Demonstrators tear down a police barricade during a protest against a recently approved mining contract between the government and Canadian mining company First Quantum, in Panama City, Tuesday, Oct. 31, 2023. – Facing a second week of impassioned, nationwide protests, Panama's National Assembly has nearly passed a new law revoking a controversial mining contract in an environmentally vulnerable part of country.
The new bill not only repeals that contract but extends a moratorium on all concessions for mining activities until the country’s Code of Mineral Resources is reformed. Now, however, popular protests have materialized into serious legislative and legal challenges, which pushed First Quantum’s shares into a 47% freefall since markets opened on the Toronto Stock Exchange at the start of this week.
The contract would allow 20-40 more years of open pit copper mining across 13,000 hectares of forested land just 75 miles west of the capital, in the state of Colon. Environmentalists argue continued mining would imperil drinking water and destroy more forest.