- Nicaragua has experienced a boom in gold mining over the last few years, with concessions covering millions of hectares of land — often near protected areas and on Indigenous territory.
- The government doesn’t require environmental impact studies and pushes through consultations with local communities as quickly as one day, allowing mining projects to move forward at an unprecedented pace.
- Mining companies from China, Canada, the U.K. and Colombia often find loopholes that allow them to avoid international sanctions, according to one study.
Gold mining has exploded in Nicaragua over the past few years, bringing in billions of dollars and becoming the country’s top export, surpassing even coffee and beef. International sanctions against the industry have done little to slow it down, with companies from China, Canada, the U.K. and Colombia setting up operations in ecologically sensitive areas — often near national parks and on Indigenous territory.
A lack of government transparency has made it difficult to know how concessions are granted and what happens to them once mining begins. But activist groups say the industry continues to expand, with weak regulations and widespread corruption resulting in deforestation, pollution and human rights violations against Indigenous communities.
“The whole process of invasion is like a time bomb that’s going to implode from the inside,” one Indigenous rights defender, who asked that his name be withheld for safety concerns, told Mongabay.
One analysis by the land-use observatory Land Matrix América Latina counted 144 active mining concessions in Nicaragua covering 1.7 million hectares (4.2 million acres), an overwhelming majority of them granted since President Daniel Ortega took office in 2007.
Ortega and his wife, Rosario Murillo, who’s been vice president since 2017, have cracked down on dissent and consolidated power through elections seen as flawed, drawing backlash from the international community. Gold offers a way of avoiding sanctions while laundering money and paying out the political elite — and there’s still room for the industry to grow, experts say. There are as many as 4.8 million hectares (11.8 million acres) of land “available” for mining throughout Nicaragua, representing around 40% of its total surface area, according to the Ministry of Energy and Mines (MEM).
The last three years have been especially productive for the industry. Since Jan. 1, 2022, MEM has granted 37 new concessions totaling 651,184 hectares (1.61 million acres). Regulatory agencies ensure that most technical assessments and environmental impact studies are carried out in just one day, according to Land Matrix.
In other countries, those preliminary requirements can take months or even years to finish. But in 2017, the Ortega-Murillo administration repealed a decree requiring environmental impact studies and replaced it with one that was more discretionary. In some cases, it allows companies to break ground without understanding how their projects will erode the land, pollute rivers and endanger local people.
“It has a direct impact on the livelihoods of the communities,” the activist said. “They can’t go hunting or fishing, or take advantage of natural resources.”
Since 2022, seven concessions covering nearly 170,000 hectares (420,000 acres) were granted within titled Indigenous territory in the Caribbean coast autonomous regions, which have belonged to Indigenous peoples since the 1980s. Canadian company Calibre Mining has 151,921 hectares (375,405 acres) in the Autonomous Region of the North Caribbean Coast, while a collection of Chinese companies have 212,727 hectares (525,660 acres) between them, according to Land Matrix.
Calibre Mining didn’t respond to a request for comment.
None of the concessions granted since 2022 were inside a protected area, but 14 of them are located less than 3 kilometers (1.9 miles) from one, threatening runoff of mercury, cyanide and other toxic chemicals.
In theory, mining companies have to obtain the free, prior and informed consent of affected Indigenous communities before moving forward with a mining project. Nicaragua is part of a U.N. treaty that gives residents the right to accept or deny development that impacts their way of life. But the country’s regulations for that process are easily manipulated, Land Matrix found. Companies don’t directly consult with communities, opting instead to work with the local government offices controlled by Ortega’s Sandinista National Liberation Front. This allows them to say they’ve consulted community representatives without ever having to speak with the residents themselves.
In many cases, companies work through mayors. But all 153 mayoral offices have been held by the ruling party since the 2022 elections.
“There’s no proof that consultation exists at the community level for these mining projects or any other type of large-scale project,” said Land Matrix report author Carmen Corea-Sanchez. “In the case of mining, these endorsements are being granted by political bodies, not directly from the communities.”
Companies are legally required to allocate 1% of their concession to artisanal mining, creating further problems with communities when non-Indigenous Nicaraguans, known locally as colonos, come to work in the area. An analysis of 12 Mayangna communities found that 135 human rights violations occurred between November 2023 and June 2024, according to the ASLA Foundation, an education advocacy group in Nicaragua. Victims reported what happened to authorities in fewer than half of cases, the analysis found.
As colonos move in, Indigenous communities not only lose land for hunting, fishing and farming, but also suffer a series of health problems, including malnutrition. With less and less land, they also begin to fight among each other for what’s left, residents told Mongabay.
Human rights violations against Indigenous communities were cited in U.S. sanctions last year. But the relationship between Nicaraguan and foreign companies appears to be helping the government circumvent them, several activist groups said. In one case, a mining concession operated by Compañía Minera Internacional (COMINTSA), a Nicaraguan entity, was transferred to the Chinese company Zhong Fu Development one month before the U.S. announced a new round of sanctions. COMINTSA is allegedly run by Energy and Mines Minister Salvador Mansell, according to the U.S. Treasury Department, which has sanctioned Mansell.
“This could be interpreted as part of the Ortega-Murillo regime’s efforts to reorganize the mining sector based on its networks of political-economic allies and commercial partners,” the Land Matrix report said.
Impunity and corruption have discouraged activists from fighting the government inside Nicaragua, instead opting to speak out in the international community. Some have called on the World Bank, Inter-American Development Bank and Global Environment Facility to stop “green financing” of sustainability projects in Nicaragua, arguing that the government doesn’t use the money responsibly.
Last year, at an Inter-American Commission on Human Rights panel, activists called on the international community for additional support of Indigenous communities suffering from violence.
“[The challenge] is to increasingly show the mechanisms and specific processes that legitimize these extractive processes,” one activist said at the panel. “In the particular case of Nicaragua, the lobbying that must be done is outwards.”
Banner image: Deforestation in Bosawás Biosphere Reserve. Photo by Taran Volckhausen.
See related from this reporter:
In Nicaragua, activists challenge the value of international ‘green’ financing
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