A window into what we’re reading at the Stimson Center’s Environmental Security Program

Race for Copper Damages Protected Region in Colombia (Mongabay)

As Colombia looks to meet the growing demand for strategic minerals, activists working in the department of Choco allege that the country’s only industrial copper mine is harming both the environment and a local community. The El Roble copper mine has operated since 1990 at the base of a valley crossed by the Atrato River, but its acquisition by Canadian multinational Atico Mining in 2013 has meant that daily production has doubled from 400 to 1,000 metric tons over the past 12 years. El Roble also lacks the environmental license required by Colombia’s Mining Code, and continues to operate under a less stringent 1987 environmental management plan, which activists say omits required environmental impact studies.

After violence decimated El Carmen’s agricultural sector in the 1990s and 2000s, El Roble became the primary employer in the region. Local residents say its monopoly allows it to pay low wages, impose short-term 3-month contracts, and dismiss union members under restructuring claims. The mine also has wreaked environmental havoc on the Atrato, where activists and NGOs allege that the mine has contaminated the river in at least six documented incidents since 2009. Residents also report they can no longer fish or swim without developing rashes, and fish catches have dropped from 50 per outing to five or six in today’s conditions.

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Mexico’s Amparo Reform Deals a Blow to Climate Activists (Foreign Policy)

Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum passed legislation in October 2025 compromising the amparo—a constitutional protection tool that allows citizens to suspend unconstitutional government actions. These reforms limit amparos as a remedy for direct and immediate personal injury, rather than to address broader constitutional rights, including a healthy environment. Legal scholars view the amparo reform as part of a broader authoritarian consolidation by the Morena party. The new measures follow judicial reforms imposed in President Andrés Manuel López Obrador’s final weeks in office that weakened judges’ ability to check executive and legislative branches.

Under the new rules, when a Supreme Court recently awarded an amparo to an environmental organization arguing state air quality laws weren’t strict enough, the district judge could only order the complainants themselves not to drive on certain days rather than ordering the state to rewrite its laws. The reforms effectively end a provision that was the “heart of Mexico’s judicial system,” and provided the foundation for milestone decisions like 2021 abortion decriminalization. It also has gutted activists’ ability to challenge destructive policies and projects directly through the courts.

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China’s Investments Drive Inequality in Kyrgyzstan’s Borderlands (The Diplomat)

Throughout 2024, China invested $286.5 million in Kyrgyzstan. Yet while that nation’s capital Bishkek and its surrounding Chui region received 57% of total investment, its border regions received minimal investment. Major projects in Chui and Bishkek have included a number of significant sums that have boosted employment and local value chains: a $167.95 million refinery overhaul, $115 million car plant, $95 million waste incineration plant, and $482 million trade/logistics city.

Yet the concentration in the capital region perpetuates marginality elsewhere in Kyrgyzstan. Border regions with China received much less money, concentrated mostly in border crossings in Naryn ($4.2 million), Issyk-Kul ($1.1 million), and Osh ($24.8 million). Despite official development narratives, these regions also exhibit persistently high poverty rates with projects tied to extractive sectors such as mining or transit infrastructure. The gap in funding maintains limited efforts to integrate local economies into regional value chains, when greater investment is key to closing structural regional inequalities.

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