Welcome to Business Daily from the BBC World Service. I'm Jane Chambers. Today we're in Panama to hear about the impact of the sudden closure of Colbert-Panama, a huge open-pit copper mine deep in a tropical rainforest.

The Canadian Mining Company, First Quantum Minerals, has invested $10 billion in the mine,

and it accounts for more than 1% of the world's copper production.

The copper is exported for further processing, and once refined, is used for things like cables, wiring,

wind turbines and electric vehicles.

The abrupt closure of the mine has been a disaster for Panama because it's generated a lot of jobs, not just for people in the surrounding communities, but for many regions across the country.

The mine started extracting copper in 2019 after years of construction.

It's estimated that the mine had a 34-year lifespan for copper production.

But in November 2003, the Supreme Court in Panama ruled that a further 20-year concession

granted to the mine to operate was unconstitutional and ordered the closure of the mine

after weeks of intensive protests across the country, spearheaded by environmental activists.

The future of Panama isn't from mining. The future of Panama is its biodiversity,

which the country, the region and the world needs to benefit from.

We'll hear why so many people in the country turned against a mine,

how that's affected the country's economy and its reputation in the business community,

and also the difficulties involved in ordering a mine to close with changing governments without any warning.

That's all coming up in Business Daily.

During October, November, 2023, protesters blocked the Pan American Highway and other major roads,

causing fuel and food shortages across the Central American Highway and other major roads, causing fuel and food shortages across

the Central American country of Panama.

Riza Banfield, architect and environmental activists, was involved in the demonstrations

from the beginning.

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