Brisas de Tramade is a small town in northern Honduras. The town made national news in May after several community members blocked the entrance to a limestone mine owned by Agrecasa, a subsidiary of American Aggregates LLC, a U.S. mining conglomerate, according to a 2017 report from the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative.
The blockade reached 90 days of around-the-clock resistance on July 22. That milestone is especially meaningful in Honduras, the most lethal country in the world for environmental defenders in 2023, according to Global Witness’s 'Missing Voices' investigation. You can read more about it in my article for America Magazine here.
I visited Brisas de Tramade again during the last weekend of July. This time, I wanted to understand what the community had learned about fighting extractivism. What they have built is more than a protest. It's a collective exercise in civic courage at great personal risk.
1. Be clear about what you are fighting and why it’s important
Several of the community leaders told me that for them, it’s important for people to know that they’re fighting for the wellbeing of the community.
They’re protesting because 20 years ago, a mine came to the community with promises of social mobility, schools, clinics, and paved roads. But those promises were broken. Residents stressed there has been no major investment from the mine in the community, and they have nothing to show that would make them think they’re better off than other communities. This could be considered what Denise Rousseau has termed a violation of a psychological contract.
Although there was no legal contract, there was a belief of reciprocal and promised obligations. The community accepted the mine for 20 years in exchange for promises that were not delivered. Instead, today the community is struggling with water and air pollution, people losing their hair, and anxious children due to the constant explosions, as the Honduran government has documented through its Health Ministry.
One of the villagers told me, 'You can’t work, rest, or support your family if you are sick. And living in poverty is worse if you’re sick.' His insight is in line with the findings of Anirudh Krishna’s seminal work on poverty, One Illness Away. Setbacks related to health costs are one of the main reasons people might go from living in relative poverty to extreme poverty.
The community is also fighting for its water sources. For them, it is a matter of survival. Another resident expressed, 'If the mine owners run out of water, they can go somewhere else. We can’t do that.' Spatial immobility is tied to social immobility in extractive projects.
2. Make alliances
The first step in resisting the mine was bringing people from the community together. One of the residents identified a tipping point.
The mine was operating 24/7. He noticed many of his neighbours complaining about being unable to rest. He decided to visit each house and ask each family to join a community meeting. When the mine announced that it would continue to operate with an expired environmental license, the residents were organised and ready. The community then brought in other nearby communities that were also being affected by the river pollution.
Today, protesting the mine is a family affair. Young couples come with their children. Adult children come with their parents. It’s also a meeting place for friends from different villages.
Additionally, partnering with another community that had protested and defeated an extractive project before was key. It brought them inspiration and resistance tactics. They learned how important it was to announce that their protests would be nonviolent and that no one should carry sticks or guns.
The community also found allies in the Honduran independent media, a national think tank that tracks environmental conflicts, and different faith groups. They also revamped their social media, which was very helpful in gaining national attention and support (you can follow them here).
3. Have symbols that can unite people
The resistance camp is called Rene Aleman and Pedrina Melgar Camp for Dignity. The name is an important symbol for the local community. Rene was a beloved local teacher.
He was also one of the first people to warn others about the mine’s impact on the community’s water sources. He was killed. His murder was never solved. Everyone knew him, and it felt right to honour him, according to residents.
Pedrina was one of the first people to join the resistance camp. She was known to make food for protestors, fundraise, and bring people together. She died under mysterious circumstances in her house last month. Her death is still under investigation.
The resistance camp also uses the national flag in their protests. It’s a lesson they learned from other social movements in the country. It’s also a way to emphasise that they’re not against development, employment, or the local government, as several of the mine sympathisers like to say.
4. Be bold in your right to protest
None of the residents had been to a protest before. The night before their first march, they coordinated via WhatsApp groups. They had a checklist of what to bring, including a megaphone. They had changed the dates twice before because, somehow, the police had found out about the protest and planned to repress it. But as a community member described, they felt it was a 'now or never' moment.
They walked into one of the main highways in the country and blocked one of the lanes. Someone beat a drum. Everyone chanted. The cars stopped, and in general, people seemed supportive. None of them could believe what they were doing.
The police arrived and violently suppressed the protest. But that didn’t stop residents from setting up a blockade of the mine. And it hasn’t stopped them from carrying on.
5. Follow up relentlessly with unresponsive government agencies
When I first talked to one of the community leaders, I thought he was a lawyer. He has a very detailed understanding of the Honduran environmental framework and has followed the mine’s permit process closely. Although he hasn’t been trained in law, he has devoted hours to studying the Honduran legal system and the mine. He shared government resolutions from the health ministry, the environmental ministry, and the emergency management agency with me, all recommending the mine be closed. Despite these assessments, the Honduran Mining Institute has recommended that the mine continue operating, in an ambiguous communique.
The community has been relentless in pointing out the government’s contradictions. Cespad, a local think tank that monitors environmental regulations, has highlighted legal inconsistencies and potential human rights violations in how the government is handling the case.
This act of insisting on the legal protections promised by Honduran law, despite the dark interests that might motivate the government to ignore the law, in my opinion, makes the community extraordinary.
Despite the corruption, danger, and power imbalances they are facing, the community chooses to live in the truth, as Vaclav Havel wrote in his essay The Power of the Powerless. It is this lesson, perhaps, that we most need to fight against extractive projects and the social immobility they bring.
The views expressed in this post are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the position of the Atlantic Fellows for Social and Economic Equity programme, the International Inequalities Institute, or the London School of Economics and Political Science.
Dany Díaz Mejía
Storyteller and Democracy Advocate
Dany Díaz Mejía is an Atlantic Fellow for Social and Economic Equity and an international development practitioner and writer who has consulted for organisations such as the American Red Cross and the United States Institute for Peace. He has been recognised by INCAE, one of the leading business schools in Latin America, as one of 30 emerging civil society leaders of Central America.
Image credits: Dany Díaz Mejía