For the past four years, environmental activist Yolanda Oquelí has lived with a bullet lodged near her liver. Yolanda was targeted for standing up to a shady American mining company that planned on building the deadly El Tambor mine that could wreak havoc for Guatemalans.

Since 2012, Yolanda and other La Puya community members have led a peaceful movement protesting the construction of a gold mine in their community, which could potentially contaminate water sources with toxic acid mine drainage.

But who is behind the devastation of Guatemalan land and the intimidation of a grassroots community activist? Kappes, Cassiday & Associates, a shadowy mining firm based in Reno, Nevada that no one has ever heard of. KCA operates the El Tambor mine through its subsidiary, Exmingua.

The brave activism of Yolanda and other La Puya community members is paying off: in February, the Guatemalan Supreme Court ruled to suspend KCA’s license due to lack of consultation with the community the project would impact. Now is the perfect time to build global pressure and demand KCA back off from El Tambor for good. 

Sign the petition asking KCA to pull out from El Tambor mining project now in light of human rights and environmental concerns.

Concerned community members have faced violence, intimidation, and false criminal charges in response to their human blockade preventing access to the proposed mine. But that hasn’t stopped La Puya activists from speaking truth to power in defense of their community.

Guatemala has faced environmental damages and community unrest from haphazard foreign mining projects for years, but the El Tambor mine plans stand out for its negligence. KCA’s environmental impact assessment for the project has faced scathing criticism from experts. Mining expert Dr. Robert Moran called it “the worst quality EIS (environmental impact statement) I have reviewed in more than 42 years.”

The SumOfUs community has stood with brave activists all over Latin America opposing the destruction of precious world ecosystems and community lands. We stood with Peruvian activist Máxima Acuña as she opposed a mining project in the North of Peru that would destroy her community's land and got the government o temporarily suspended the mining license. After Berta Cáceres, a prominent indigenous rights and environmental activist, was murdered for opposing a disastrous mega-dam that would dry up her community's ancestral river, our community demanded that one of the largest investors -- FMO Development Bank -- drop its investment. And we won again! 

KCA are banking on staying in the shadows and operating from afar while this deadly mine is built but if we simply sign and share, KCA's plan will start to tear from the insides. 

Sign and share the petition asking KCA to respect the Guatemalan court order to stop production at the El Tambor gold mine in Guatemala!

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