CODELCO’S TROUBLED MINING PROJECT IN INTAG UNDER NEW SCRUTINY
For nearly 30 years, communities have worked to conserve, restore and defend the cloud forests of the Intag Valley in Ecuador, in what locals say is the longest continuous resistance movement against mining in Latin America.
The tropical Andes are considered the world’s most biodiverse hotspot, ranking first in plant, bird, mammal and amphibian diversity; however, less than 15% of Ecuador’s original cloud forests and only 4% of all forests in northwestern Ecuador remain.
Codelco, the world’s largest copper producer, plans to open a mine in the Intag Valley that would destroy primary forest and lie within the buffer area of Cotacachi Cayapas Ecological Reserve — a plan that experts say would be ecologically devastating and not worth the cost.
Communities are using the presence of two threatened frog species — previously thought to be extinct — at the mining site to challenge the project under the “rights of nature,” Ecuador’s constitutional guarantee that natural ecosystems have the right to exist, thrive, and evolve.
8 de mayo
Siete años de impunidad, atropellos y lucha No se trata del sangriento levantamiento de octubre del 2019 el cual, indudablemente, se comentará ampliamente este mes. Más bien, este texto es sobre los siete años de la violenta e inconstitucional ocupación militar-policial de Junín y casi toda la zona de Intag para instalar a la transnacional […]
Read MoreCODELCO ABOUT TO FINANCE CATASTROPHIC MINE IN ECUADOR
Copper mine would deforest thousand of hectares of primary forest that are home to hundreds of species in danger of extinction, contaminate rivers and streams with heavy metals, and relocate hundreds of families from four to six communities(1). An American expert concluded that it is the most dangerous mine he has ever evaluated in his years as a consultant.(2)
Read MoreWhy is BHP Running Away from Public Meetings in Ecuador?
Because of their cowardice we may never know That was one of the questions I had in mind to ask the representative from the most powerful mining company in the world when they were invited to enlighten the room packed with locals from the small farming community of Cazarpamba about the company’s mining project. The […]
Read More