what we do
We say no to mining. We bringing frontline voices to global prominence, since 2017, Yes to Life No to Mining (YLNM) has collaborated on a number of different campaign and research efforts highlighting the critical need for post-extractive solutions to the climate and ecological crises we face.YLNM exists as a network of and for those communities, organisations and networks that share a commitment to:
- Supporting the right of communities affected or potentially affected by mining, to self-determination, to define their own development pathway and to Free Prior Informed Consent, including the Right to Say No to mining and to hold referendums, popular consultations or other democratic participation mechanisms that legitimate their opinion and decision.
- Supporting both locally rooted and global, systemic alternatives to mining and extractivism, and fostering connections between these alternatives.
- Engaging in peaceful, strictly non-violent means activism and advocacy.
- Fostering equitable, conscious bonds of solidarity across geographies.
- Being conscious that we are all part of nature and of Earth’s planetary boundaries.
Recognising that:
- Extractivism, driven by the unsustainable consumption of rich nations, the world’s elites and global addiction to economic (GDP) growth, is expanding a pattern of ecological, economic and social harm across our living planet and widening the inequality gap.
- Those most at risk of harm from extractivism are frontline communities in the Global South and also, increasingly, the North, who´s rights are at risk, as well as the ecosystems that sustain life on Earth.
- Our struggles and alternatives are connected in a systemic web.
Together, we seek to::
- Support and connect frontline communities through solidarity, networking and exchange initiatives, to strengthen their resistance to extractivism.
- Offer dialogue spaces and platforms for cross-fertilization of strategies, successful stories, bottlenecks, challenges and lessons learnt amongst local communities and key stakeholders
- Challenge the rarely questioned narrative that extractive expansion = progress and development.
- Encourage initiatives, at multiple levels, that look to take us ‘beyond extractivism’, as resource limits loom and impacts multiply.
