Peasant fights mining giant over land

With her straw hat and peasant dress, Maxima does not look like the type to take on a global mining giant. But as she gazes out from her small house in the Peruvian highlands, she is adamant: This is her land.

Maxima Acuna de Chaupe lives with her husband, four children and a son- and daughter-in-law on a small farm that sits on land where Yanacocha, a subsidiary of US mining giant Newmont, wants to expand South America's largest open-pit gold mine.

The firm is facing widespread opposition to the $4.8 billion gold and copper mining project from the local community and the regional government of Cajamarca in northern Peru. Opponents say an expansion would put the water supply at risk. Maxima, 48, has become the face of the resistance.