Peru, a toxic state
May 21, 2017 Peru’s indigenous Quechua people have a special connection to the agricultural lands where they and their animals live. The delicate care they devote to agriculture consists of talking to the earth asking for rain and a good harvest. Then, they do a ritual dance to “Pacha-mama,” Quechua for Mother Earth, with passion and grace to express their gratitude. However, where there is mining, agricultural lands and cattle often end up affected by toxic metals such as lead, arsenic, cadmium, and mercury among others, while ancient traditions with the environment slowly disappear. 
May 25, 2021 Drone view of the Tintaya mine, Espinar, Peru. Glencore, a powerful multinational company, has bought large tracts of land to create the massive mining complexes of Tintaya, Antapaccay, and, in the future, Coroccohuaycco. More than 40% of the district’s territory has been granted by the government to mining companies, causing a sharp impact on the indigenous population and creating a huge imbalance between the lifestyles of those who work in the mines and those who do not. The major problems that afflict the territories and populations of the Espinar area are the pollution of water with heavy metals and the lack of water, problems that the local population attributes to mining activity. 
May 21, 2021 Before the mining company Arasi arrived in Ayaviri, Puno, people lived on cheese and milk. Ayaviri’s cheese was exported all over Peru, reaching as far as Lima and Cuzco. Due to water pollution and drought, cows began to produce less milk and milk of lower quality. As a result, the economic conditions of the breeders dropped significantly. Cheese producers now have difficulty selling their products outside the city. People in nearby markets do not want to buy what may be “contaminated cheese”. In the picture, the level of the drought of the land is clear. 
May 21, 2021 The residents of Ayaviri do not drink the water of their own rivers and lakes because they say it is polluted with mining waste. The pollution has created a cottage industry for water trucks, which charge 25 times the price of water in Lima. Other neighborhoods only have access to water for 6 hours a week. Water is scarce for the population, while the mining company has access to large amounts of it. As a result, the fields are barren and the few crops that grow are toxic or not enough to sustain families, locals say. Peru’s government has found heavy metals in Ayaviri’s rivers. 
February 23, 2020 Deny Huaman Silvestre, 35, and her son Deyvit Jesus, 9. Deyvit was born with a developmental disability in Cerro de Pasco, a city where research shows that a generation of children is being affected by toxic metal poisoning. Chronic lead poisoning frequently causes severe anemia that, due to the lack of red blood cells that carry oxygen in the blood, leads to developmental delays and malformations, especially during infancy. Deny tried to treat her son, but local clinics were unable to help. The only option, doctors say, is to move away from the polluted areas. In order to be able to support her son’s treatments, Deny has two jobs: she works at a store during the day and as a security guard at night. “I need money to buy vitamins for my son. They are not a cure, but they make him better”, she said. 
February 24, 2020 Each February, the Quiulacocha community in Cerro de Pasco celebrates Carnival. It is a well-known traditional festival. Residents meet in the central square of the village to dance and play music while wearing traditional clothes. Many people from the rest of Peru come to Quiulacocha to participate in the celebration, with bullfighting and alcohol included. The whole celebration is paid for by the Volcan Mining Company, a subsidiary of Anglo-Swiss Glencore, which is also accused of polluting Cerro de Pasco residents with heavy metals. Children in Cerro de Pasco have 42 times the amount of lead than children in other countries, a foreign NGO found. Volcan has one of the highest numbers of environmental fines, according to Peru’s environmental agency. 
August 20, 2019. Guadalupe Escalante, 47, looks at the mining corridor a few meters away from her home. The road, used by MMG’s Las Bambas copper mine, is a source of social conflict between residents, the government, and the mining companies, in part because a long part of the mining corridor is not paved. The continuous movement of hundreds of trucks per day causes an unbearable spread of dust along the road, which invades the communities nearby, settling on crops that deteriorate. The dust contains particles and enters through the windows of Guadalupe’s old house. “During the night, when I lie in my bed, I cannot breathe,” she said. The truck vibrations have caused her house to crack, making her fear it will collapse in the near future. 
August 3, 2022 Children play soccer in the Peruvian town of Espinar, where a Glencore mine operates, next to a cloud of dust. Pollution is a long-standing problem for Peru’s mining towns, especially those with many decades of exposure to the industry. In 2005, the School of Public Health at St. Louis University, Missouri, conducted a study in La Oroya, a city that was the site of a smelter operated by the U.S. company Doe Run. The research, led by Ph.D. Fernando Serrano, found children with blood lead levels three to four times higher than those accepted by the U.S. at the time. 
August 23, 2018 Felipe Cjuno, a former mining worker from Huisa, Espinar, shows an X-ray of his lungs. During his time as a miner, he inhaled large amounts of dust containing heavy metal particles, developing silicosis. In Peru, silicosis is referred to as the miner’s disease, because of the large number of mining workers affected. The dust not only enters the respiratory tract but also contaminates groundwater and rivers, soil, and crops. According to local hospitals, the percentage of people suffering from silicosis is very high in mining towns. 
April 27, 2021 The Santa Barbara mine is the oldest mine in Peru. Under Spanish colonial rule, indigenous Peruvians were enslaved to work there. The mine was in operation from 1566 to 1975. Today, the mine has been submitted to UNESCO as a property of historical interest. In the photo, Miguel Sarapia Quispe poses inside the mine with the clothes his grandfather was wearing on the day he died from an accident while working in the mine. 
August 2, 2022. The Peruvian city of Espinar has decades of exposure to mining and is now the home to the Antapaccay copper mine, Glencore’s largest operation in the country. Copper mining requires abundant quantities of water to separate the red metal from the rock, and mining and agriculture often compete for water. Once used in mining, that water is not safe for drinking or agriculture and is stored in huge tailings ponds meant to prevent leakage like the one in the picture. Citizens in Espinar believe their drinking water sources have over time become polluted due to the decades of operation of the mine. 
August 25, 2018. A truck overturned along the road that connects Sicuani with Espinar, its metal contents spilling into the environment. The lack of attention to safety issues at work, exhausting work shifts, and the problem of alcoholism often contribute to the occurrence of numerous accidents by mining drivers. In Peru’s mining towns, there has been a great increase in women trafficking due to frequent openings of brothels. 
August 15, 2018. Roxana, 14, afflicted with cerebral palsy, spends her days at the “Sagrada Familia” special education center in Espinar. The center accommodates 29 children born with physical deformities and mental disabilities. Unlike many Peruvian cities with similar characteristics in terms of population and size, Espinar chose to have the “Sagrada Familia” Special Education Center because of the high rate of children born with malformations. However, many children who live in the countryside do not have the possibility of reaching the educational center. 
August 16, 2018. Grimalda De Cuno in her home in Huisa, Espinar, is commiserating with her stillborn calf, born the day before near the Antapaccay copper mine, owned by Glencore. Because of water is polluted with heavy metals, many animals die from drinking from the river or are stillborn. Community residents believe that contaminated water from rivers has poisoned and killed their animals. Livestock ha been destroyed over the years, worsening the living conditions of already impoverished farmers and ranchers. In the past 6 years, Grimalda’s family has lost cows, sheep, and llamas. “Mineral content in the water, which is a real problem, is related to the natural presence of these minerals in the soil, and not due to the mining operation,” Antapaccay told Reuters in 2021. 
March 23, 2021. Silvia Chilo Choque, 40, bathes her son, 13, with cerebral palsy in Espinar. Water is scarce, so many people collect rainwater during the rainy season to use in baths and other tasks. In the dry season they have no other option but to use contaminated water from the river, boiling it first and then putting chlorine in it. Because this is a long process, often people are only able to shower once a week. 
August 16, 2019 A man shows the empty plastic jar that he uses to collect drinking water at a nearby river. Many communities in the Challhuahuacho district do not have access to drinking water, so they drink, cook, and wash with water collected from the rivers that flow near their houses, thanks to a system of canals they have built. The rivers pass by the Las Bambas mine, one of the biggest in the world, which opened in 2016. 
April 28, 2021. Tailings dam in the rural community of Mimosa, Huancavelica. Mining often generates toxic, liquid waste that needs to be stored and secured with a dam. If the dam breaks or leaks, it can pollute crops and make the water unusable. The indigenous community of Mimosa now lives on the side of the tailings dam, which worries local residents that it could break. Dam tailings leaks are not uncommon in Latin America. The community uses the water from the nearby rivers for drinking, cooking, washing themselves and their clothes, feeding their animals, and irrigating their fields. 
May 24, 2021. Mining companies always make big promises before they begin operating in Peru’s Andes. Companies say they will bring development and that the mining taxes they pay will help lift everyone in towns that have lived in poverty for centuries. But more often than not, residents face huge disappointment. Peru’s Andes remain among the most impoverished regions in all of Peru. Poverty levels in copper-rich regions like Cuzco and Apurimac, home to Glencore’s Antapaccay mine and MMG’s Las Bambas, have fallen in recent years but remain high. People remain poor, as they see with resentment how the mineral wealth just passes by. 
May 21, 2021 A woman shows her potato harvest in Ayaviri, where mining has affected agricultural output. Potatoes are part of the tradition and folklore of Peru. There are more than 3,000 native potatoes in the country. It is the main source of carbohydrates and almost every family in the Peruvian Andes grows them. In mining cities, unlike tourist cities, locals are concerned that the cultivation of potatoes is put at great risk by pollution. 
August 9, 2018 Farmers put out a fire in a crop field near Espinar, where 380 hectares burned and 40 families were affected. The problem of fires often afflicts the territories around the city of Espinar and other mining towns, as the fine dust makes the crops more flammable, especially during the dry season that goes from April to October. Lack of water does not make firefighting easier, as people need to rely on blankets, sweaters, and clothes from local farmers to put out the fire. 
April 24, 2022 The village of Nueva Fuerabamba near MMG’s Las Bambas copper mine. The village was built in 2014 by the mine in order to resettle the indigenous Fuerabamba community of about 660, who lived for centuries on top of what is now a huge copper mine. Mining executives have compared the village to a Swiss town. But Gregorio Rojas, a community leader, said about 20 people have died from depression since moving to Nueva Fuerabamba because they have not adapted to the new urban lifestyle. Residents have tried to keep livestock in their three-story houses and sheep can be seen walking on the streets of the town. 
April 24, 2022 Discontent toward the new urban lifestyle in Nueva Fuerabamba reached a boiling point in 2022, when dozens of residents entered MMG’s Las Bambas mine and resettled in their ancestral lands in Old Fuerabamba. They built tents and brought their animals to graze near the huge open pit, like they used to for generations, forcing Las Bambas to halt operations. Two weeks later, the mine hired private security officials and violently evicted the Nueva Fuerabamba residents, a move that is legal under Peruvian law. 
August 1, 2022 Reporting on the reality of living in a mining town in Peru is difficult. Vidal Merma was born to an indigenous family in Espinar and has chronicled how Glencore’s Antapaccay has disrupted life for locals, including during historic protests in 2012 that left several residents in Espinar dead. As a result, Glencore filed criminal libel charges against Merma in a process that was eventually dismissed. Merma denies he has libeled Glencore, while the company says its reputation has been negatively affected. Despite the legal fights with Glencore, Merma has achieved international recognition and been a recipient of a Pulitzer Center grant. 
February 20, 2020 Residents shout during a demonstration in Lima organized by families from Cerro De Pasco, where Glencore-owned Volcan operates. While mining protests generally take place locally, residents sometimes have to travel to Lima to draw national attention to their cause. Whether in the Andes or in Lima, mining protests often face police repression. In 2015, residents of Cerro de Pasco walked the 150 miles separating their city from Lima to raise awareness about its over 2,000 local children who have high lead levels. When they got to Lima, some women chained themselves in front of the Ministry of Health headquarters, demanding a halt to environmental pollution caused by the mining activity. 
August 24, 2019 Police forces at a protest in Mollendo against the Tia Maria open-pit mine project by Southern Peru Copper Corporation. Peru’s government has frequently suspended civil liberties in mining towns in order to suppress protests. At least seven people have died in protests against Tia Maria alone, according to the nonprofit “Cooperaccion”. Other indigenous Peruvians have died in protests against other mining companies in Peru. Many more have been prosecuted for protesting, with the police taking the de-facto role of defending the interests of mining corporations against those of local residents. 
August 24, 2019 Residents of Mollendo protested for more than 60 days in 2019 against Southern Copper’s proposed Tia Maria mining project. The clashes between police and protesters turned into urban war, with police forces armed with tear gas on one side and locals throwing stones on the other. The protesters fear their fate will be similar to other mining towns: that their water sources will dry up, that the fertile Valle del Tambo will be polluted, that trucks transporting copper will disrupt their life and pollute it. Protests against mining rose under the brief presidency of Pedro Castillo between 2021 and 2022. Castillo opposed the Tia Maria project, saying it lacked social legitimacy. But the company insists the project will take place. 
April 28, 2019 Alberto Huallpa Salcedo, 30, poses for a portrait. Alberto was shot by Peruvian police point bank in his left leg during a protest in Espinar in 2012 known as ‘Espinar rises’ (Espinar se levanta, in Spanish) that was recorded on video. Residents were protesting against the Antapaccay mining project owned by Anglo-Swiss miner Glencore. Alberto was 23 when he was shot. He sued Glencore for damages but lost, although the company did pay for some of his healthcare costs, including sending him to London for surgery. Police forces in Peru often end up defending the interests of mining corporations during moments of social upheaval against the industry. Since Antapaccay began operations, government agencies have found toxic metal contents above levels considered safe in Espinar. 
August 8, 2022 Rosa Paniura Vargas lost an eye at MMG’s Las Bambas mine, after residents of her Fuerabamba community resettled inside the mine. Fuerabamba used to exist on top of the copper deposits that now make Las Bambas one of the largest copper mines in the world. In order to make the mine happen, Las Bambas moved the Fuerabamba community into a new nearby urban town named Nueva Fuerabamba. Residents who used to live from agriculture did not get used to the new lifestyle and in 2022 briefly returned to their ancestral lands. Las Bambas security personnel violently evicted them two weeks later and Paniura Vargas lost an eye amid a confrontation. 
August 13, 2018 Tres Angeles Cemetery, in Espinar. The son of Felix Yauri Usca prays on the grave of his father, who died during the huge ‘Espinar rises’ (Espinar se Levanta) protests in 2012. The protest was aimed against the Antapaccay project, owned by Anglo-Swiss giant Glencore. The head of the regional police department at the time, Gaston Rodriguez, was not prosecuted over the protest deaths, despite loud calls from the local population. Rodriguez would go on to become the chief of all of Peru’s police as minister of the interior in 2020. Under his watch, police allegedly killed two protesters in Lima and injured dozens of others during a spate of protests against the interim presidency of Manuel Merino. Merino resigned as interim president after just a week on the job in large part because of the criticism triggered by the police violence. 
April 27, 2021 Mernardo Sarabia Flores, 60, president of the Torata Alta Irrigation Commission. Southern Copper operates its Cuajone copper mine near its community in Moquegua, which used to live on agriculture and livestock, especially from the high quality of its avocados, which require a lot of water. In recent years, avocado trees have been dying, affecting the local population’s source of income. Moquegua and much of Peru’s copper-rich Southern region overwhelmingly voted for Pedro Castillo in 2021, who became the country’s first campesino president. But Castillo was impeached and ousted in late 2022 after trying to illegally close Congress. While Castillo’s move was illegal, many in Peru’s South approved of his decision and took to the streets to protest. The country’s military response to the protests left over 25 civilians dead.
Peru has immense mineral wealth in its striking Andes mountains. It’s the world’s No. 2 producer of copper and silver and a key producer of gold. But under its scorching sun, metallic opulence coexists with abject poverty. Mining is more than twice as important as tourism to Peru’s economy. But the Andes remain home to some of the country’s poorest indigenous communities, Quechua-speakers whose mineral wealth was once sacked by the Spaniards and is now exploited by multinational corporations.
Peru: A Toxic State is a 6-year journey covering 20,000 thousand kilometers and 35 mining communities chronicling the neocolonialism of today’s mining industry. In 2021, Peru celebrated its 200th anniversary of independence, but the Andean mineral wealth is just as foreign to indigenous communities today as it was under colonial rule. Between 2021 and 2022, a wave of protests swept Peru, whose geography is defined by mining. Spaniards operated a mine in Santa Barbara as early as 1566. Later, they moved to Cerro de Pasco, where the pursuit of wealth was so brazen the pit almost swallowed the city. To this day, Peru’s colonial mining towns exist in poverty. Mining plundered their wealth and local water sources, creating dead fields and killing livestock, the engine of the economy for the local population.
The end of colonial rule set up the scene for a new problem: neoliberalism. Multinationals scouted the Andes for metals. Anglo-Swiss Glencore settled in Espinar in 2011. China’s MMG opened Las Bambas in 2016. Tensions with indigenous communities have risen recently, with a historic wave of protests between disrupting key mines, buoyed by the presidency of Pedro Castillo, Peru’s first Campesino head of state. Many in the Andes identified strongly with Castillo, even after he got himself ousted after trying to dissolve Congress illegally. A key complaint is that mining wealth has not trickled down to the local population.
The price to pay under neoliberalism has been the health of indigenous Peruvians, whose water sources were either diverted to mining or polluted by it. Scores have toxic metals in their blood that can cause anemia, respiratory and cardiovascular disease, cancer, and congenital malformations. Their human rights have not been respected by companies or governments. The project shows the impact of neoliberalism in Peru, through the lens of new and old mining. Peru may be mineral-rich, but its ancient indigenous communities are still poor.
