Mar 29, 7:05 PM EDT




SAN SALVADOR, El Salvador (AP) -- El Salvador's congress has approved a total ban on the mining of metals in the country, one of the first to enact such a broad ban.

Environmentalists have noted that some other countries have enacted bans on strip mining, open-pit or heap-leaching techniques. But the bill passed Wednesday in El Salvador would not allow any underground, above-ground or artisanal mining for metals. That includes exploration, extraction or processing ore with techniques that often involve cyanide or mercury.

Proponents say the measure is needed to protect the water supply.

Mining for non-metallic substances like salt, stone or sand would still be allowed.

More:
http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/L/LT_EL_SALVADOR_MINING_BAN?SITE=AP&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT&CTIME=2017-03-29-19-05-52

Campaigners celebrate victory for ‘water over gold’ after country unaninmously ushers through historic bill to end all forms of metal mining

Nina Lakhani in Mexico City
Thursday 30 March 2017 07.49 EDT


. . .

Lawmakers in the water-parched country passed the ban in a unanimous vote on Wednesday, declaring El Salvador a mining-free territory.

The decision followed a long and bitter struggle to protect the Central American country’s diminishing water sources from polluting mining projects.

Campaigners holding banners with the now famous “No to mining, yes to life” slogan celebrated inside and outside the legislative assembly in the capital, San Salvador.

“The vote is a victory for communities who, for more than a decade, have relentlessly organised to keep mining companies out of their territories. The prohibition ensures the long-term ecological viability of a country already considered one of the most environmentally vulnerable in the world,” said Pedro Cabezas, from International Allies Against Mining in El Salvador.

More:
https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2017/mar/30/el-salvador-makes-history-first-nation-to-impose-blanket-ban-on-metal-mining

Environment & Energy:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/1127109389

APR 2, 2017 @ 07:33 AM 499 The Little Black Book of Billionaire Secrets
Congratulations To Oxfam - El Salvador Bans Industrial Civilisation


Tim Worstall , CONTRIBUTOR
I have opinions about economics, finance and public policy.

Opinions expressed by Forbes Contributors are their own.




I'm not sure that Oxfam has been directly pushing this but they certainly seem very happy that it has happened. El Salvador has decided to ban the basics of industrial civilisation in that country. Quite why this is a good idea is obviously not something I really understand but lots of people are indeed telling us all that it's a jolly good thing. As to banning industrial civilisation that's not quite what they have said but that's what the decision does ultimately mean. For they've banned the mining of any metal in the country. And access to metals is, along with access to energy, an essential building block in the creation of an industrial civilisation. Without metals we all remain as peasants scraping in the dirt with pointy sticks--not a lifestyle known to produce any great wealth or income.

You know, the Bronze Age was considered something of an advance upon the Stone Age which preceded it.

The smallest country in Central America has just passed a pretty big law regarding metal mining.

El Salvador has just become the first country in the world to totally prohibit the exploration and mining of metals above or within the earth.

And as I say Oxfam seems to be really happy with this idea:

“Globally there is a growing questioning of mining as an economic development engine,” said Keith Slack, the global program director for extractive industries at Oxfam America in Washington. “I think it definitely strengthens the voice of communities that are raising the questions.”

More:
https://www.forbes.com/sites/timworstall/2017/04/02/congratulations-to-oxfam-el-salvador-bans-industrial-civilisation/#3b308bd98e27

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Tim Worstall

Technical advance allows the genetically unfit to survive.

By ending the production of metals, we can eliminate all the advances that have made life too easy. We can return to the days when only the fittest examples of human beings survived to the age of reproduction, and then perished in their 20s or at latest 30s.

We must enact this worldwide ban on metal mining now.