Today, the Mayor of the Cotacachi Municipality in the Imbabura Province of Ecuador, issued a formal denunciation to BHP Billiton over their mining concessions in the area, with particular concerns over their transgressions in protected reserves and conservation areas.

Mining concessions totalling 22,570 hectares were given to BHP in the Cotacachi Canton despite unanimous rejection by the population of the canton, and in direct opposition of the wishes of local council.

The EcoMinga Fundacion, an Ecuadorian conservation organisation, raised concerns to the Cotacachi Municipality on the 16th of July over BHP employees illegally trespassing onto their property  despite formal agreements with company spokespeople banning entry by employees without consent. The employees entered between the 7th and 9th of July, clearing an area of forest for a camp, which is sensitive habitat for the Rhaebo Olalai, an extremely rare Andean toad.

EcoMinga is located west of the Los Cedros Biological Reserve, and is dedicated to the conservation of the unique foothill forests, cloud forests, and alpine grasslands (“paramo”) of the Andes, especially those on the edge of the Amazon basin in east-central Ecuador and those on the super-wet western Andean slopes of the Choco region in northwest Ecuador. EcoMinga has established seven reserves in the upper Rio Pastaza watershed in east-central Ecuador between Banos and Puyo. Most of these reserves adjoin national parks, which protect higher-elevation habitats. The reserve extends protection down into the much more diverse middle and lower elevations which are not protected by national park status.

Report shows new mining concessions could severely decrease biodiversity and ecosystem services in Ecuador.

Our results reveal the potential losses that mining could cause: eight critically endangered species, including two primates (brown-headed spider monkey and white-fronted capuchin), 37 endangered species, 153 vulnerable, 89 near threatened, and a large number of less threatened species... The short-term national profits from mining will not compensate for the permanent biodiversity losses, and the long-term ecosystem service and economic losses at the local and regional level.

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Ecuador's policy of silencing NGOs that question government policies and programs has gotten the world's attention. UN experts on human rights claim it is a strategy to asphyxiate civil society.

Cuban-born Carlos Zorilla has lived for more than 35 years in Ecuador, where he is a leading activist opposing extractivism. He is the co-founder and former President of DECOIN (Defensa y Conservación Ecológica de Intag), which works to protect the environment and promote the sustainable development of the Intag Valley in North Western Ecuador.

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Activists celebrate around Yaku Perez, Ecuarunari president, on Friday night in Cuenca after a judge ruled to suspend mining activities at the Junefield Rio Blanco site. Photo: Yasunidos