Friday, March 19, 2021

You can make a difference. The Water Defenders. March 23, 2021

 

IPS Events

The Water Defenders: A SIS-OR Book Event

March 23 @ 7:00 pm - 8:30 pm

Online (Eastern time)

At a time when countless communities are resisting powerful corporations—from Flint, Michigan, to the Standing Rock Reservation, to Didipio in the Philippines, to the Gualcarque River in Honduras—The Water Defenders: How Ordinary People Saved A Country From Corporate Greed tells the inspirational story of a community that took on an international mining corporation at seemingly insurmountable odds and won not one but two historic victories.

In the early 2000s, many people in El Salvador were at first excited by the prospect of jobs, progress, and prosperity that the Pacific Rim mining company promised. However, farmer Vidalina Morales, brothers Marcelo and Miguel Rivera, and others soon discovered that the river system supplying water to the majority of Salvadorans was in danger of catastrophic contamination. With a group of unlikely allies, local and global, they committed to stop the corporation and the destruction of their home.

Based on over a decade of research and their own role as international allies of the community groups in El Salvador, Robin Broad and John Cavanagh unspool this untold story—a tale replete with corporate greed, a transnational lawsuit at a secretive World Bank tribunal in Washington, violent threats, murders, and—surprisingly—victory. American University’s Office of Research, School of International Service will host, for a book talk, this husband-and-wife duo who immerse readers into the lives of the Salvadoran villagers, the journeys of the local activists who sought the truth about the effects of gold mining on the environment, and the behind-the-scenes maneuverings of the corporate mining executives and their lawyers. The Water Defenders demands that we examine our assumptions about progress and prosperity, while providing valuable lessons for those fighting against destructive corporations in the United States and across the world. RSVP

Moderated by
Joe Eldridge, Senior Fellow, Washington Office on Latino Affairs, Former AU Chaplain

With:

  • Luis Parada, El Salvador’s lead lawyer vs. the mining companies
  • Manuela Picq, Karl Loewenstein Fellow and Visiting Associate Professor of Political Science, Amherst College; professor of International Relations at Universidad San Francisco de Quito (USFQ), Ecuador; joining from Quito, Ecuador.
RSVP


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