Thus far, El Salvador has been viewed as an “outlier” – an exception to the rule – on mining policy. One is the tiny nation of El Salvador, where the government stopped issuing gold mining permits half a decade ago. They did so largely because the majority of Salvadorans get water from one large river system, and gold mining invariably pollutes nearby rivers and watersheds. (While open-pit mining is only one method of mining, it is among the most environmentally destructive.) This revised national mining policy began in 2002 with a Presidential moratorium on new open-pit mining.