Paper short abstract:

The Tongue River Valley in Montana, USA and the Río Lempa in El Salvador were valleys that fostered both resource conflict and solidarity. In both locations, farmers and ranchers worked their land for generations and knew the value of water was higher than the economic promises of gold and coal.

Paper long abstract:

In the late-twentieth and early-twenty-first centuries, farmers in Chalatenango, El Salvador organized to ban metal mining in their communities and eventually the entire nation, becoming the first country in the world to put an outright ban on all mining exploration and exploitation. Around the same time, approximately 4,000 kilometers to the north, rural ranchers in Montana, USA fought coal development along the Tongue River Valley by preventing the construction of a coal-hauling railroad along the Tongue River on the eastern border of the Northern Cheyenne reservation. Both of these stories were the result of over three decades of grassroots organizing that relied heavily on forming strategic relationships on multiple levels. Using oral history, traditional archival research, and private archives, this paper unpacks the layers and complexities of these relationships. From neighbors talking to neighbors, to communities partnering with communities, to transnational solidarity that crossed many politically-charged borders, each alliance brought with it a new set of power dynamics and tensions, while also playing a key role in the successful prevention of large-scale mining projects.