The Threat of Gold Mining in Cofan Territory

Over the past month, the problem of gold mining in Cofan territory has received international media attention. The Guardian recently published an article on the threat posed by mining in the Cofan community of Sinangoe, which lies far up the Aguarico River in the Andean foothills. For more than four centuries, nonindigenous people have invaded Cofan land in search of gold and other minerals. The confrontation in Sinangoe is just the most recent example of how outsiders seek to profit from Cofan territory and end up destroying its forests and rivers while imperiling the health of its indigenous inhabitants. For the past two decades, the Cofan Survival Fund has been instrumental in confronting miners and working to expel them from Cofan territory. Many Sinangoe residents learned how to protect their territory during their time in the Cofan Park Guard Program, a CSF-funded effort that built guard stations and boundary trails and sent teams of Cofan rangers to the farthest corners of their homeland. Today, Randy Borman and other Cofan leaders are working in the nearby community of La Sofia to mobilize its residents to oppose the mining companies that threaten to pollute their rivers with mercury. With your help, the CSF can once again send groups of Cofan rangers throughout the Cofan homeland to confront miners as well as settlers, loggers, and commercial hunters. It all takes money, though—please consider renewing or increasing your donation to CSF today!