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 Constitutional Protection Action win at the Cotacachi Court on September 24 may stop mining companies destroying the habitats of endemic species in Ecuador
The Confusing Rocket Frog, one of the endemic species from the case. Image credit: Luis Coloma
“In a huge win for the environment, on Thursday 24 September a judge at the Cotacachi Court ruled that the Ministry of the Environment failed at its job of protecting species on the Llurimagua mining concession in northwestern Ecuador’s biodiverse cloud forests. The case has implications for mining companies operating throughout Ecuador,” says Rebekah Hayden, a member of the Rainforest Action Group, an environmental research and advocacy group.
The Constitutional Injunction (Medidas Cautelares) was brought to the Cotacachi court in late August to immediately stop the Llurimagua copper mining project. The case argued that extractive activities in all habitats where endemic species are found should be prohibited.
“Two endemic species of frogs are threatened by the Llurimagua mining project: the Longnose Harlequin Frog and the Confusing Rocket Frog. The case was put forward by environmental and community groups DECOIN, GARN, CEDENMA and the Jambatu Centre. More than three dozen other species including several bird species, two species of monkeys, and the spectacled bear are also in danger of extinction from the mining project,” says Carlos Zorilla, a founder of DECOIN.
The team presented several expert testimonies, including Ecuador's best-known herpetologist Juan Manuel Guayasamin and Amicus Curiae (Friends of the Court) from mammal biologist Professor Diego Tirira, University of Sussex biologist Mika Peck, and lawyers from Ecuador’s Ombudsman’s office, Nature Rights expert Natalia Greene, among others.
“The Llurimagua copper mining project is being jointly developed by Ecuadorian state miner ENAMI and Chile giant Codelco in an extraordinarily biodiverse region. However, community resistance, a highly flawed environmental impact study and conflict between the two companies over how to split the profits, means there hasn’t been any exploration on the site since 2018. Aussie companies BHP and Hanrine (a subsidiary of Gina Rinehart’s Hancock Prospecting) are contenders to buy ENAMI’s share, with the sale expected to happen in the next few months,” says Rebekah Hayden.
The court ruled in favour of the Rights of Nature over the economic rights of the mining companies, giving the respondents - the Ministry of Environment and the Attorney General - three months to remedy the illegalities and irregularities detected in the first stage of exploration. This process will be overseen by a number of civil society groups, including universities.
“The judge ruled that if the government can’t show they can adequately protect these species from extinction, the mining permits will be revoked. This ruling also indicates that similar cases to protect other endemic species around Ecuador may succeed in the courts. Given Ecuador’s high rate of endemism, it could stop a large part of the country from being mined,” says Carlos Zorrilla.
The government has said it will appeal the decision, but the Rights of Nature team are confident they are more likely to win at a higher court.
“We are prepared to take the case all the way to the Supreme Court, as we feel there is indisputable evidence that mining in Intag’s forests will violate the Rights of Nature,” Carlos Zorrilla says.
The prospect of a lengthy court case, particularly when Rights of Nature are such an important part of the Ecuadorian Constitution may affect BHP and Hanrine’s decision to invest in the project.
The Imbabura Province where Llurimagua is situated has been a hotbed of conflict since the early 1990s, with two mining companies forced out since then.
“With BHP emerging as a likely contender to buy out ENAMI, and their standstill agreement with SolGold expiring in October, allowing it to make a bid on the company, a winning bid for both SolGold and ENAMI’s share of Llurimagua would give BHP the largest number of concessions in the region, and increase its holdings across Ecuador to over 300,000 hectares,” says Rebekah Hayden.
“The case for the rights of endemic species could make it a very bad investment for BHP if they go ahead with these bids,” says Rebekah Hayden.
FOR MORE INFORMATION, CONTACT:
Carlos Zorrilla toisan06@gmail.com (DECOIN) Centro Jambatu andreateran84@gmail.com Natalia Greene secretariat@therightsofnature.org, presidencia@cedenma.org (GARN, CEDENMA)
Visit: www.decoin.org Intag Santuario de Vida Facebook
For additional information about the frogs see: https://bit.ly/331VNUf and https://bit.ly/307I2kV
A Constitutional Protection Action could protect the Rights of Nature over the economic rights of transnational companies in Ecuador's Intag Valley.
Originally published in The Ecologist by Rebekah Hayden
The Intag valley in the Imbabura province, high up in north-west of Ecuador, should be a peaceful place. Forested mountains are blanketed so thickly in fog that the sub-tropical rainforests are known as cloud forests.
These forests shelter a biodiverse treasure in the plants and animals found here – many of which are critically endangered or at risk of extinction. Some are found nowhere else on earth. A study in 2018 found 287 endangered species in the Intag area alone. That number keeps going up as new species are discovered.
On the valley floor, farmers hold small plots of land, growing coffee, bananas and other subsistence crops. Yet beneath the subsoil lies bright seams of copper. To get to it, chunks of the valley and the mountains must be torn apart.
Mining
Atelopus longirostris. Image credit: Carlos Zorrilla
The Intag region has been a hotbed of conflict since the early 1990s, when miners exploring for copper discovered the valley’s mineral riches, and the community first voiced their opposition. Since then, communities in Intag have denounced mining companies for violations of permits and licenses. Two mining companies have since been forced out by peaceful, but determined community resistance.
Backed by local government, communities have presented evidence of serious human rights abuses, contamination of the Junín river, illegal logging, unauthorised land-use, and demanded the area be recognised as a mining-free zone, highlighting the region’s other sources of wealth, including its biological diversity and ecotourism potential.
A preliminary Environmental Impact Study conducted in 1996 found even a small copper mine in the Intag region would lead to massive deforestation and contamination of waterways with heavy metals. It predicted relocation of four communities, a reduction in rainfall and an increase in climate instability, a serious concern for a region already at grave risk of climate change.
Despite all this, the government continues to parcel up the land and sell it to transnational companies.
The Llurimagua copper mining project has a complicated history. Ecuadorian state miner ENAMI and Chile giant Codelcostarted exploring the site in 2015 – but only after it had been secured by hundreds of police. Conflict over how to split the profits, community resistance and a damning environmental impact study has stopped any exploration since 2018.
In 2019, the Comptroller General and the Ombudsman's report on the mining project found glaring violations to the law and strongly suggested the forest within the mining area should be given rights due to its biological significance. ENAMI is now planning to sell off its share.
Mining
Also in Imbabura, but fifty kilometres north-east of Llurimagua, Australian miner SolGold holds the Cascabel mining concession, which could equal Chile’s Escondida copper mine in size if it is developed. In 2019, Ecuador's Comptroller General published the results of a special investigation revealing many irregularities linked to the project.
Just below Cascabel, operations are degenerating into fiasco at a concession held by Hanrine, a subsidiary of Hancock Prospecting, and owned by Australia’s richest person, Gina Rinehart.
In 2019, the military had to kick thousands of illegal miners off the concession, while in recent months Hanrine’s General Manager was arrested for possession of military-style weapons and its main mining camp was burnt down. Illegal mining has contributed to a range of social problems at nearby townships, and now locals are wary of large industrial mining as well.
BHP also has a concession close to SolGold’s Cascabel project. Like the others, it is an area lush with primary and secondary cloud forest. On August 27, local authorities called for a halt of all mining projects in the area for fear of stoking social conflicts and environmental contamination.
Impact
BHP is emerging as the mining company which might have the largest impact on the region. Not only does it hold five concessions in the Intag area, but as a majority shareholder in SolGold holding a 14.7 percent stake, it stands to benefit from their concessions as well. BHP have been under a standstill agreement with SolGold which expires in October, allowing it to make a bid on the company. BHP is also a major contender in the race to buy ENAMI’s share of Llurimagua, along with Hanrine.
If BHP wins its bids for both SolGold and ENAMI’s share of Llurimagua, not only would it have the largest number of concessions in the region, but its holdings across Ecuador would total over 300,000 hectares.
As the biggest mining company in the world, BHP likes to appear socially and environmentally responsible. That has not been the experience of people on the ground in the Intag.
BHP’s concessions in Intag cover thousands of hectares of the local governments’ watersheds, primary and secondary forest reserves, farmland and the water sources for several communities. They also cover farmland, and seven communities who view the sale of land for mining as illegal, as they were never consulted by the government or gave consent – in direct violation of the Ecuadorian Constitution.
BHP obtained permits and conducted its first explorations for copper without community consent, and has repeatedly tried to divide the community. In January 2020, the affected communities voted to declare the area a mining-free zone. It is nearly three years since BHP has been able to access the concession.
Protections
BHP has a clearly worded charter that states it will not explore or extract resources within or adjacent to the boundaries of International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Protected Areas, or operate where there is a risk of causing the extinction of an IUCN Red List Threatened Species.
Yet five of BHP’s concessions lie within the Cotacachi-Capayas Ecological Reserve Buffer Zone, the habitat of several IUCN-listed species; there are at least two IUCN-listed species at LLurimagua; and many more across the concessions it might inherit if it bids for SolGold as well.
With BHP’s AGM coming up on October 14, there is a small hope that shareholder pressure may caution BHP to not invest further in these projects.
Ecuador is unique in the world for not only recognizing that nature has rights, but embedding these in its Constitution. DECOIN (Organizacion para la Defensa y Conservacion Ecologica de Intag), the team leading the Llurimagua Rights of Nature case, believes Rights of Nature are equivalent to the right to life, and that both of these rights are violated by the economic rights of transnational companies.
The Los Cedros Biological Reserve is also making a case with the Rights of Nature clause at the Constitutional Court, arguing that it should give Protected Forests greater protections from mining and other extractive industries.
Good living
Carlos Zorilla, a founder of DECOIN, says a positive ruling for the Lluriamgua case would have a much wider impact than only safeguarding Protected Forests. It would prohibit extractive activities in all habitats where endemic species are found. All endemic species would be included – whether the species have protection or not. Given Ecuador’s high rate of endemism, it could stop a large part of the country from being mined.
A public awareness campaign based around Buen Vivir or “good living”, a cornerstone concept of the Ecuadorian Constitution – Intag as a Sanctuary for Life – is strongly backed by the Cotacachi County Government, with the Mayor publicly expressing an interest in creating a local law to declare all of Intag and Manduriacos a Sanctuary for Life. This would put it at loggerheads with the national government, which has been threatening local governments with criminal proceedings if they pass anti-mining ordinances.
The first Constitutional Injunction (Medidas Cautelares) to immediately stop the Llurimagua mining project was heard by the Cotacachi court on 11 September.
The case hinges on two species of frogs threatened by the Llurimagua mining project: the Longnose Harlequin Frog and the Confusing Rocket Frog. The former was listed by the IUCN as extinct until its unexpected rediscovery last year; both are endemic to forests covered by the mining concession. Another two dozen species including the Andean Eagle, a species of spider monkey, and the spectacled bear are also in danger of extinction.
At the hearing, Ecuador's best-known herpetologist Juan Manuel Guayasamin gave a testimony on the endemic frogs, while mammal biologist Professor Diego Tirira, University of Sussex biologist Mika Peck, and Javier Morales from the Ombudsman’s office presented Amicus Curiae (Friends of the Court) on the importance of the region and the threats various species face.
Communities
By contrast, the government’s attorneys only brought forward a flawed Environmental Impact Study with 235 observations they were still “working to resolve”.
Carlos Zorilla said: “A problem facing all court cases based on the Rights of Nature is that it is rare to find a judge or lawyer who properly understands it.
"If we lose, we will take the case all the way to the Supreme Court, as we feel there is indisputable evidence that mining in Intag’s forests will violate the Rights of Nature, causing the two endemic frogs to go extinct, and push others closer to extinction.”
Regardless of the outcome of the case, it should not be incumbent on communities or courts to ensure the good behaviour of mining companies or governments. They must come to recognise themselves that mineral rights do not give them the green light to commit gross environmental crimes or human rights abuses.
The world needs places that stay untouched; where the risk of what we might lose outweighs any potential economic benefit. Intag is one of these places.
In 2008, Ecuador was the first country in the world to enshrine the rights of nature in its constitution. But, as Anthony Amis reports, international mining companies have been given the green light to exploit the country’s copper and gold reserves.
Illegal mining in Buenos Aires, part of the Hanrine mining concession in Ecuador. Image credit: Ecuvisa
The Ecuadorian government is desperate for foreign capital injections to ease its weakening economy, caused in part by falling oil prices.
The small South American country has become a magnet over the past four years for mainly Australian and Canadian mining companies wanting to cash in on the desperation and mine its untapped mineral resources.
Mining companies have arrived in Ecuador, largely after its copper and gold reserves. “Copper is the new iron ore”, according to one Australian mining executive. Companies are already designing their marketing strategies around the need to mine copper to supply the world’s renewable energy sector.
For most of Ecuador’s history there has been small-scale gold mining. The country has not been exposed to the large-scale mines that have been pushed forward in neighbouring countries, such as Chile, since the 1970s, or Peru in the 1990s. This situation is rapidly changing.
In 2009, the government of Rafael Correa (who was president from 2007-17) enacted Ecuador’s Mining Law and in 2010 created the national mining company ENAMI. The new law however, was seen as a major disincentive to multinational companies, because of a constitutional mandate that suspended the granting of new mining concessions and the expiration of several existing concessions. It was also unpopular due to a windfall tariff of 70% on the difference between the sale price and baseline pricing.
Indigenous opposition
Indigenous groups also opposed the law and mining in general, particularly in the Amazon basin, and big protests occurred in 2007 and 2009. Mass protests by the Confederation of Indigenous Nationalities of Ecuador (CONAIE) also occurred in 2012, culminating in a march to the capital, Quito, in March 2013.
The decision to auction off 3 million hectares of the Amazonian rainforest in the Yasuni Nature Reserve to Chinese oil companies in 2013 further raised the ire of indigenous groups. Ecuador, at the time, had a US$7 billion debt to the Chinese Government.
Some refinements to the Mining Law occurred in 2012 and in 2015 the Correa government created new mining investor-friendly taxes and government incentives and policies to further attract mining. These included the creation of the Mining Ministry (now the Energy and Non-Renewable Natural Resources Ministry).
By March 2016, guidelines for granting metallic mining concessions across the country were created. Local communities and, in particular, indigenous communities, were kept in the dark as to these developments.
Moreno's mining boom
In May 2017, Lenin Moreno came to power and in 2018 the 70% windfall tariff was lifted by his government. Moreno went cap in hand to the International Monetary Fund for a US$10bn package of loans, which meant cuts in government spending. Mining was seen as a means of generating revenue and was expected to bring in US$715 million of taxes for the government by 2021.
Many conservationists first became alerted to the mining company “invasion” in 2017 when volunteers at the 5000ha Los Cedros Reserve, located in the northwest of the country noticed forest disturbances on the edge of the reserve, which they attributed to illegal miners.
Los Cedros was created in the late 1980s through a grant from the Australian Government’s AusAID program and contains some of the most biodiverse forest on the planet. It has been fiercely protected since that time, with 1200 scientists from around the world supporting its long term protection from mining.
After conducting further research, campaigners soon realised that 68% of Los Cedros had been under a mining concession for several months to Canadian mining company Cornerstone Capital Resources.
More investigations followed and the alarming discovery was made that the concession over Los Cedros was only the tip of the iceberg. A third of the entire country of Ecuador (7.17 million ha) had been opened up to mining concessions, with a massive amount of concessions on protected forests and indigenous lands.
Australian mining interests
Melbourne Rainforest Action Group formed in 2018 to research which Australian mining companies were investing, exploring and ultimately mining in Ecuador.
The company with the largest number of concessions (more than 70) is little-known Brisbane-based exploration company Solgold. Solgold had been exploring in Ecuador since 2011, so had the edge on other companies by establishing a foothold in the country. Their prized asset was a concession located in the north of the country called Cascabel, which had initially been “owned” by Cornerstone, which kept a 15% interest in the concession.
Solgold CEO Nick Mather was involved with Waratah Coal, one the first companies to propose mining in Queensland’s Galilee Basin. Waratah was snapped up by Clive Palmer in 2008 and Mather went on to help develop the coal seam gas industry in Queensland. Australian miners BHP and Newcrest Mining also have an interest in Solgold, each owning 14% of the company. BHP also has further mining concessions in north-western Ecuador, very close to Los Cedros. Their exploration was resisted by local communities in the Intag Valley and BHP raised the ire of many after their exploration activities badly polluted the Manduriaca River.
Melbourne-based Newcrest Mining’s main interest is in the south-east of the country, in the headwaters of the Amazon. Production began this year at a massive underground mine, Fruta Del Norte, which Newcrest has a 32% stake in. The company developing the mine was the Swedish firm, Lundin Mining.
Forty kilometres north of Fruta del Norte, production has also just started at the huge Mirador mine, owned by Chinese firms China Railway Construction Company (CRCC) and Tongling Nonferrous. This mine, also in the headwaters of the Amazon, plans to have the world’s tallest tailings dam, three times higher than any other.
In light of the disastrous tailings dams collapses in Brazil over the past few years, there are very real concerns that a similar dam collapse at Mirador could destroy thousands of kilometres of waterways in the Amazon.
Further investigations found that Australian mining magnates Gina Rinehart and Andrew “Twiggy” Forrest were also active in Ecuador. Rinehart’s company, a subsidiary of Hancock Prospecting, Hanrine, owns several concessions just south of Cascabel and Forrest’s company Fortescue Metals Group (FMG) owns a swath of concessions throughout the central and southern areas of the country. FMG’s concession ownership in Ecuador (about 70) is second only to Solgold, as far as Australian companies go, although its on-ground activities have, so far, been limited. FMG has been active in Ecuador since June 2016.
Gina Rinehart
Rinehart mining camp burnt. Image credit: El Universo
Hancock Prospecting first visited the country in September 2016. Just before concessions were granted to Hanrine in early 2018, a gold rush occurred on one of its concessions called Imba 2.
Up to 10,000 miners from a dozen countries soon flooded into the concession near the small community of Buenos Aires. The gold rush was huge news in Ecuador and it soon became apparent that the illegal miners were also under the thumb of local mafia cartels.
After 18 months, and the reported murders of a number of miners by organised criminals, two thousand troops were sent in to clear out the concession in July last year. Millions of dollars of damage to the concession was reported with some saying that the “foreign” owner of the concession should be held responsible for some of the clean up and security costs. El Comercio reported on August 26 that Hanrine's mining camp near Buenos Aires was set ablaze on August 25.
Other Australian companies involved in Ecuador include Perth-based Sunstone Metals, which owns two concessions in the north and south of the country, with one directly bordering Los Cedros.
Another Perth-based company, Titan Minerals, recently took over the Canadian company Core Gold, which owns a processing plant and concessions in southern Ecuador, and Tempus Resources which owns two mining concessions in rainforest in close proximity to the Fruta Del Norte mine.
Local resistance to the mining and exploration is ongoing. Ecuador is a very volatile region. A Chinese-owned mine called Rio Blanco was shut down in 2018 after being fire bombed. Numerous communities are fighting back over loss of control of their lands, including their drinking water supplies.
Solgold has been the target of some protests and BHP is copping plenty of attention in the Intag Valley from a number of communities. Ongoing protests have also occurred in the country’s south east near the Fruta del Norte and Mirador mines, which are located on the lands of the Shuar people.
If Rinehart is successful in her pursuit of the copper resources of Llurimagua mine, she will also encounter the wrath of the Intag Valley community, which has long voiced its opposition to mining in the region.
Gina Rinehart's Ecuador subsidiary Hanrine is facing renewed unrest in the province of Imbabura, Ecuador.
Rinehart mining camp burnt. Image credit: El Universo
On Tuesday 25th, a group of 180 people set fire to a mining camp at one of her concessions in Buenos Aires in north-east Ecuador. More on that here.
The attacks came days after the local parish council met and agreed they would not allow any mining - illegal or legal - in the area due to their constitutional rights to be consulted not being met.
Rinehart's mining concessions have been the subject of unrest since 2018 when up to 20,000 miners descended on the area to illegally mine for gold, with several different armed militia fighting for dominance and a number of killings.The army took over in 2019, but the area has been subject to unrest ever since.
The unrest comes only a few weeks after Hanrine's GM in Ecuador Carlos de Miguel was arrested for having an arsenal of illegal assault-type weapons, a charge he subsequently denied. He is now attempting to sue the interior minister and the police over the raids, and has additionally hired an investigations firm to explore government ministers for connections with Chile giant, Codelco.
Contamination from exploration activities, 2017. Junin community reserve. Image credit: Carlos Zorilla
Government officials and the press also conveniently leave out that the only way the government and Codelco was able to insert themselves in Intag was by illegally and violently occupying the whole Intag valley in 2014 with the “cooperation” of 389 elite police and military personnel. And then, only after a campaign of intimidation by falsely arresting a community leader and jailing him for 10 months without sentencing. And, I’m sure the government officials are telling prospective buyers that where Codelco and Enami are planning on exploring and previously explored, is within the Junin community forest reserve and in the middle of an unexplored pre-Incan site. Right?
Oh, and then there is that minor issue the copper ore laying beneath primary cloud forests that are part of the Tropical Andes, by far the most diverse of the world’s 36 Biodiversity Hotspots. In fact, the forests within the mining concession harbor HUNDREDS of animal and plant species in danger of extinction. Many are critically endangered, and some are found here and nowhere else on the planet. Another minor detail the greenwashers might be forgetting to mention is that, in Ecuador, since the 2008 Constitution, Nature has rights. Species extinction would certainly violate such rights.
Did I forget to mention that in 1996 Japanese scientist produced a preliminary Environmental Impact Study for a small copper mine? What they predicted might turn you off to mining in Intag. “Massive deforestation”; drying up of the local climate; contamination of rivers and streams with lead, arsenic, cadmium and chromium, and relocation of hundreds of families from four communities are just some of the findings. Two years later they reported the ore deposit could be 5 times larger. Add the fact that the ore is, according to the latest estimates, very low grade (0,44%), that by all indications it seems to be very deeply buried, that the area gets between 3 and 5 meters of rain annually, that it is located in a seismically active part of the Andes, in extremely steep terrain, and you have the ingredients for creating one of the world’s worse environmental nightmares. Especially since Codelco is “guesstimating” the ore body might possibly hold 17 million tons of copper, incrusted in 4 billion tons of ore. If it’s ever confirmed, the ore body would be 55 times larger than what the Japanese used to base their apocalyptic social and environmental impacts on. Then there is the pesky issue of profitability. Low grade deposit, deeply buried, mixed with arsenic and lead plus, at the very low-price tag of USD $2.00 per ton to remediate the mining site, the project would become instantly unprofitable. But then again, who’s worrying about numbers?
If these reasons are not enough to dissuade any reasonable thinking person, there are plenty others.
Carlos De Miguel III, the General Manager of Hanrine Ecuadorian Excploration and Mining SA, a subsidiary of Gina Rinehart’s Hancock Prospecting, was apprehended by police for an alleged illegal weapons cache. Mr De Miguel was found with several pistols, rifles, and more than 9,500 rounds of ammunition.
CREDIT: MATT GOLDING, Sydney Morning Herald
A spokesman for Hancock in Australia said in a statement that Carlos De Miguel held “the correct permits for these weapons which are approved by the Ecuadorian Ministry of Defence. The spokesperson went on to note "the safety of employees at Hanrine is very important to Hancock Prospecting Pty Ltd (HPPL), and executives of HPPL visit the project from time to time, their safety while visiting Ecuador is also important.”
The discovery of the weapons cache raises one obvious question; why is Ecuador considered so unsafe that Hanrine executives need to possess such advanced weaponry and vast quantities of ammunition?
To understand the sovereign risks of doing business in Ecuador, we need to touch upon the history of Hanrine's mining concessions, and the clouds of controversy hanging over their purchase; along with the dangers of operating so close to the unstable Colombian border region.
Police inspect a guns and ammo cache of Hanrine General Manager, Carlos De Miguel III in Ecuador. (Video still)
Hanrine obtained six exploratory concessions (totaling 27032 ha) located just south of Solgold-Cornerstone's Cascabel concession, in January and March 2018. According to Ecuadorian media reports, Hanrine was controversially awarded these mining concessions after the government had previously pledged to suspend the mining cadastre and cancel more than 2000 mining concessions.
On Dec 11th, 2017, Ecuadorian president Lenin Moreno had announced his mining policy u-turn following an uprising by indigenous groups and mass protests lead by the Prefect of the province of Azuay, Yaku Perez; along with the Confederation of Indigenous Nationalities of Ecuador (CONAIE).
Indigenous groups led a long march from the province of Zamora to the capital Quito, in defense of water catchments and against large-scale extractive industries. The protests brought the capital to a stand still and led to the resignation of former Minister of Mining, Javier Cordova, who had failed to halt the allocation of mining concessions during the contested period.
Illegal mining in Buenos Aires (Hanrine Mining Concession), Ecuador. Image credit: Ecuavisa 2018
The nationwide protests eventually led to a popular referendum in February 2018 in which Ecuadorians approved, among other proposals, to prohibit metal mining in protected areas, intangible zones and urban centers. President Moreno even publicly declared that mining had left a hundred rivers "severely" contaminated in the country.
Moreover, concerns have also been raised by the Ecuadorian press about the process by which Hanrine obtained these 6 disputed concessions in just a few short weeks rather than the 8 months or more it usually takes to secure mining titles. On 27 September, 2018, the assemblyman for Imbabura, Marcelo Simbaña, formalised a complaint before the General Comptroller of the State regarding inconsistencies in awarding the mining concessions to Hanrine.
Gina's Hanrine concession areas in yellow. Image credit: Rainforest Action Group
In February 2018, just a month after awarding Hanrine the disputed concessions, a state of emergency in Buenos Aires is declared. Police and military are called in to begin confiscating hundreds of tons of mining material and clear out the illegal 'wildcat' miners and heavily armed rebel groups that had prevented Hanrine workers from accessing their concession areas.
The Hanrine concessions sit dangerously close to the Colombian border, an area renowned for para-military drug trafficking, corruption and money laundering. The area has been subject to significant unrest, with thousands of illegal miners, a number of deaths (including a 14-year-old child), and complaints of organised crime, drug trafficking and prostitution rings running alongside the illegal mining. After numerous arrests for illegal mining, the artisanal miners formed The National Union of Miners in Ecuador at El Triunfo (August 2018) to argue for the legalisation of their small scale mining operations on Hanrine concessions.
Ecuador army entering Rinehart concession. Image credit: El Pais
In July 2019, a massive military operation is organised to put an end to the illegal mining and organised crime and violence it attracted, with only mixed success. It's quite clear Hancock Prospecting's subsidiary is operating in an incredibly dangerous and complex business environment, facing strong opposition from small-scale miners, indigenous groups and environmental NGOs that are united in their opposition to large-scale mining in the region.
In a surprising twist, Hanrine is also facing an increasingly hostile government. Tension between the Ecuadorian Government and Hanrine is now building. According to the complainant, the arrest of Carlos De Miguel is a premeditated attack to block his activities as manager of the company he represents "due to clear and evident private interests of the minister [Maria Paula Romo], who in due course will have to explain them to the country."
Is a legal challenge between embattled Hanrine and the Ecuadorian Government in the wind?
Stay tuned for future updates on this high-stakes legal battle currently underway in Ecuador.
Full English-language articles here and here and Spanish-language sources here and here
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
