Panama’s Donoso Mine Audit Report Exposes Future Risks and Weaknesses in the Environment
Environmental non-compliance, labor weaknesses, and risks associated with safety, water management, biodiversity, and relations with communities are noted.
The final independent audit of the Cobre Panamá mine in Donoso, conducted by Swiss firm SGS, found the project roughly 88% compliant with its environmental and operational obligations. However, it exposed significant future risks and environmental weaknesses particularly acid rock drainage, tailings dam stability, and biodiversity management leaving the mine’s future highly contested. The comprehensive review that assessed 370 commitments from 2019 to 2023, pinpointed specific vulnerabilities that require immediate corrective action if the operation is ever to resume:
- Acid Rock Drainage (ARD): Auditors detected exposed medium and low-grade ore without processing. Contact with local climatic conditions creates a real threat of ARD formation, posing a severe hazard to nearby surface and groundwater.
- Tailings Dam Stability: Long-term structural integrity remains a key concern, requiring constant monitoring to avoid eventual structural failures.
- Ecological Restoration & Biodiversity: The report identified notable shortcomings in reforestation planning, cumulative impact mitigation, and general habitat rehabilitation within the massive concession.
- Administrative Oversight: Auditors highlighted the need for stronger, more synchronized administrative controls and transparent data integration to continuously track environmental non-conformances.
Despite these environmental liabilities, government officials noted the findings contained no “insurmountable structural failures,” giving a boost to First Quantum Minerals and prompting hopes for an eventual negotiated restart. Nevertheless, the Mulino administration maintains that the report is just a technical input for future planning, as significant public and civil society opposition to reopening the mine remains.
Aerial photograph of the Minera Panamá project, a subsidiary of the Canadian company First Quantum Minerals (FQM), in Donoso, Panama
The audit conducted by SGS determined that the Cobre Panamá mining project complies with 87.73 points of the analyzed commitments; however, environmental non-compliance, labor weaknesses, and risks associated with safety, water management, biodiversity, and relations with communities were noted.
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