There is a paradox that defines our region. Latin America is home to some of the planet’s most valuable mineral deposits, including copper, gold, silver, lithium, nickel, cobalt, etc. However, millions of Latin Americans live in poverty, something that the wealth generated by this industry should have solved decades ago.
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Illegal mineral extraction is advancing in many cities, without laws, institutions, or awareness. The extraction of resources and the wealth of peoples is both an economic problem and a humanitarian tragedy.
In this context, Chile is a country that lives, with all its imperfections, in what could be called a mining paradise. We have institutions, metal traceability, regulation, and decades of experience building an industry that, although perfectible, operates within a rule of law. Our Chilean Copper Commission, Cochilco, is an example of how technical knowledge can be transformed into serious public policy. This experience can and should be exported among neighbors in our region.
From this conviction, the Latin American Mining Alliance, ALMA, is born. A continental platform that does not represent the interests of any company nor acts as a trade association. ALMA is rather an attempt to build, for the first time, a common regional voice on the future of our mining. A voice that speaks of education, responsible investment, combating illegal mineral extraction, a just energy transition, and governance with real communities.
We are representatives from 14 countries who began this journey, with our sights set on all the countries that make up Latin America and the Caribbean. We introduced ourselves to the world in Toronto, at the Prospectors & Developers Association of Canada (PDAC) last February. And the name, ALMA, was not accidental. It is a commitment to give spirit to an industry that, for too long, was portrayed solely in terms of tons, prices, and conflicts.
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The world needs Latin America’s minerals for its energy and technological transition. Electric vehicles, solar panels, the batteries that will power the 21st-century economy, all depend on what is beneath our feet. But we need something in return: that this wealth remains in the region through decent jobs, infrastructure, education, and that it finances the future of the peoples who sustain it.
The great dream of mining is not just to sell more minerals. It is for a mother in a mining community in Ecuador to know that her child will have a school, an opportunity, and a future. It is for a young person in Bolivia to be able to study engineering in their own country and work on their own land. It is for an authority in Peru to be able to make decisions about their territory without a criminal network preventing or intimidating them.
That dream is possible. But it requires public policies that strongly combat illegal extraction, investments that meet real environmental and social standards, and a regional narrative that stops apologizing for having minerals and starts demanding that these natural resources build a future.
That is what we are here to do with ALMA, because we believe that the dream of mining must be something tangible for the nearly 671 million inhabitants that make up Latin America and the Caribbean.
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