Protest in Ecuador over UNESCO Biosphere Reserve threatened by SolGold, BHP and other miners
Yesterday marked 60 days of protest against mining for people in the Parish of Pacto in Ecuador. In December, the Pacto parish declared an indefinite protest, arguing that mining activity threatens the biodiversity and water sources of the Chocó Andino reserve, home to the endangered Andean Bear.
One of the incredible amphibian species of the Choco Andino Biosphere Reserve
UNESCO added the Chocó Andino reserve to its list of Biosphere Reserves in 2018. The reserve covers 286,000 hectares of the Chocó Andino, and represents around a third of the Province of Pichincha, of which the parish Pacto is a part. The cloudforest is home to around 350 bird species, hundreds of orchids and bromelias, and 100 species of mammals, including the spectacled bear.
In 2011, the Quito Metropolitan Board declared Pacto’s micro-river basins be protected due to their importance for ecosystems in the area, explicitly prohibiting mining and drilling activities. However, in 2018 a number of mining concessions in the area were handed out.
"The Chocó Andino Reserve is now surrounded by dozens of mining concessions, and illegal mining is encroaching within the reserve. Community organisations say that mining is threatening the water sources of the reserve," says Rebekah Hayden, a writer and researcher for the Rainforest Action Group, an advocay and research group.
"SolGold subsidiary Valle Rico Resources holds several concessions around the Reserve, including two in neighbouring province Esmeraldas. BHP's Sabeleta concessions are just to the north of the Pichincha border, while Ecuador state company ENAMI is exploring on concessions within the Reserve area," says Rebekah Hayden.
"Sources in Pacto tell us that Gina Rinehart’s Ecuador subsidiary Hanrine has put in a bid for two concessions in the Pichincha province – Lorena 2 and 3, which are expected to be accepted once the mining cadaster opens again in April," says Rebekah Hayden.The Reserve includes nine Protected Forests, the Andean Bear Ecological Corridor, three Conservation and Sustainable Use Areas, multiple private reserves and a National Park: the Pululahua Geobotanical Reserve.
UNESCO map showing Choco Andino Biosphere Reserve
In October 2020, the Metropolitan Board passed a resolution to support conservation in the area, but Pacto communities say mining exploration is continuing regardless, and is contaminating the Reserve.
Elcomercio reports conservation groups as saying mining is “not compatible with the biodiversity of the area, nor with the sustainable production that is part of the management plan for these areas. They pointed out the use of dynamite and other explosive materials, the contamination of the water, the fragmentation of the communities, the damage to the landscape”.
On December 18 2020, the Parish of Pacto declared the protest, demanding the departure of the three mining companies operating their concessions in the sector, and calling for greater control of illegal mining activities by authorities.
"Illegal mining has proliferated in Ecuador since the expansion of legal mining concessions, with illegal mining operations increasingly run by armed militia connected to cocaine cartels and ex-FARC dissidents. In January 2020, police uncovered an illegal mining operation in Pacto, which contaminated the area with hazardous wastes, while hydrocarbons, dynamite and materials for mining were seized," says Rebekah Hayden.
"Resistance to mining projects across Ecuador is growing with a popular consultation on February 7 in Cuenca showing 80% of the population wants to prohibit large and medium- scale mining activities in their river water recharge zones," says Rebekah Hayden.
"The consultation is expected to form the basis of a major legal challenge at the Constitutional Court level and could halt the development of mining projects in the region. SolGold project El Cisne 1A is in the Cuenca province," says Rebekah Hayden.
Google Earth map showing Pacto and all mining concessions outlined in red. SolGold concessions are shaded in green. Dark green shaded areas indicate Protected Forests. Compare with UNESCO map above showing Biosphere Reserve which covers much of the Pacto Parish.
Australian concessions within Pichincha province: Fortescue: Santa Ana 1, 2a SolGold: El Decanso 1b; San Miguel 1,2,3,4
Closest Australian concessions to Pacto: BHP: Sabeleta 3,4 in Imbabura province SolGold: Aurora 1,2 in province of Esmeraldas
Llurimagua case for endemic species looks set to be lost by the Ecuadorian Ministry of the Environment in significant blow to plans for mining in the area
A case for protecting endemic species at the planned Llurimagua mine site had another win last week when Carmen Jaramillo Cevallos, Judge of the Multicompetent Judicial Unit of the Cotacachi canton, issued her full judgment on the case.
Contamination from exploration. Image credit: Carlos Zorrilla
The Constitutional Injunction was brought against the Ecuadorian Ministry of the Environment and the State Attorney General in August out of concerns that the rights of nature enshrined in Articles 71 and 73 of Ecuador’s Constitution of the Republic would be seriously impacted by mining activities within the Llurimagua concession in north-western Ecuador’s biodiverse cloud forests.
In a preliminary ruling released on September 24, the judge had ruled that the Ministry of the Environment had failed to protect endemic and critically endangered species on the Llurimagua mining concession, and gave the Ministry of the Environment 90 days to solve omissions and irregularities detailed by the Nation's Comptroller General in its March 2019 report.
If these are not remedied in the timeframe, environmental licenses on the concession will be revoked. Additionally, the court decreed that the process must be overseen and validated by the Municipal government, a University and the Public Defender's Office (Ombudsman).
“The measures [that must be complied with] include things that will be technically impossible to remedy, given that one of the most important irregularities was that the Ministry of the Environment approved the environmental license in 2014 without proper or sufficient baseline information – including not having a valid information from a meteorological station,” says Carlos Zorrilla, a founder of DECOIN and one of the petitioners in the case.
“They may install a meteorological station in the area now, but it takes years of data collecting to validate the information. It will be technically impossible for them to comply – especially with the civil society oversight,” Carlos Zorrilla says.
BHP and Gina Rinehart’s Ecuador subsidiary Hanrine have both been slated as likely buyers of the government-owned mining company’s share in the Llurimagua concession. The difficulty of meeting the measures in the required time will almost certainly mean the environmental permits for Llurimagua will be revoked, and makes any mining plans for the area increasingly unlikely.
The full ruling released on October 22 states that Nature has intrinsic rights that are completely independent to human or civil rights; that these rights were violated when the State did not control mining activities in the Llurimagua concessions; that the Ministry did not take into account adequate protection for species in danger of extinction; and that the judicial protection was also violated.
“The judgement states that while the destruction of a few trees or a couple of the last remaining frogs of a certain species may not be significant from the public interest perspective, it is certainly significant to those specific species,” Carlos Zorrilla says.
The ruling would also pave the way for other similar cases to halt mining activities in areas where endemic species are found. Ecuador’s high rate of endemism means this could apply to most of the country.
Australian mining companies BHP, Newcrest, SolGold, Fortescue and Hancock Prospecting, who all have subsidiaries in Ecuador, had hoped to take advantage of a pro-mining government eager for international investment, despite an overwhelming majority of Ecuadorians who do not want mining to take place in forested areas, on indigenous territory or near urban areas.
Another Rights of Nature case was heard at the Ecuadorian Constitutional Court on October 19 arguing that the country’s system of legally ‘Protected Forests’ should receive increased protection from mining based on the threats to fragile ecosystems and endangered species.
Again, a key argument in this case is that nature has intrinsic and inviolable rights, which Ecuador’s Constitution is unique in enshrining. A positive ruling would not only protect Reserva Los Cedros from mining, but could provide a precedent to safeguard all 186 Protected Forests in Ecuador, totalling some 2.4 million hectares (6 million acres).
Mining concessions currently cover over 800,000 hectares of Protected Forests in Ecuador, with Australian and Canadian mining companies holding the largest share.
“These Ecuador cases have implications internationally, with many several Indigenous and community groups in Australia currently looking to explore legislation to give rights or legal personhood to, and protect, the intrinsic value of rivers, waterways and other natural features,” says Liz Downes, a member of Rainforest Action Group, an advocacy and research organisation.
“Legislation based on legal personhood principles gave additional protection to Yarra River (Birrarung) in Victoria in 2017, by empowering its Wurundjeri Traditional Owners. Other rights of nature cases being explored include the Great Barrier Reef, the Fitzroy River and the Murray-Darling river system,” says Liz Downes.
A major Australian company has reportedly put in a US$420 million offer for the controversial Codelco-ENAMI Llurimagua project in the Intag region of Ecuador according to mineral expert lawyer.
Minerals expert lawyer Stevie Gamboa Valladares said in Prensa Minera on April 10: "Llurimagua is a mining project located near the Intag forest, an area of enormous conflict. It is a strategic alliance between the National Mining Company of Ecuador ENAMI and CODELCO, which is the National Copper Corporation of Chile. This project, which is part of a binational agreement, has been suspended for several months as both countries have failed to define the appropriate conditions for their alliance and association."
Twenty three reasons why Codelco should stay out of Intag
This then, is an attempt to draw attention to some of the hurdles Codelco, or any mining company, would face if they tried to open up a mine in Intag.
Cloudforest. Image credit: Carlos Zorilla
Studies and more Studies
To justify their existence in certain projects, mining companies, when they can afford it, hire hot-shot NGO’s to carry out interviews and studies to ascertain popular perception on mining, identify key players, and confirm that they are loved. Then they actually go ahead and base their decisions on the study’s results! Even though they know they are lies at worst, or at best, written to please the funders. As if an area’s complexity and attitudes could be studied in a few days or weeks.
A Brand New Century
If there’s anyone interested in investing in Intag’s mining project reading this, you probably know- or should know- as all responsible mining companies can attest to (as well as key players like the World Bank), that support from the Executive Branch of government is not nearly enough guarantee a project’s success. You need genuine (not manufactured or self-delusional) social license issued freely, without pressures or intimidation. In fact, national government support is no guarantee at all the project will succeed. So, do NOT bank on the government’s enthusiastic endorsement. You’ll lose. Big time.
I am positive that if most INVESTORS were find out about all the risks and obstacles facing mining in this corner of Ecuador, they would pull out.
This, then, is one more attempt to try to inform of the reality behind the lies and distortions being generated around the Junín mining project, and just 21 of the reasons why this project, as BN Americas pointed out, is bound to fail (click here).
IMPACTS
Equipment installed in Junin by Codelco.
A. Based on the Bishi Metals Environmental Impact Assessment of mining in Intag, and on a small (450,000 ton) copper mine (a couple of years later they inferred the existence of 5x more copper)
1. Intag is no like the Atacama desert, where Codelco has its copper mines. Besides being super biodiverse, there are communities all over the place. According to the Study, the mining project would relocate hundreds of families from four communities. Afterwards, the Japanese found more five times more copper, which could increase the number of communities affected by two- at the very least. Relocation of communities is more than enough to stop most extractive projects.
2. It would impact primary cloud forests. What’s so special about cloud forests? Less than 2.5% of the world’s tropical forests are cloud forests. They are not only exceptionally biologically diverse- as well as severely threatened- but they play an outsize role in protecting important headwater watersheds.
3. The project would cause massive deforestation (in the words of the experts preparing the Study). The small mine would directly impact 4,025 hectares.
4. The deforestation, according to the Japanese, would lead to drying of local climate, affecting thousands of small farmers (the EIA used the word desertification). You think communities will let this happen once they truly get the picture???
A rare frog from the Intag region. Image credit: Carlos Zorilla
5. Intag’s forests belong to the world’s top Biodiversity Hotspot; the Tropical Andes. The scientist working on the study identified 12 species of mammals and birds facing extinction that would be impacted by the project, including jaguars, spectacled bears, mountain tapirs and the brown-faced spider monkey. (Based on incomplete studies, Decoin identified more than 30 species of threatened or endangered plants and animals, and there could be dozens more).
Every year new species are found in Ecuador’s cloud forests, and this includes the spectacular Prince Charles frog, as well as the only carnivore discovered in the Western Hemisphere in the last 35 years. In addition, the area has several other endemic species, such as the recently discovered Shape-shifting frog (Pristimantis mutabilis), and the Black-breasted Puffleg Hummingbird, which exists in only two patches of high altitude cloud forests- one of them located in Intag.
6. There are pristine rivers and streams everywhere within the concession. The EIA predicted they would be contaminated with lead, arsenic, chromium, cadmium and other toxic substances.
7. The project would, unquestionably, destroy pre-Incan Yumbo archeological sites. This is one of the least studied cultures in Ecuador.
8. It would impact the Cotacachi-Capayas Ecological Reserve (one of the world’s most biologically diverse protected areas and the only large one in all of western Ecuador).
Besides these very worrying impacts identified in the Study (for a mine a fraction of what it could end up being)… there are other significant hurdles.
B. Legal hassles
9. Large-scale mining would violate the legally-binding Cotacachi County Ecological Ordinance created in 2000. Only the Constitutional Tribunal can rule on the validity of the Ordinance in light of the new Constitution. And the Tribunal has not.
10. Ecuador’s new Constitution demands that communities be consulted before any project impacting their social or natural environment takes place; a Constitutional guarantee that has been disregarded from day one. The Constitution also grants nature rights, and the people right to Sumak Kawsay, or a Good Life (also translatable as Harmonious Life) . Good luck trying to convince a decent government and world opinion that open pit mining will not violate these two fundamental rights (no matter how obscenely the government decides to define the indigenous concept of a “Good Life”). Just because a government does its best to distort the Constitution does not mean a future one will do the same.
Waning political support
11. One of the things the government likes to underline is that it has the area´s political support. As of February 2014 this is no longer true, as the president’s party, Alianza País, lost badly in local government elections in Imbabura province, site of the mining project. In fact, Imbabura was one of the provinces where Mr. Correa’s party lost more municipalities (5 out of 6) than anywhere else in the country. One of those Municipalities is the Cotacachi, which encompasses the Llurimagua mining concession. The new Mayor, Jomar Cevallos, is firmly opposed to mining.
Protests in the capital, Quito. Image credit: Carlos Zorilla
C. Opposition
There is widespread opposition to the Intag mining project. This includes:
12. The Parish township governments the concession is located at, plus County-wide indigenous and campesino organizations. The new threat has actually mobilized more organization at the local, county and national level, than ever before.
Community Opposition. Most communities surrounding the mining project are still, after all these years, opposed to the project. Eighteen years of resistance has honed their skill in resisting (the right to resist is now a right protected by the Constitution). In fact, on November 2013 the government tried to carry out an environmental impact study were stopped by the communities- in spite of heavy police presence, and military in the area..
D. Human Rights
13. After years of stopping dozens of attempts by government and private companies of accessing the mining concession that overlap communal land in order to carry out the environmental impact study and begin exploration, the government and Codelco only succeeded in carrying out the study in May of 2014 with the help of hundreds of police that terrorized the area for two months and violated rights, such as the right to freely circulate. To intensify the intimidation, a month earlier Javier Ramírez, president of the Junín community was arrested and jailed under highly irregular circumstances, which have been denounced by human rights organizations such as Amnesty International, and The International Human Rights Federation, as well as several national human rights groups. Javier was released after being sentenced in February of 2015 but only after serving 10 months in jail. His brother Victor Hugo remains in hiding accused of sabotage, the same criminal offense as his brother, for putting up resistance to the presence of Enami employees in their territory.
14. 90% of NGO’s in Cotacachi County and Intag oppose the project. In late 2012, the most important civil society organizations in Intag wrote a letter to Chile’s president to make sure he understood that the organizations would again rise to defend the area if Codelco or anyone went ahead and tried to revive the project. .
Looking at contaminated waterfalls. Image credit: Carlos Zorilla
E. Exaggerated Copper Claims
15. In 2007, Micon International, the entity contracted by Ascendant Copper to evaluate the Junin copper deposit, said that it could not confirm their earlier estimates due to degradation of samples. Copper Mesa had been saying all along that the Junin copper deposit had four times more copper than what the Japanese inferred after years of exploration. In all, 2.26 million tons were inferred by the Japanese, which is a little less than 1/10th of what the world consumes annually (and it would take decades to mine it all out).
The pristine waters of Intag, under threat. Image credit: Carlos Zorilla
F. Further environmental challenges
16. The area receives between 3000 and 4000 millimeters of annual rainfall. Heavy rainfall, abundant underground aquifers, and heavy metals in the ore make for a deadly mix. Not only that, but they raise the price of mining considerably, while greatly increasing the risks of man-made disasters, such as landslides. For an idea of what a landslide can do in an open pit mine, go here:
17. The ore contains toxic heavy metals and sulfur (which will cause Acid Mine Drainage).
18. There is a superabundance of underground water (according to Japanese EIA). This is bad news for mining companies and even worse news for the environment.
19. The area where they found the copper is exceptionally steep and mountainous, making mining much more difficult and expensive than most mines.
20. There are clear indications that Junín’s copper is very deep, making mining much more environmentally destructive and economically risky. Emphasis on Economically risky.
21. The Toisan Range has many geological faults, posing significant earthquake risks.
22 & 23. The 2019 discovery of the two endemic frogs (see above) that will, without a doubt, become extinct if mining is permitted. An issue ripe for the equivalent of the Supreme Court to decide if it violates the Constitutional Rights of Nature.
There are, in fact, more than 23 reasons for Codelco to stay out of Intag. But these should suffice for any company that considers itself responsible and to realize that Intag’s forests and inhabitants should be a no go zone. https://youtu.be/QRinnhejBIw
