El Salvador Perspectives

In 2019, when he was campaigning for the presidency, Nayib Bukele unveiled plans for a modern international airport in the department of La Union at the eastern edges of El Salvador.  He called it the "Airport of the Pacific," and claimed it would become an international airline bub.  Three years later, in 2022, the government said that Nayib Bukele  would lay the first stone  for the new airport that year.  Nothing happened that year. After three more years have passed, there has finally been a ceremony to lay the first stone.  On February 26, the government broadcast Bukele's speech as he celebrated the beginning of construction of the airport and extolled the benefits it would bring: pic.twitter.com/BlzsMcMGfq — Nayib Bukele (@nayibbukele) February 26, 2025 According to Bukele, the airport's first phase is going to have a 2.4 kilometers long runway with two boarding gates and a futuristic looking terminal.  Investment in the first phase of t...

Seven years after El Salvador became the first country to ban metallic mining within its borders, especially gold mining, president Nayib Bukele is calling the prohibition "absurd."  The Salvadoran president took to social media with a post on X to proclaim that El Salvador needs to exploit gold deposits in the country (translated here to English):  GOD PLACED A GIGANTIC TREASURE UNDER OUR FEET: El Salvador potentially has the highest density gold deposits per km² in the world. Located on the Pacific Ring of Fire, one of the richest areas in mineral resources thanks to its volcanic activity… Studies carried out in only 4% of the potential area identified 50 million ounces of gold, valued today at $131.6 billion. This is equivalent to 380% of El Salvador's GDP. The total potential could exceed $3 trillion, more than 8,800% of our Gross Domestic Product. Tapping into this wealth could transform El Salvador: Create thousands of quality jobs. Finance infrastructure throughou...

Anti-mining activist press conference in July Environmental activists in El Salvador continue to be on alert for the possible resumption of gold mining activity in the country. Although the country was the first in the world to ban metallic mining within its borders in 2017, anti-mining advocates worry that preparations are being made in the current government to lift that prohibition. One signal of the possible resumption of mining activity was the October 2022 creation of the General Directorate of Energy, Hydrocarbons and Mines within the ministries of the Salvadoran government.  More concerns were raised when it was learned that El Salvador had become a member of the Intergovernmental Forum on Mining, Minerals, Metals and Sustainable Development (IGF) , a global association of countries coming together on mining issues.  Joining the forum seemed a strange choice for a country which was the first in the world to ban all metallic mining operations. Then in 2023, the...

Maquilishuat tree During the last week of February, El Salvador's national tree, the maquilishuat, burst into bloom all around the country.  Its pink and white flowers adorned yards and roadsides and parks.   In the depths of the dry season when the countryside is dry and brown, the maquilishuat brings a splash of beauty in the weeks leading up to Semana Santa. The scientific name of the maquilishuat is  Tabebuia rosea .  In other parts of the world it is known as the "pink poui", and "rosy trumpet tree" and "roble de sabana".  The tree is predominantly found in subtropical dry forests, is common in Central America, and can grow to a height of 30 meters.   According to El Salvador's environment ministry ,  the maquilishuat has ecosystem relevance since its flowers attract a variety of pollinators, such as bees and hummingbirds.  Its seeds are a source of food for various species of birds and mammals. Some maquilishuat trees along th...

El Salvador has lived for a year and a half under the State of Exception. The State of Exception suspends the constitutional due process protections against arbitrary capture and detention, and allows people to be thrown into prison for months on the slimmest of allegations.  An anonymous phone tip can be sufficient to have someone captured. The "exceptional measures," which are touted by the Bukele regime for their impact in reducing gang-related crime in the country, have been used in some cases, say advocates, to silence and threaten activists and community leaders who protest development projects of friends of the Bukele regime.     Carolina Amaya is a journalist who focuses on environmental issues in El Salvador.  She has published important articles about challenges to the environment at her site MalaYerba .  Two days ago she wrote a much more personal column in El Faro about the arrest of her father, Benjamin Amaya, a veteran of the Salvadoran armed...

El Salvador's government has locked up 5 community organizers and environmental activists from the rural community of Santa Marta, alleging their participation in a decades old crime during El Salvador's civil war.   But the circumstances surrounding the case suggest to many that the real motivation for their detention is to weaken resistance to metallic mining in the country and make possible the lifting of a mining prohibition. The actions of the country's Attorney General, Rodolfo Delgado, illustrate how the State of Exception with its suspension of judicial guarantees of due process is being used, not just to fight gangs, but to intimidate human rights defenders, including environmental activists. His actions show that the hard won victory to ban extractive metallic mining in the country may be under threat.  Nina Lakhani in the  Guardian  reported the arrests of the five community leaders:  Five prominent environmental defenders who played a crucial ro...

This article was originally published on  Undark  under the title In El Salvador and Beyond, an Unsolved Kidney Disease Mystery . November 16, 2022 by Fletcher Reveley J osé Lopez didn’t want to die, but the alternative — having a scalpel plunged through his abdominal wall to install a soft, silicone dialysis catheter — filled him with terror. For weeks in the fall of 2021, the then-34-year-old agricultural worker from Tierra Blanca, El Salvador, had refused the surgery, holding out instead for a miracle from God. Regional lore held that such acts of grace were possible: There was the man from Las Salinas whose invocations had restored his ailing kidneys; the boy from La Noria who was recovering swiftly after devoting himself to the gospel. Through his mounting illness, Lopez clung to the rumors and prayed for a similar deliverance. But he was running out of time. The fluid buildup in his abdomen had grown so severe he felt like he was choking. He couldn’t stand, eat, or s...