El Salvador's legislature overturned a seven-year-old ban on metals mining on Monday, a move that President Nayib Bukele had pushed for to boost economic growth, but that environmental groups had opposed.

El Salvador's Congress approved Monday a law that would lift the country’s seven-year-old ban on mining for metals. The law, proposed by President Nayib Bukele and passed on a 57 to 3 vote, would allow mining everywhere except nature reserves and sensitive watersheds.

The country banned mining in 2017, a move Bukele called “absurd”: His party holds 57 out of 60 seats and overturned the ban easily. After transforming El Salvador’s security situation in his first term — his draconian anti-gang policies locked up 2% of the population with little regard for human rights,