Yuri Melini is Director of the Center for Environmental, Social and Legal Actions (CALAS). CALAS is an environmental organization that engages in investigations, education and community support. It seeks to protect the environment, strengthen political participation in environmental decision making and improve respect for the collective environmental rights of indigenous peoples. More specifically, CALAS has worked within the Guatemalan legal framework to demonstrate the environmental impact of mining and petroleum projects as well as to campaign against contamination of drinking water and occupation of nature reserves.

Most recently CALAS successfully petitioned the Constitutional Court to strike down aspects of the Mining Law. As CALAS had argued, the Court found that the Mining Law was unconstitutional because it did not require sufficient consideration to be given to environmental consequences of mining before a mining license was issued. The Law allowed for mining to an unlimited depth and permitted contaminated water from mines to be discharged into rivers. In overturning these aspects of the Law, the Court strengthened environmental restrictions on mining in Guatemala.