Alyansa Tigil Mina

Description

Alyansa Tigil Mina, ATM, is a Philippine coalition that campaigns against large-scale mining and its effects on communities and the environment.

It brings together non-government organizations, people’s organizations, church groups and academic institutions, acting as both an advocacy group and a people’s movement. It works in solidarity to protect Filipino communities and natural resources threatened by large-scale mining operations. The coalition began meeting in 2004, in response to government plans to revitalize the mining industry.

ATM calls for scrapping the Philippine Mining Act of 1995 and passing an alternative people’s mining act, for revoking the executive order that promotes large-scale mining, and for a nationwide moratorium on large-scale mining operations. It takes part in campaigns for environmental protection and indigenous peoples’ rights, and promotes alternatives such as agroforestry, ecotourism, fisheries and coastal resource development, and community-based small-scale mining. It is not opposed to mining as such, but to foreign-controlled, export-oriented large-scale mining and to the weakening of safeguards such as free, prior and informed consent.