Gang activity in Ecuador shows mining fraught with issues
Statement by Rainforest Action Group
The current wave of criminal activity by organised crime gangs in Ecuador underpins predictions made by Rainforest Action Group from 2018 that investing in mining in the country is fraught and risks further destabilising the country.
Paramilitary groups operating on the Ecuador-Colombia border have been growing in strength and presence since 2018 when various dissident ex-FARC groups increased drug trafficking from Colombia to the port of Esmeraldas in the north of Ecuador, due to the easy access to the port of Esmerelda and shipping routes from there to the US or across the Pacific to Australasia. More recently it has been the huge Mexican cartels that have dominated in Ecuador.
Contamination from exploration. Image credit: Carlos Zorrilla
In 2018, when Ecuador opened up swathes of copper and gold mining concessions, increasing awareness of the wealth of resources in the country meant it became a hotspot for illegal gold miners from around South America. Gold mining is now seen as being as lucrative as coca growing by organised crime syndicates. Our investigations show that illegal mining has grown since the expansion of legal mining concessions, with illegal mining operations now a thriving income stream for cartels in Ecuador. Both legal and illegal mining are hotly contested by local populations, who say even small-scale explorations have caused significant environmental damage, such as contamination of waterways in Imbabura (pictured).
SolGold’s Cascabel concession in close proximity to the Colombian/Ecuadorian border, is an investor's nightmare. In reports, SolGold has indicated that mining material will be transported, via pipeline, 60 km north west from Cascabel towards San Lorenzo, a known organised crime hot spot. From San Lorenzo, the pipeline will then continue 100km south west to the port of Esmeraldas, where there is significant organised crime activity.
The new unrest adds to existing concerns about mining companies continuing to operate in indigenous territories and remote communities who have been protesting against both legal and illegal mining on their land, such as the Imbabura and Carchi Provinces, which have needed consistent a police and military presence.
Developers of any mine in Ecuador will be on shaky grounds indeed.
Please attribute quotes to Liz Downes, member of Rainforest Action Group, Director of Rainforest Information Centre.
Final hearing for endemic species case at Llurimagua mining concession to be held on March 11, 2021
A Constitutional Injunction brought against the Ecuadorian Ministry of the Environment and the State Attorney General in August 2020 over concerns the rights of endemic species were being violated is to have its final hearing at the Multicompetent Judicial Unit of the Cotacachi canton on March 11 2021.
Confusing Rocket frog Image credit: Luis Coloma
Judge Carmen Jaramillo Cevallos ruled in September 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.
Environmental licenses on the concession will be revoked if these issues are not remedied to the judge’s satisfaction. The process will be overseen and validated by the Municipal government, the Universidad de San Francisco (Quito) and the Public Defender's Office (Ombudsman).
Carlos Zorrilla, a founder of DECOIN was fundamental in the case, and believes the judge appeals court will rule in the favour of endemic species and rights of nature.
Carlos Zorrilla says: “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, which takes years of data collecting.”
“The case hinges on two species of frogs threatened by the Llurimagua mining project: the Longnose Harlequin Longnose Frog and the Confusing Rocket Frog. Both were thought extinct until their unexpected rediscovery in 2016 and 2019 respectively. Both are endemic to forests covered by the mining concession,” says Carlos Zorrilla.
“The full ruling released on October 22 last year 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,” says Carlos Zorrilla.
Intag as a Sanctuary of Life. Image credit: Carlos Zorrilla
“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.
“Besides it being a watershed ruling to protect endangered species and their habitat and stop extractive development in fragile ecosystems, the ruling creates jurisprudence in support of the concerted effort to insert Rights of Nature statues into local and national throughout the world,” says Carlos Zorrilla.
A campaign “Intag as a Sanctuary of 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 Manduriacu 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.
Huge road signs have been erected by the local government to support the campaign, and on March 3, the ordinance was officially turned over to the Municipality for approval. The moves indicate the level of resistance to mining in the region.
FOR MORE INFORMATION PLEASE CONTACT CARLOS ZORRILLA, +593 98 664 7518, toisan06@gmail.com
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.
