Another Canadian Mining Company in Honduras: Glen Eagle Resources Begins Operations in Choluteca

Glen Eagle Resources, a Canadian mining company, has announced it will begin operations in southern Honduras. Glen Eagle will be operating a gold processing plant in a free trade zone (Industrial Mining Park or Parque Industrial Minero in Spanish) in the city of Choluteca. The plant will be used to process rock removed from a mine in San Juan Arriba, El Corpus (and potentially other mines in the area) by two local cooperatives.

Photo caption: The Catholic church in El Corpus that overlooks the town plaza.

The Industrial Mining Park legislation in Culculmeca was approved by the Honduran Congress and published in the official Gaceta on September 11, 2014. The Industrial Park is a public-private partnership managed by Comission for the Promotion of Public-Private Alliances (COALIANZA), the Honduran Institute of Geology and Mines (INGEOMIN), and the Secretary of Energy, Natural Resources, the Environment, and Mines (SERNA).

Photo caption: A statue of a miner stands in the central plaza of El Corpus representing the long history of mining in the area. The golden crocodile built under the statue represents a local legend that a golden crocodile lives under the town's Church in the tunnels mined by the Spanish in the 1800s.

El Corpus has a long history of artisanal mining and is currently the site of at least two other mines run by foreign companies. In July 2014, eleven local miners were trapped inside the Culculmeca mine in the community of San Juan Arriba, El Corpus. Three miners were rescued and eight lost their lives. Shortly after the incident, the local and national government imposed a ban on artisanal mining in the area and militarized the area preventing many of the locals from entering the mines. This caused discontent and outrage from local citizens who have long depended on mining as their source of income and employment.

Photo caption: New York-based Mustang Alliances currently operates an open-pit gold mine in El Corpus, Honduras. Residents have expressed concern about the contamination of the mine and its close proximity to the municipality's town center.