The community of Brisas de Tramade is a 30-minute drive from Puerto Cortes, the most important shipping port in Honduras. Travelers can reach it on CA-5, the major highway between San Pedro Sula and Puerto Cortes, but there are no clear signs for the turnoff. Instead, you must be on the lookout for signs to a sawmill owned by Tramade, a Central American logging company.
Francisco Rivera, a community leader, told America that the village was originally named Brisas del Mar (“sea breezes”), but as the sawmill expanded, it came to be known as Brisas de Tramade—a reflection, he said, of how extractive industries like sawmills and mines have come to define life in the region.
Brisas de Tramade made national news in Honduras in May after several community members blocked the entrance to a limestone mine owned by Agrecasa, a subsidiary of American Aggregates LLC, a U.S. mining conglomerate, according to a 2017 report from the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative. What started as a temporary blockade became a resistance camp that has been running 24/7 since then. America traveled to Brisas de Tramade to learn more about the community demands.
A bad neighbor
According to an analysis of government documents by the Center for Democracy Studies (Cespad), a think tank that tracks environmental conflicts in Honduras, Agrecasa’s environmental license to operate the mine, which extracts limestone for export to the United States, expired in May 2024. But Pablo Sánchez, a local church and community leader, said the Agrecasa mine continued to operate—that is, up until the blockade began.
“At first, the company claimed it was only transporting material already extracted,” Mr. Sánchez said. “But when loaded trucks kept leaving weeks later, we knew the mine was still active.” In response, community members marched to the site, blocking the main road to the port. Local police violently suppressed the protest, and several demonstrators were injured.
“In 2024, we were peacefully demanding the mine’s permanent closure. But the police showed up with hundreds of officers and started beating us up,” Mr. Sánchez remembered. “They beat up one of my elder neighbors so badly that I thought he might die.”
In response to the conflict, the government announced an interagency commission to assess the environmental impact of the Agrecasa mine and make a recommendation on its license renewal.
The Honduran health ministry report on the community conditions, which was analyzed by Cespad and shared with America, documented cases of hearing loss, skin conditions, respiratory illnesses and mental health disorders like anxiety related to the mine. The mine is located among several communities and its waste and run-off is directly affecting local water resources, according to the report, “making it incompatible with public health in the affected communities.” The ministry concludes that the mine should not be allowed to operate in such close proximity to residential neighborhoods.
Another government agency reported that the mine’s use of ANFO (ammonium nitrate and fuel oil) led to elevated concentrations of toxic gases, compromising air quality. The report also links mine operations to excessive noise pollution and significant structural damage to nearby homes because of repeated blasting. Retention ponds meant to hold waste water and sediment from the open pit mining process are permeable, and toxic runoff leaches into the Sapadril River during the rainy season.
A final decision from the Honduran environmental ministry is still pending, but in April, Agrecasa announced that it planned to resume operations, explaining that according to its reading of Honduran law, a company could continue to operate in the absence of an outright permit denial from the government.
Community leaders rejected this interpretation, launching the round-the-clock blockade of trucks to the mine. “They polluted the Sapadril Creek, the Tramade Creek and the Medina River,” Mr. Sánchez said. “Can you imagine how much pollution there might be after almost 20 years of dumping waste directly into the water?”
He called ANFO “a very powerful and highly polluting explosive.” People in the community, he said, “get sick from drinking the water and from chemicals released into the air. You see a lot of children with skin reactions.”
A diverse camp
Dilcia Madrid usually comes to the blockade camp at night with her husband Mr. Rivera, who heads the community’s water council. She appreciates how the camp has brought people from all the community’s different churches together to sing and pray. Brisas de Tramade’s teenagers also join in, playing cards or listening to music, staying as late as they can on school nights before heading home.
Supporters from several Catholic parishes from nearby villages have visited the camp and brought food to the demonstrators. Her evangelical Protestant church is planning a prayer service at the blockade soon.
The Most Rev. Jenry Ruiz, who leads the Diocese of Trujillo in northern Honduras, a region that endures its own share of conflicts over care of creation, sent a video expressing his solidarity with the community members at the camp, reminding the faithful and people of good will that life must come before money.
Ms. Madrid appreciates the diversity of people coming together to fight for the environment. “We have Catholics, evangelicals and everyone. It hasn’t been easy, especially staying here at night. But our water is drying up and people are getting sick. And you can’t live without water, even if you have work from the mine for a while.”
“God has been merciful with us. This fight is not only for the Catholics or the evangelicals, it’s for all of us.”
“Sometimes I get scared,” she added. “But speaking the truth is not a sin. We live here and we know what we have been through. As Christians, no matter what church you go to, we need to come together and fight for our community.”
“I’ve stopped washing my hair so often because it started falling off from the water being so polluted. I know it’s happening to other friends. We must keep speaking up, together,” she said.
She and her husband live right across from the mining site. She told America that mine operations normally run day and night. The blasting and vibrations from the constant detonations are cracking the walls of her home. Because of the community blockade, her family has been able to sleep well at night, free of noise, for the first time in many months. They want to keep it that way.
“We don’t want the mine in the community,” she said, adding that Honduran President Xiomara Castro “could help us” by shutting down the mine. “I worry about the children. What are we leaving them?” she said.
“We can’t leave this camp until the mine is closed. I don’t want the next generation to be poor and sick.”
50 days of resistance
The blockade reached 50 days of around-the-clock resistance on June 11. That milestone is especially meaningful in Honduras, the most lethal country in the world for environmental defenders in 2023, according to Global Witness’s “Missing Voices” investigation.
Last September, Juan López, a prominent Honduran church leader and environmental activist, was killed after speaking out against organized crime and mining projects in Tocoa, a city in Bishop Ruiz’s diocese. Almost nine months after his murder, a court in San Pedro Sula ordered a postponement until August for a preliminary hearing for the three men suspected in the assassination, throwing the investigation into doubt.
Ismael “Melo” Moreno, S.J., told America that only continuing public pressure will move the prosecutor’s office to action in the López murder. “For some sectors in this country, politics and power are more important than justice,” Father Moreno said. “That’s why impunity continues to grow, and, with it, the country becomes more dangerous for environmental defenders.”
Back at the resistance camp, Mr. Sánchez is keenly aware of the danger. “We are alive only through the grace of God,” he said. “At one point, I got messages saying someone had offered 1 million lempiras [$38,000] to have me killed. That’s why it’s so important that [America] came to visit us. The more people know about us and our fight, the safer we will feel. We want people from all faiths to walk with us.”
The legacy of Pope Francis
Mr. Sánchez said that his environmental activism is constantly inspired by Pope Francis. He has joined workshops and training on Francis’ ecological legacy sponsored by the Jesuit-run think tank ERIC-SJ in El Progreso, Honduras, and by the Honduran Catholic Ecology Commission, a group of dioceses advocating for a more focused environmental approach by the church.
“Pope Francis’ ‘Laudato Si’’’ gave us the language of the ‘common home,’ which was very helpful for engaging with my local church group. We combined it with a [Catholic Action] model we’ve been using for years: See, judge and act.”
Mr. Sánchez recalled that it was the same method employed by Juan López, whom he had met a week before he was killed. “He saw the environmental harms in his community, asked questions to figure out the causes and spoke against injustice. I’m trying to do the same in this camp, hand in hand with people of all faiths, or as Francis said, all those of good will,” Mr. Sánchez said.
“Faith is about uniting people,” Mr. Rivera said. “When we started the camp, others would ask us: ‘How are you going to defeat that giant [corporation]?’ I just remind them about the story of David and Goliath. Saul first looked for the bravest fighters, but none of them could defeat Goliath. But then David, whom no one expected to win, defeated the giant. That’s who we are—David against a giant, and we’ll defeat it. Together,” Mr. Rivera said.
Fighting the Agrecasa mine is just the beginning, Mr. Rivera said. He hopes the Tramade sawmill will be next. In his mind, this community will always be Brisas del Mar, a name he hopes one day to restore.
