In rural Mocoa, a town in southwestern Colombia where the Andes mountains descend into the Amazon rainforest, tensions have flared between local communities and a Canadian mining company over plans to build the country’s largest copper mine. The company, Libero Copper of Vancouver, Canada, seeks to explore and eventually extract an estimated two million tons of copper believed to underlie 7,800 hectares (19,300 acres) of jungle-covered mountain terrain. Demand has surged worldwide for copper, whose electrical conductivity has made it a highly sought-after ingredient in the manufacture of wind turbines, solar panels, electric car batteries and other green technology. Molybdenum, valued for its strength and high melting point, is also present in the Colombian deposit, and Libero plans to mine that metal, too. After exploration resumed last year on one of four Libero concessions encompassing the copper deposit, the project drew opposition from environmentalists, Indigenous leaders, and some... [Log in to read more]