

Challenges of Resistance

Feminist Future Beyond Extractivism

Conclusion

Download

Yes to Life No to Mining and Rainforest Rescue standing in solidarity with the women in Loeha Raya resisting nickel mining, Sulawesi, Indonesia, October 2023. Credit. YLNM

This position paper was prepared by Dr V’cenza Cirefice, member of CAIM, on behalf of and in collaboration with YLNM.

Introduction

Extractivism creates both environmental and social injustices because it is rooted in systems of oppression, patriarchy, colonialism, white supremacy and capitalism. Gender and extractivism are intertwined in multiple and complex ways. Here, we lay out these links and call for gender justice and dismantling patriarchy to be considered central to anti-extractivism movements and deeply necessary for post-extractive futures.

Extractive projects, their impacts and resistance to them, are highly gendered. Women and girls are often first and worst impacted but also on the frontlines of resistance to extractivism, while the extractive sector is often gendered as a masculine space. Adopting an intersectional gendered lens to all aspects of extractivism is needed to understand how certain groups of people experience extractive violence and oppression in different ways.

(Eco)feminist movements have been central in calling out destructive extraction, as well as narratives of green growthand green extractivism. Instead, they highlight the many ways to embrace a life-sustaining society beyond extractivism that already exist today.

What is Gender?

Gender is socially constructed. This means it’s not about biology, but the ways that people are socially conditioned, or taught, to take on different roles in society and perform certain gendered identities.

Gender is not just about women, but is about the power relationships between men, women and gender non-conforming peoples.

Gender is fluid, it changes across cultural contexts and times, it is not binary (i.e. just man or woman), it includes trans, intersex and non-binary people.

European colonialism imposed a strict gender binary on colonised cultures, erasing a wide range of genders and sexualities that were common before. Many cultures have more than two genders, for example, the Two Spirit folks in Indigenous North American societies.

As a key organisational aspect of society, gender often determines the division of labour in society, which means who does the productive work (normally waged work done by men) and who does reproductive work (care work and domestic roles, often unpaid work done by women).

The genders that are marginalised by patriarchy (women, girls, trans, intersex and non-binary people) experience the impacts of extractivism first and worst.  Feminist Understandings of Extractivism

Feminism is a political tool, a social movement and an analysis of power and oppression. It works towards equality between all genders and sexes and aims to fight patriarchy.

Ecofeminism is a reaction to how women and nature have been marginalised and devalued in modern patriarchal society, and highlights that all types of domination (capitalism, colonialism, patriarchy) are connected. Therefore, one cannot be eliminated without the others.

Feminists have highlighted that extractivism is not just about the removal of resources from the ground but a specific way of relating to the world, a worldview about relations of power. It is a model of relationships that are non-reciprocal and that destroy, enclose and rupture relations between people and the rest of the living world.

Feminist approaches are important because they emphasise that extractive logics are rooted in oppressive systems of capitalism, colonialism and patriarchy. Therefore, only systemic change and different ways of relating to each other and the more-than-human can resist extractivism and build post-extractive worlds.  Extractivism & Patriarchy

Patriarchy is a social system of domination, control, exploitation, hierarchy and supremacy. Under this system women are oppressed, and their bodies and work are exploited. It is a system, not just about individuals – all genders can act in patriarchal ways and can be hurt by patriarchy.

Patriarchy, like colonialism, divides the world into strict binaries or opposites, with one valued more than the other. This includes man above woman, people above nature, western above non-western, science above tradition, and mind above body. The devalued side of the binary, like women, nature, non-western peoples, are dehumanised and treated like a resource to extract from. Colonialism and capitalist patriarchy are intertwined systems that are at the root of extractivism and extractive violence.

“But women are—and have always been—viewed as disposable. Extractivism was born out of colonialism, which wasn’t just about conquering land. It was also about taking control of women’s bodies, silencing them, and turning them into objects for male consumption. That context impacts everything.”

Winnet Shamuyarira, the project coordinator at WoMin African Alliance

Feminists say this way of thinking about the world is at the root of our social and environmental crises. Extractivism is rooted in this patriarchal worldview, both women and the Earth are treated like an object, to extract from to make profit. Patriarchy and gender inequality has a huge impact on power relations and control of land and natural resources, therefore they are central components when thinking about extractivism.

The concept of territorio/cuerpo/tierra from Latin American Feminist and Indigenous movements is important when thinking through extractivism and patriarchy. It emphasises the interconnectedness of territories, bodies and land. The body and territory are seen as sites of control and colonial extraction, but also as sites of resistance and agency.  Extractivism & Gendered Impacts

Extractive industries do not deliver the “development” they promise instead they leave a host of environmental devastation, displace communities and worsen social, economic and gender inequality. This is because extractivism reproduces capitalism, patriarchy and (neo)colonialism

Most of the socio-environmental costs of the extractive industry are felt by the mainly rural populations of extractive regions – women are often disproportionately impacted. While most jobs are held almost exclusively by men, the negative effects are felt in the household and community, where, due to gender socialisation, women have the most responsibility.

Women are the most impacted by extractive development, not because of inherent vulnerability, but because of systems, like capitalist patriarchy, positioning them as caregivers and enforcing structural inequalities. Patriarchal structures mean women have less access to decision making, land, resources and power. There is a material link.

Not all women experience these impacts in the same way – an intersectional approach is important. Age, race, ethnicity, class, sexuality, migration status, caste, ability, and more are all factors that create different lived experiences for women in relation to extractivism.
Indigenous women and women across the Global South are further impacted by colonialism. 

Research highlighting the gendered impacts of mining can be understood in four categories: environmental impacts, health impacts, community displacement, and violence against women.

Environmental Impacts: Water and Food Sovereignty

The gendered division of labour brings women in contact with natural resources and the environment for subsistence.

Women, as primary caregivers, have a material connection as key stakeholders in small-scale farming and managing natural resources. Women produce up to 80% of the food in the Global South and have important roles in managing water systems and firewood, saving seeds, caring for livestock and in forest conservation.

When extractivism impacts the local environment, women are on the frontline of its impacts.

Women in many cultures are responsible for water. Extractive projects exhaust and contaminate water supplies, with women often being the first to notice that water is drying up or making people sick. This places a heavier care-work burden on younger women, who must travel farther to collect water.

These impacts are especially felt by Indigenous communities and those with subsistence economies that rely on natural resources for hunting, fishing, foraging, medicine and culture.

Health Impacts

The land, air and water contamination caused by extractivism makes communities sick, placing more care-giving burdens on women.

Women’s central role in agriculture and day-to-day tasks that bring them in contact with the environment means they are more exposed to toxic substances and heavy metals.

The attack on nature by mining industries also impacts women’s bodies as the effects of radiation poisoning are most apparent on reproductive systems with increased cases of ovarian cancer, miscarriages and birth defects.

Indigenous women are on the frontline of these impacts. In South Dakota, a toxic legacy of uranium mining disproportionately impacts the health of Indigenous Oglala Lakota women. Women of All Red Nations (WARN)make connections between uranium contamination and the high rates of miscarriage and reproductive cancers among Lakota women.

Extractivism can also increase poverty and food insecurity, which is also gendered. Women are often the first to reduce how much they eat. This further impacts neonatal and maternal health. 

Community Displacement and Loss of Communal Land

Land grabbing, the selling off and occupation of land by the extractive industry, leads to community displacement.

Often, communal lands that women especially depend on for farming, foraging, firewood and water are enclosed (gated and made private). The gendered impact of displacement is heavy, placing a huge physical and mental burden on women who are responsible for their family’s and community’s well-being due to a lack of access to resources and power. It also alters the social fabric both socially and economically.

Extractivism depends on rupturing community cohesion it creates divisions that destroy community care and support practices, which often women depend on more for survival.

Many Indigenous, peasant and rural women have strong ancestral and spiritual ties to the land. Women’s experiences from Zimbabwe detail how the loss of land to extractivism is more than just a material loss – it is a deep spiritual and emotional wound. The land is understood as sacred and ancestral. Women are custodians of traditional knowledge related to these sacred places. Its loss impacts their cultural identity and spiritual well-being.

This destruction of these deep-rooted relationships with place is seen across many extractive contexts and is a tactic of extractive logics that try to turn living landscapes into “natural resources” to extract from.

Violence Against Women (VAW)

The extreme violenceand human rights abuses that accompany extractivism are felt in gender specific ways. Women’s bodies and the land are both exploited and commercialized by extractive violence.

There is a link between sexual violence and extraction zones globally. The transient and mainly male workforce surrounding extractive projects can increase sexual exploitation, trafficking and gender-based violence – this comes with added health risks like HIV. When this violence is intersected with race and ethnicity, it becomes even more brutal.

Many large-scale extractive projects take place in post-conflict contexts or ongoing conflict zones where VAW is normalised, and women’s position is particularly precarious. The militarization and securitisation around extractive projects can increase gender violence – cases of sexual assault carried out by security forces employed by extractive companies are documented globally. For example, security for Barrick Gold raped women at the Porgera mine in Papua New Guinea. 

Extractivism can also increase structural violence towards women. In many cases, extractivism reinforces patriarchal dynamics, like a gender binary and strict gender roles in society. Men often receive cash wages, making women more dependent on them. Women lose cultural, economic and social status. This dynamic can lead to increases in alcoholism, domestic violence and abuse.

Because of patriarchal inequalities in society, women are often left out of decision making and discussions around land and ownership. Compensation is normally paid to the head of households who are predominately recorded as male.

Gender-based violence also increases with displacement, increasing poverty, and a loss of resources, all common consequences of extractive projects.

The extractive sector is represented as highly masculinised, however, women still participate as workers but often in informal, badly paid, precarious roles. This is largely in the Artisan and Small-scale Mining (ASM) sector. Due to gender norms, women who work in mines, sometimes face shame and ostracization by society. This short video, “Nadirah” explores honour and shame for a female informal coal miner in Tajikistan.

Women on the Frontlines of Resistance to Extractivism

Women are much more than passive casualties of extractivism – they are not victims, they are fighters. Women Human Rights and Environmental Defenders are standing up to extractivism across the world.

As noted, women experience the material impacts of extractivism first and the worst, therefore, they are often the first to stand up and resist. For many women, their resistance is seen as an extension of their care-work, what some ecofeminists call Earthcare. Research has focused on women’s motivations, practices and experiences of resistance, from Colombia, to Ecuador, to Greece, to Ireland and the Pacific. 

Often, this resistance is globally networked. Feminist solidarity building beyond borders is linking affected communities internationally against toxic extractivism. Also, a number of collectives and networks organise within grassroots struggles against extractivism from a gendered and feminist perspective.

The Ecofeminaria Initiative: Women in Defense of Territories and The Red Latinoamericana de Mujeres Defensoras de Derechos Sociales y Ambientales, are working in Latin America to foreground the gendered impacts of extractivism and feminist alternatives.

WoMin is a pan-African ecofeminist alliance building solidarity and movements against extractivism as well as woman-centred just alternatives. WoMin highlight the role of peasant women in Sub-Saharan Africa in organising to resist and hold mining corporations to account and reclaim lands taken by extractive industries. 

Feminist anti-extractive movements have also been intersecting with other social justice movements, connecting across struggles that challenge extractive capitalism, colonial and patriarchal violence. This includes movements for health and reproductive justice, drawing on the concept of “body as territory”.

There is also the connection between Indigenous and peasant rights and anti-imperial struggles, as seen from the solidarity of those resisting the Cerrejón coal mine in Colombia with the people of Palestine throughout the ongoing genocide.

The roots of these issues are interconnected. These struggles show it’s more than about a specific mine, but about a system predicated on violence and death. Building strong coalitions across connected issues is an important tool of resistance. Historical and Material Connection

Historically, women have fought against the commercialization of nature, resisting land enclosures and defending communal cultures. Silvia Federici argues that three hundred years of witch hunts in Europe, followed by peasant revolts that accompanied the transition to a capitalist system, were a tool to subjugate and control the power of women.

Colonial violence around the world enforced this gendered system. In turn, this ensured that women provided reproductive work for free, to continue producing and caring for a workforce. Despite this, women have continued to be at the front of the defence of the commons since the inception of colonial capitalism. This includes defending the commons from the enclosures by extractive industries. Globally, due to the gendered division of labour, women rely heavily on commons for subsistence livelihoods and so are often involved in resisting their enclosure. 

Women are more affected due to a lack of resources and power dynamics within society, not an innate vulnerability. Material approaches argue participation of women in resistance movements stems from their closer day-to-day contact and use of Nature and caring for a healthy environment, as well as their greater awareness and respect for community cohesion and solidarity. This material link is key, however, some women make political use of traditional gender roles, such as motherhood, for mobilisation or draw on a biological link between women and the Earth.

There is a diversity of women’s motives to engage in resistance, some traditionally feminine and some not, reminding us there are many ways for a woman to become an activist, not all of which depend on discourses of motherhood and caring.

  Challenges of Resistance

When women stand up, they face a range of gender specific challenges. Not only are women taking on corporate and state power, but they are transgressing traditional gender norms and conventions. Violence or the threat of violence is used to maintain patriarchal power and gender binaries. 

A report by AWID outlines how women face criminalisation, stigmatisation and smear campaigns against them, militarisation by private and public security, and marginalisation in their own communities and movements. Women Earth Defenders face severe threats in many contexts, from sexual violence to murder.

For example, Rosane Santiago Silveira was tortured and murdered in 2019 for her resistance to extractive industries and Dora Recinos Soto was shot dead for her resistance to the El Dorado mine in El Salvador. The role of women in resisting extractivism is often minimised and sidelined, even within movements, drawing attention to the ways women resist is key. 

Further, resistance to mining is riddled with invisible work, which is often done by women. Because of the way women are socialised they are often more responsible for care work, emotional labour, building relationships, administrative tasks and more. Not romanticising resistance but also acknowledging the added burden on women is important. There is a need to emphasise inequalities around gender including the invisibility of women’s contributions and the silencing of their concerns in anti-mining activism. 

On the other hand, women’s involvement in anti-extractive resistance can also transform traditional gender norms. Resistance in Greece altered the patriarchal structure of society and rhythm of everyday life as women took on leadership roles and care work was redistributed throughout the community.

Women’s resistance can generate new ways of thinking about the world, for example, the concept of territorio/cuerpo/tierra  emerges from Guatemalan Indigenous activists’ opposition to the El Escobal mine.

This brings us to the varied feminist alternatives for a post-extractive world. 

Feminist Futures Beyond Extractivism

A feminist perspective means taking a structural approach.

In many mainstream discussions of gender and the extractive industries, the focus falls on including women in the perceived benefits of extractivism. The argument goes: the extractive sector needs legal and regulatory reform to address gender inequality, so women can participate more fully in the system. This neoliberal viewpoint, which focuses on individuals rather than the system, argues: if we incorporate more women into the current system, things would be better.

In contrast to this, a feminist approach is systemic and structural. It sees the whole extractivist model and worldview as the issue: we need to challenge the colonial and capitalist roots of the extractivist system. If a mining company is still structured around pursuing endless growth, with the human rights and environmental injustices that go along with that, having more female CEOs is not a solution. 

Instead, grassroots feminist movements around the world are proposing and enacting alternative development models to extractivism. This includes a huge array from agroecology, to commoning, community-owned energy, seed saving, projects that centre traditional and Indigenous ecological knowledge, Rights of Nature movements, solidarity economies based on care and more.

Feminist approaches call for system change, not green capitalism, technological fixes or eco-modernisation.

This map prepared by the Latin American Network of Women Defenders of Social and Environmental Rights shows the impacts on women from extractivism across Latin America, but also shows women’s role in building alternatives.

The ONAMIAP Women initiative in Peru is working towards a just energy transition that is based in community and ancestral knowledge and challenges extractive capitalism.

Adivasi Indigenous women in India are using traditional ecological knowledge to advance food sovereignty and regenerate forests in the face of extractive threats. 

Feminist movements have been thinking about how to relate to the land and each other differently for a long time. We see this through the Beijing Declaration of Indigenous women 1995, Universal Declaration on the Rights of Mother Earth, 2010 and in September 2015, the Indigenous Women of the Americas signed a Defend Mother Earth Treaty against extractive industry. It stated that:

“While opposing extractive industries, women human rights defenders are advancing alternative economic and social models based on the stewardship of land and common resources in order to preserve life, thereby contributing to the emergence of new paradigms”.

This resistance to extractivism is making a systematic critique and calling for a move away from growth-orientated capitalist and extractivist-based models.

Feminist movements against extractivism demonstrate the power of collective action and solidarity, pushing back against the neoliberalisation of environmentalism that reduces action to individual lifestyle changes. Feminist approaches mean revaluing care and embedding it into all our relationships, with each other, human and non-human. Central is valuing relationships and different ways of relating.

Indigenous feminist scholar activist Leanne Betasamosake Simpson highlights that:

“The alternative to extractivism is deep reciprocity. It’s respect, it’s relationship, it’s responsibility, and it’s local”.

These alternative visions of non-extractive relationship building exist in movements that say no to mining and yes to life. 

Conclusion

Applying a gender perspective to all injustices from extractivism to mining projects, from supply chains to resistance movements, is important.

Not all women are the same. An intersectional lens is key to understanding the different ways women are impacted and resist. Beyond women as passive victims or romanticised saviours, we need to understand how specific contexts shape the gendered impacts of extractivism. Women are the most impacted by extractive development, not because of inherent vulnerability, but because of systems, like colonialism and capitalist patriarchy, positioning them as caregivers and enforcing structural inequalities. 

Feminist perspectives highlight that systemic change is needed, not technofixes, green extractivism or green growth. Instead, alternative economic models that centre care and the wellbeing of people and planet are crucial.

The struggle to dismantle patriarchy and advance gender justice is not an ‘add on’, it must be part of our movement to resist extractivism globally. 

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On Transitions, Resistance, and Alternatives to Lithium Mining in Catamarca, Argentina Article by Asociación BePe Explore BePe's campaigns here

We often hear that the “energy transition” is absolutely necessary to replace fossil fuels with other energy sources that will reduce carbon emissions—in other words, to decarbonize the global economy. However, this “energy transition” does not reflect the voices of a large portion of the world’s population; rather, it is a proposal from the Global North, which bears primary responsibility for the unprecedented multidimensional crisis the planet is currently facing. Furthermore, this proposal has too many limitations to be considered a true transition, as it involves the cumulative use of energy sources. So-called “renewable energies” are added to traditional sources, as evidenced by the increase in global oil consumption (1). Hence, we speak of an accumulation of energy sources rather than a transition toward “renewable and clean” ones. These are, therefore, false solutions to the climate crisis, which entail an intensification of raw material extraction in the Global South and, consequently, of the colonialism that has shaped the still-prevalent international division of labor. There is no proposal to break with the capitalist logic of accumulation or the imperial way of life; thus, it is nothing more than capitalism dressed in green.

The so-called energy transition also requires enormous quantities of critical minerals, not only for “renewable” energy but also for the manufacture of electric vehicles, batteries, mobile and digital devices, and the defense industry. These minerals—notably lithium, graphite, cobalt, nickel, manganese, and rare earth elements—are considered critical or strategic because they are deemed essential for economic security and defense, and because their supply chains are vulnerable to disruptions. An important fact regarding these minerals is China’s dominance in both the supply chain and the processing and manufacturing of batteries, electric vehicles, and wind and solar power plants, which led countries in the Global North—primarily the European Union and the United States—to deploy various strategies to secure and diversify their supply, seeking to break their dependence on “sole suppliers,” namely the Asian giant.

If we focus on Argentina, the most significant strategic mineral is lithium. The country’s inclusion in the so-called “lithium triangle”—along with Bolivia and Chile—positions it as one of the leading producers of this mineral, which political leaders view as a key source of foreign exchange to bolster the national treasury’s meager reserves. This view, of course, overlooks the irreversible impacts that lithium mining has on highly fragile ecosystems and on ancestral ways of life.

The push for the extraction of this mineral led Argentina to establish the National Lithium Roundtable in 2021, involving three northern provinces—Catamarca, Salta, and Jujuy—which were joined by the national government, with the aim of working together on its extraction and processing. Thus, from a hegemonic perspective, critical minerals such as lithium—and also copper—have become key pillars for the country’s “development.” However, the people know that what mining offers is not development, but rather the destruction of the conditions necessary for life to continue.

The far-right government’s commitment to expanding extractive projects in the country is evident in the approval of the RIGI (Incentive Regime for Large Investments), which grants significant benefits to corporations—primarily extractive ones—such as tax breaks and fiscal stability for 30 years.

If we take a closer look at the province of Catamarca, we’ll see that it has a long history of “mining.” The Alumbrera project—the country’s first open-pit mine for copper, gold, and molybdenum, located in Belén—and the lithium mining operation at the Salar del Hombre Muerto in Antofagasta de la Sierra date back to 1997. The results of nearly 30 years of mining reveal profoundly negative impacts: in the northern part of the province, lithium mining dried up a river vital to the communities living there; and, in turn, the province never achieved the long-awaited development through mining; quite the contrary, after decades it remains one of the poorest provinces in the country. Nor has the “social license” sought by companies and desired by governments been achieved. The resistance to the MARA (Minera Alumbrera Agua Rica) project, led by the El Algarrobo Assembly of Andalgalá, is clear evidence that mining lacks a social license. For decades, the response of the government and the companies to this resistance has been the persecution, prosecution, and repression of these dissenting voices.

Over the past decade, amid the boom in lithium mining—which is “necessary for the transition”—the Catamarca government has sought to reinforce the province’s identity as a “mining” region. Among the many projects to extract this mineral is Tres Quebradas, owned by the Chinese company Zijin Mining and its subsidiary Liex S.A., which operates in the salt flat of the same name and owns the processing plant located at the entrance to the municipality of Fiambalá, in the Tinogasta department. This project, which began production in 2025, is located in the region of high-Andean and Puna lagoons in Catamarca, recognized under the Ramsar Convention. These are highly fragile ecosystems that are already suffering the impacts of brine extraction from the lagoons, including water imbalances, the drying up of wetlands, a drop in lagoon water levels, disruption of wildlife habitats, and threats to grazing and agriculture for the communities living there.

From the perspective of social impacts, drawing on experience with Zijin Mining, we highlight the different ways in which Chinese companies establish themselves in a given territory, compared to corporations from other countries. Their penetration into the community is very strong and results in political and social interference and cultural invasion, through the organization of sociocultural events, tournaments, sports competitions, and celebrations; through partnerships with educational institutions; by taking over many of the state’s social functions; by participating in political power structures — such as the opening of provincial legislative sessions; and by imposing an overwhelming presence of Chinese cultural elements.

 

Photos by BePe: Greenwashing signs by Zijin Mining in Fianbalá, Argentina

As the company’s presence became more pervasive, the idea took hold among the population that they could turn to the company to meet certain needs — for example, to obtain construction materials, T-shirts for clubs, educational supplies for schools, and supplies for hospitals.

Although the expectations generated by the company’s presence in the region were very high from the moment it set up operations in 2016, various conflicts and a shift in the company’s own stance began to undermine those expectations among a segment of the population. The hope for “progress” was replaced by frustrations rooted in the realization that “development” would not come from that source. Notable among these conflicts were strikes and roadblocks organized by workers denouncing labor abuses and demanding improved working conditions and higher wages; allegations of sexual violence and abuse committed by a company employee against a female coworker; and claims regarding unpaid debts to local suppliers (2). The social unrest generated by these conflicts and allegations, combined with the company’s shift in policy — which, once it was established, significantly curtailed support for community projects under the banner of corporate social responsibility — led to a gradual collapse of expectations for improvements in the living conditions of the local population.

However, not everyone in Fiambalá was convinced from the moment the company set up operations that it would bring the long-awaited development. Since 2016, the “Fiambalá Despierta” Assembly has been denouncing that mining, in any form, is synonymous with the destruction of ways of life and territories. The members of the assembly—mostly women—and the rural communities living in the towns near Fiambalá know that “development” means something else: defending agroecological production, preserving and exchanging native and heirloom seeds, and not being fooled by the new “smoke and mirrors” that accompany the Global North’s proposals for energy transition. We know all too well what the plundering and destruction of the commons mean. History is our greatest witness.

Photo by BePe: Seed fair in Catamarca, promoting the already living alternatives to mining, seeds that sustain life

References:

1. https://www.iea.org/data-and-statistics

2. Some of the protests by neighbors and environmentalists against the company, as well as reports of poor working conditions and the violence suffered by the women who work there, are documented in the following posts:         

https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=2169052680572092                                                                     

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tAGFyE79HUE&t=86s

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The post On Transitions, Resistance, and Alternatives to Lithium Mining in Catamarca, Argentina appeared first on Yes to Life No to Mining.

SAMADUA: Forests, nutmeg and a community's fight against mining in the Leuser ecosystem Article by Apel Green Aceh

The landscape of the Samadua area threatened by mining plans, September 30, 2026 (Photo: APEL Green Aceh)

SAMADUA, ACEH — In Samadua District, South Aceh, the forest is more than a stretch of green landscape. For communities living around its foothills and valleys, it is the source of the water they drink, the land where they grow crops and the natural system that supports an economy built over generations.

But that relationship is now under pressure as mining activities and exploration plans raise concerns among local residents.

The forests of Samadua form part of the Leuser Ecosystem, one of Sumatra’s most important remaining landscapes. Its forests help regulate water flows, protect watersheds and provide habitat for wildlife. For communities downstream, what happens in the upper watershed can have consequences far beyond the forest itself.

Local residents fear that forest clearing and mining could disturb this fragile landscape, affecting water sources and increasing the risk of erosion, sedimentation, flooding and landslides.

Their concerns are closely tied to the economy that has developed around the forest.

Nutmeg is one of the leading agricultural commodities in Samadua District, South Aceh, September 30, 2026 (Photo: APEL Green Aceh)

For more than three decades, nutmeg has been one of the main sources of income for families in Samadua. Nutmeg trees grow alongside durian, jengkol and other crops in gardens that have been cultivated and passed down through generations.

These farms represent more than agricultural assets.

They are family histories, sources of income and a form of long-term economic security.

Unlike mining, which extracts a finite resource over a limited period, productive agricultural landscapes can continue generating income for decades if the soil, water and surrounding forests remain healthy.

That difference lies at the heart of the community’s opposition.

Residents fear that the arrival of extractive industries could fundamentally change a landscape that currently supports multiple livelihoods. The concern is not only about what could happen at a mining site, but about what could happen to the wider watershed and the communities that depend on it.

THE RISKS DO NOT STOP AT THE MINE

Environmental impacts in an upper watershed rarely remain confined to the location where forests are cleared.

Changes to forest cover and land surfaces can alter how water moves through a landscape. Increased runoff can carry sediment into streams and rivers, while disturbances on steep terrain can increase concerns about erosion and landslides.

For communities downstream, these changes could affect agriculture, water supplies and settlements.

That is why residents say decisions about mining in Samadua cannot be viewed simply as questions of mineral extraction or investment.

They are also questions about water, food security, livelihoods and the future of the landscape.

The stakes are particularly significant in a region where communities have developed economic systems that depend directly on healthy forests and agricultural land.

A CHOICE BETWEEN EXTRACTION AND LIVELIHOODS?

The debate over mining in Samadua reflects a wider question facing forest landscapes across Indonesia: how should economic development be pursued without undermining the ecological systems and local livelihoods that already sustain communities?

For residents, the answer is not simply a question of how much economic value can be generated from the land.

It is also about what kind of economy will remain after an extractive project ends.

A mine may operate for a limited period. A nutmeg tree, however, can continue producing for years. A forest can continue regulating water, supporting biodiversity and protecting communities long after a mining operation has closed.

For the people of Samadua, protecting the forest therefore means protecting an economy that is already working.

It means protecting water sources.

It means protecting agricultural land.

And it means protecting the possibility that their children and grandchildren can continue living from the same landscape.

Landscape of the Beutong Ateuh area, where superior agricultural products are planted, May 30, 2026 (Photo: APEL Green Aceh)

“THE FOREST IS OUR LIFE”

The community’s message is straightforward: development should not come at the expense of the natural systems that sustain them.

The forest is not simply timber or land waiting to be converted. It is water. It is food. It is income. It is a home. And it is a legacy.

The opposition to mining in Samadua is therefore not only an environmental campaign.

It is a struggle over who gets to determine the future of the landscape—and whose livelihoods will bear the consequences of that decision.

If the upper Samadua watershed is degraded, residents fear the impacts could travel downstream, carried by rivers and intensified by extreme rainfall.

For communities whose lives and economies are tied to the forest, protecting the watershed is ultimately about protecting their own future.

In Samadua, the fight over mining is also a fight over water, forests, nutmeg farms and the right of future generations to inherit a living landscape.

The post SAMADUA: Forests, nutmeg and a community’s fight against mining in the Leuser ecosystem appeared first on Yes to Life No to Mining.