As the Diaguita Patay Co Indigenous Community, we express our firm opposition to Barrick Gold's new attempt to encroach on our territory through its “El Alto” mining exploration project, located in the same area impacted by the failed Pascua Lama mine. This is not about a new project. Rather, it represents a recycled strategy that is  underhanded and opportunistic, aimed at bypassing the court ruling that ordered the permanent closure of Pascua Lama due to the irreparable environmental harm it caused.

Although Barrick has changed its executives, its modus operandi has not changed at all: the company continues to act in total contempt of local communities, absent any real dialogue, while presenting technically-deficient projects with incomplete information and no assessment of the damage already caused.

Various state agencies, such as the General Water Directorate, the Regional Ministry of the Environment, and the Regional Government of Atacama, have confirmed these shortcomings and have highlighted the lack of rigour and depth in the information presented by the company. All of this points to a clear objective: to speculate and send positive signals to the market, regardless of the environmental and social consequences on the ground. Barrick has even initiated a campaign to collect signatures to appear to have community support, without presenting a single credible document to justify this support.

Furthermore, we also reject the social initiatives that the company is carrying out in the territory, right in the midst of the citizen participation process for the Environmental Impact Study on the closure of the Pascua Lama mine. Through agreements, promises of employment, and assistance programs, Barrick seeks to divide communities and weaken the historic resistance that has protected these glaciers and rivers for more than two decades.

For all of the above reasons, we ask that investors in this project take moral responsibility, understanding that they are supporting a proposed project that violates rights, affects ancestral territories, and is located in an area protected by Chilean environmental court rulings. Investing in Pascua Lama or “El Alto” is to insist on a failed extractive model that has left destruction, division, and mistrust in the communities of the Huasco Valley. We ask you to withdraw your investment and stop financing a project that is repeating the exact same mistakes and abuses as Pascua Lama.

Signed by: Sebastián Cruz, President of the Diaguita Patay Co Community