Peru’s ombudswoman has warned the government that the Rimac River, the most important source of potable water for Peru’s desert capital city, Lima, is threatened by possible  arsenic, lead and cadmium contamination from a mining operation upriver in the Andes.
Beatriz Merino, in an open letter to President Alan Garcia’s top Cabinet minister, contended that the […]

After 14 hours of intense negotiation, Presidential Cabinet Chief Jorge Del Castillo confirmed Thursday that the government and the Moqueguan authorities had reached an agreement to end the strike that paralyzed southern Peru for 9 days.
Details of the settlement were not immediately release. Del Castillo said Moquegua residents, who demanded a larger share of taxes […]

Thousands of protesters in the southern mining town of Moquegua have released a police general and 47 of his officers after holding them hostage for more than 24 hours. And while negotiations continue over their demand for a larger share of taxes paid to the government by Peru’s largest copper producer, Southern Peru, President Alan […]

A violent confrontation between riot police and residents of a remote gold mining town in Peru’s southern Andes has left seven people injured, one with a bullet wound to the stomach, Peruvian newspapers reported Thursday.
One report from the Puno-based daily Los Andes said a 14-year-old boy also fell down an embankment and struck his head […]

Twenty-nine gold miners employed by Peruvian Cartagena Mining Group’s “Untuca” project in Peru’s southern Puno Department were being held against their will Tuesday for a fourth consecutive day by more than 300 local residents demanding jobs.
“We don’t know if they are alive or if they are receiving medical attention or food,” said Ernesto Bendezú, […]

Peru’s campesino and indigenous rights groups are in an uproar over a presidential decree they say is designed to strip them of their full rights to their communal lands for outside development.
President Alan Garcia signed into law the Legislative Decree Nº 1015 on Tuesday, without congressional approval, simplifying the process for private investors to obtain […]

President Alan García tapped Peru’s celebrated environmentalist Antonio Brack to become Peru’s first minister of the environment.
“I am honored that Mr. Antonio Brack has accepted to be minister and he will have all my backing to do what must be done in defense of the environment,” García told reporters.
Meanwhile, debate is heating up over García’s […]

Cabinet ministers and high-ranking government officials from 57 countries are in Lima, meeting behind closed doors for the Fifth European Union-Latin America and Caribbean Summit to find common ground on poverty reduction, free trade and a coordinated defense against global climate change.
Sixteen heads of state are expected to arrive by Friday to sign the Declaration […]

Peru’s Congress voted unanimously last night to call for the relocation of Cerro de Pasco, a mining town and provincial capital high in Peru’s central Andes, where the air is thin and low in oxygen, the ground is rich in copper, zinc and silver, and the people are awash in acid rain.
Congress voted 95-0 in […]

By Anna Zucchetti. Biologist
Translated and reprinted from the opinion page of El Comercio
I don’t know if President Garcia would agree with me about the strategic importance of the soon-to-be-born Ministry of the Environment. I don’t know if we would agree on the structure or about its jurisdiction. But we are in agreement on one point: […]