By Marco Aquino
LIMA (Reuters) – Members of Indigenous communities blocked access to Glencore’s Antapaccay copper mine in Peru’s Cusco region to protest an expansion plan at the site, a local community leader said on Monday.
Local residents on Sunday began blocking roads and calling for a meeting with government mining officials over fears of environmental damage from the expansion plan, community leader Flavio Huanque said in an interview. He said the protesters represented ten different communities.
Glencore did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
A source close to the company confirmed that protests had blocked access to mine vehicles.
Images from a local online news program showed small groups of people at different points in the road, holding signs.
Antapaccay is the seventh largest copper mine in Peru, the world’s third-biggest producer of the red metal.
Antapaccay has faced protests by local Indigenous groups over environmental concerns in past years as well.
Peru’s mining sector as a whole has also faced disruptive, at times violent, protests across many of its major mines.
Peru’s Mining Ministry said in a social media post on Friday that it had met with Glencore executives overseeing Antapaccay’s expansion plans.
According to the ministry, the company representatives said the expansion represented a $1.8 billion investment, and the miner would work on agreements with the Huano Huano, Huini Coroccohuayco and Pacopata communities.
The ministry did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the protests.
(Reporting by Marco Aquino, Writing by Natalia Siniawski, Editing by Daina Beth Solomon and Aida Pelaez-Fernandez)
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