New petition: stop the Ariana mining project

A copper and zinc mining project planned for the central highlands of Peru is a disaster in the making for Lima. The desert city’s water supply is already under extreme stress.

Though the diggers haven’t started yet, Santander Bank made a $100 million loan to the owner in 2025, and construction could soon begin.

This is reckless corporate greed.

But if we pile on our support for the local water campaign, we can still get Santander to stop this dangerous project before it’s too late. The Spanish bank spends hundreds of millions on marketing around the world, and won’t want to be associated with a drinking water disaster.

Santander: it stops here. Use your influence to stop the Ariana mining project.

The Ariana mining project is planned for the heart of the Marcapomacocha water system, the main source of water for Lima’s 11 million inhabitants.

Brave local activists have resisted the mining project for years, including legal actions that have gone all the way to Peru’s highest court. But the mining company, Alpayana, says it’s still eager to press ahead. And with Santander’s $100 million loan, that’s not an empty threat.

It’s not an isolated case – Europe’s banks and investors are investing billions in mining companies linked to land grabs, pollution and human rights violations around the world. Apologists say that projects like Ariana could supply metals needed for the energy transition. But you won’t find them lining up to offer their own drinking water supply or their home for so-called “green growth”.

Another world is possible.

Sign the petition to tell Santander: use your influence to stop the Ariana mining project.

For more than a decade, we’ve rallied behind frontline communities resisting mining projects that threaten their homes, their livelihoods, and the places they hold sacred. We’ve supported Indigenous and farming communities in Guerrero, Mexico, we piled-on to help save the salmon from the Pebble Mine in Alaska, and we helped drive a wedge between banks like Standard Chartered and the monstrous Carmichael coal mine in Australia.

Let’s lend a hand in solidarity with Lima, and turn the bank’s marketing slogan back at them: Santander, it stops here.

Sign the petition here