Àngel Pasuy stayed on his tribe’s land in the Colombian cloud forest, listening to a symphony of birdsong. An indigenous land use planner of the Kamentsá Biya reserve of Sibundoy, Pasuy and his people have called the steep slopes of the area Mocoa for centuries.
Its reserve borders a nationally protected forest reserve that connects the Amazon Basin with the Andes Mountains, home to hundreds of plant and animal species and the source of dozens of waterways.
But Pasuy is now worried about the future of the forest. In the past year, exploratory drilling for a possible copper mine has been revived on the outskirts of the reserve’s eastern border, two miles from its reserve boundary. A Canadian mining company, Libero Copper & Gold, has the rights to conduct exploratory mining in an area of 30 square miles that partially overlaps the reserve, its reserve and another.
The proposed mine would be the first legal metal mine in the country’s Amazon, part of Colombia’s push to become a major copper producer. Its development is being driven by the global push for metals for green energy, and in part by the family of New Hampshire Governor Chris Sununu.
Sununu’s politically connected father and climate change denier, John H. Sununu, and brother, Michael Sununu, are more than just investors in Libero Copper & Gold. Michael is a board member de Libero, and he and his father sit on the board of directors of the company’s largest shareholder, Anglo Asian Mining PLC, which operates in Azerbaijan. John Sununu is the second shareholder of this company, with a stake of almost 10%. He and Michael Sununu declined to comment and referred all questions to Anglo Asian Mining.
Read the full story at NBCNews.com here.
