A delegation of religious, indigenous and youth community leaders from five Latin American countries visited the COMECE Secretariat on Tuesday, 24 September 2024, to engage in a dialogue with EU policy-makers and representatives of faith-based organisations. Focus: impact of mining on local communities, and perspectives for a people-centred, just and sustainable transition. Photo Gallery
A delegation of religious, indigenous and youth community leaders from five Latin American countries visits COMECE on Tuesday, 24 September 2024. (Photo: Marta Isabel González / @migasocial)
COMECE hosted a delegation of nine religious, indigenous and youth community leaders from various Latin American countries. They shared powerful testimonies of the devastating impacts caused by the mining industry in their communities and territories. In this regard, the group highlighted that lithium, gold and silver industrial mining operations have irreversibly polluted their rivers, soil and the air, leading to serious health problems.
Denouncing an economic model based on extractivism and exploitation of human as well as natural resources, the delegation warned against policy incoherencies with respect to sustainable and integral human development.
They called for respect of the right of local communities to a free, prior and informed consent, and for conducting inclusive consultations with all stakeholders in a safe environment, protected from intimidation, threats to physical integrity and free from bureaucratic burdens.
“The price of our energy, green and digital transitions in Europe must not be paid by local communities in Latin America or elsewhere in the world”, stated Fr. Manuel Barrios Prieto, General Secretary of COMECE. He also highlighted the need for reviewing our consumption patterns and implementing robust human rights and environmental safeguards and mechanisms of corporate social responsibility in pertinent international cooperation frameworks.
Building upon the principles of integral ecology proposed by Pope Francis in his encyclical letter Laudato Si’, the representatives of local communities in Latin America urged EU decision-makers to pursue a holistic approach across relevant policies, which takes into account all inter-related dimensions: the environmental, the social, the economic, as well as the human and cultural.
At the beginning of the new EU institutional cycle, the delegation called on the EU to prioritise these principles in the implementation of pertinent policy frameworks, including the Critical Raw Materials Act, the renewed EU-LAC partnership, the Global Gateway Investment Agenda, the recently adopted Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive, as well as the EU Human Rights agenda and the processes of green, energy and digital transitions.
The dialogue meeting with representatives of the EU institutions and with faith-based actors was organised by COMECE in cooperation with the network Iglesias y Minería, REPAM, CIMI, CIDSE, Caritas Europa and Manos Unidas. The delegation, which besides Brussels also visited Spain, France, Italy, the Vatican, Austria and Germany, received official support from the Presidency of the Council of the Episcopal Conferences of Latin America and the Caribbean (CELAM).
