It´s that time of year when, in Canada, the mining industry gathers to promote a surreal image of itself to a unbelieving world.
The vehicle Is the Prospector’s and Developer Association of Canada’s annual convention, which is held in Toronto, and just concluded this past June 15th It bills itself as “The World’s Premier Mineral Exploration & Mining Convention is the leading convention for people, governments, companies and organizations connected to mineral exploration”.
In gross terms, the conference is used for the industry to pat itself on the back, make backroom deals amongst themselves and government officials, and try to convince ignorant investors and the press that everything is “just fine” and getting finer with the industry. It is used by countries to promote themselves to attract new mining investment, parading a some truths about their reality, and a whole lot of made up “facts” that look great on PowerPoint presentations. And that’s about it.
One example is the vision the government gave of the Llurimagua mining project in the northwest of the country, a project I am very familiar with. Since 2011 it is being developed by the Ecuador’s national mining company, Enami and the state-owned Chilean Codelco.
The last almost four years has been at a complete standstill due to community resistance and differences between the partners. Plus the environmental impact study was so poorly done they are running around trying to fix it (still not approved even though it was presented for approval over three and a half years ago).
Exibit A
Slide from the 2022 PDCA Conference
The above slide claims the companies got “strong and permanent Social License from the beginning”.
The reality is quite another:
Exhibit B
On the ground, and in the real world, the only way Codelco and Enami were able to access the Llurimagua mining concession was via a police occupation by nearly 400 members of several elite police units, and only after falsely arresting and jailing a community leader. Then, they illegally occupied a community forest reserve being used for ecotourism.
That is one hell of a way to get a community’s strong and permanent support.
It is also ironic that as the government ministry was expounding on the safe bet Ecuador is for mining, hundreds of thousands of his compatriots were out on the streets of the nation protesting the country’s economic policies, including the expansion of the mining and petroleum frontier, one of the 10 points CONAIE, the powerful indigenous organization, is striking on. They are also calling for the repeal of the pro-mining decree 151. As of this writing, the nation-wide strike is on its fourth day with no sign of letting up.
Needless to say, the presenters decided to leave out a couple of “details”, like the fact that there is a ongoing Constitutional challenge to try and stop the Llurimagua project from happening. That the mining site sits within one of the most biologically diverse and fragile forest on the whole planet. The cloud forests harbor dozens of species endangered of extinction, anyone of which could easily stop the project dead on his track due to Ecuador’s recognition of the Right of Nature. There is also the uncomfortable fact that the communities have already kicked out two transnational national mining companies who tried to develop the very same project, and that the resistance is still fierce and entrenched. But who wants to hear those facts? In the case of Llurimagua, there are 21 other reasons why it is environmentally and socially a nightmare, as well as economically unviable.
So, buyer beware. Llurimagua is just one of many projects the government and companies tried to sell to the unsuspecting investors in Canada with delusions of mineral grandeur and accommodating communities. All of it, or most of it, complete bullshit.
More information at: www.decoin.org
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PdrtRYPHMS8
