Carlos Zorrilla updated March 2023)
UPDATE MARCH 29, 2023: AFTER NEARLY 3 DECADES OF STRUGGLE, INTAG COMMUNITIES WIN! #25!! The Imbabura Provincial Court finally agreed with the communities and ruled against the Llurimagua mining project, revoking the environmental license and ordering a total cessation of all mining activity within the mining concession. The ruling was based on the fact that the State did not duly consult with the communities and because the project violated Constitutional rights of Nature.
I am writing this paper because I feel the urgency to do everything we can to prevent what several scientists believe will be one of the world’s largest environmental disasters.
The announced unprecedented environmental disaster is known as Llurimagua; a large-scale copper mining project. The site where the government of Ecuador and the Chilean mining company Codelco intend to impose mining is where the communities have resisted for 27 years the opening of the copper mine, and where a community tourism initiative is developed.
Apart from relocating several communities, there is no doubt that mining will destroy one of the most biodiverse forests in the world and habitat for hundreds of endangered species, in addition to polluting rivers for millennia.
Here are the twenty-four reasons why Codelco, or any other mining company, should stay away from Intag:
(Update 11-2019) in August 2019 biologists from the Jambato Center, in Ecuador, announced the discovery of the Confusing Rocket Frog* within the exploration area of the mining project. Until this spectacular discovery, the frog was considered extinct and, like the Longnose Harlequin frog, has only been found in the forest now threatened by the Llurimagua mining project, and nowhere else in the world.
*In late 2020, the Jambatu Center determined that the Ectopoglossus frog is a species new to science. It is the only species in the genus Ectopoglossus. If the frog goes extinct, the genus will become extinct in the country.
In May 2022, an international campaign voted to name the new species INTAG’S RESISTANCE ROCKET FROG. A campaign in which Leonardo DiCaprio was personally involved.
IMPACTS
To. The impacts identified in this section are the environmental and social impacts predicted in the Preliminary Environmental Impact Study for a small copper mine for the Llurimagua project (450,000 tons of pure copper); prepared by Japanese professionals.
Keep in mind that a couple of years after its publication, the Japanese inferred the project could contain 5 times more copper than the data used to identify the following impacts (in 2018, Codelco inferred a greater amount but without presenting proof, as no economic feasibility study has been done on the project).
1. Relocation. Intag is not like the Atacama Desert, where Codelco has its copper mines. Apart from being rich in super humid and biodiverse forests, the Intag area has dozens of farming communities.
According to the aforementioned study, the mining project would relocate hundreds of families from four communities. Subsequently, the Japanese inferred 2.5x more copper, which would increase the number of affected communities. The relocation of communities itself is enough to put an end to almost all extractive projects.
2 . It would impact primary cloud forests. Less than 2.5% of tropical forests are cloud forests, and apart from their importance in the conservation of biodiversity, they play an indispensable role in the protection of water and biodiversity of the Andes.
3. The project would cause “massive deforestation” (words of Japanese experts). The small mine would directly affect 4,025 hectares. Deforestation would directly impact the ability of forests to mitigate climate change.
4. Such massive deforestation, according to the Japanese, would dry up the local climate, affecting thousands of smallholder farmers (the EIA used the word desertification)
5. Intag’s cloud forests belong to the world’s most important biodiversity hotspot, the Tropical Andes. The scientists who conducted the study in the 1990s only identified 12 species of endangered mammals and birds that would be affected by the project, including jaguars and spectacled bears. New studies have found far more species, including two critically endangered monkeys: The White-faced Capuhin and brown-headed monkey. The latter is one of the world’s most endangered primates.
Apart from these species, dozens of other species have been reported on the red lists of animalis threatened by extinction within the Llurimagua mining concession: including the Lynch glass frog reported during the research to prepare the last Environmental Impact Study in 2018. The speciesis from the frog Atelopus longirostris, rediscovered in 2016, and a species of the genus Ectopoglossus (found in 2019) have only been reported in the forest of Junin, and nowhere else on the planet. Based on incomplete studies, biologist Bitty Roy and other biologists identified more than 200 endangered plant and animal species in this area (https://bit.ly/2ORqcvV).
6. WATER: The mining area is extremely rich in water resources. Within the Llurimagua concession there are 43 headwaters of rivers and streams. The EIA predicted thatthe water resource would be contaminated with lead, arsenic, chromium, cadmium and other toxic substances.
7. Archaeological heritage in danger. The project will undoubtedly destroy pre-Inca archaeological sites, according to three environmental impact studies (the most recent dates from 2018).
8. It would affect the Cotacachi-Cayapas National Park (one of the most biologically diverse protected areas in the world- according to the Japanese Impact Study). All the forests of the mining project, in addition, make up part of the buffer area of the Park.
In addition to these impacts identified in the Study (for a mine 2% the size of what it could become) … there are other major problems and obstacles.
B. Legal Disadvantages
9. Large-scale mining would violate the binding nature of Cotacachi as an Ecological Canton created in 2000. Only the Constitutional Court can rule on the validity of the ordinance in the light of the new Constitution. And the Court has not done so.
- Constitutional Challenges: in 2020, Intag’s civil society presented precautionary measures based on the violation of the rights of Nature. The trial was won at first instance, but the trial was rejected on appeal due to procedural errors of the trial court.
- On November 30, 2020, representatives of the four communities within the area of influence presented a Protection Action based on the violation of the rights of Nature, and for the lack of prior environmental consultation.
- Despite having won the trial based on the merits of the case, the high court annulled the ruling in favour of the rights of nature and communities due to procedural errors of the judge of first instance.
- Currently (May 2022), the case is in the Superior Court of Imbabura and a decision is expected in the 3rd semester of 2022. The communities intend to continue appealing to the courts assured that eventually the judicial system will prove them right.
10. The New Constitution gives nature the right to exist, flourish and reproduce. Therefore, the Longnose Harlequin frog and the new species of the genus Ectopoglossus, among many others, will always present a Constitutional obstacle to the opening of any mine. And especially considering that frogs are only two of dozens of endangered species (61 species threatened with extinction as of this writing).
On the other hand the same Constitution gives people the right to Sumak Kawsay or Good Living; which is completely contrary to mining.
Environmental consultation. The other great Constitutional inconvenience remains in the fact that mining, today, violates the other community right to prior consultation (art. 398); since the communities potentially affected by mining activities have never been legally consulted. Lately, three communities in Azuay, Sucumbíos and the Waorani people of Pastaza have triumphed against the state for the lack of prior consultation.
The Los Cedros case
At the end of 2020, the Constitutional Court ruled in favor of the community’s right to environmental consultation related to the mining project of Canadian Cornerstone, located in the Los Cedros Protective Forest, which is very close to the Llurimagua mining concession and shares the same habitat. The Court also ruled on the Rights of Nature, clarifying their scope and importance. The result of the judgment generated jurisprudence for cases such as Intag. As a result of the ruling, the Canadian company was forced to abandon the mining project, and the environmental license was suspended.
- GREATER PROTECTION.
Apart from the Ordinance that declared the Cotacachi Canton Ecological Canton in 2000, at the beginning of 2019 the cotacachi government approved the municipal ordinance that affirms the creation of the Area of Conservation and Sustainable Use Municipal Intag-Toisán (Acusmit), which imposes limitations on the use of natural resources and excludes mining activities.
— GEOPARK. Likewise, at the beginning of 2019, UNESCO declared the entire province of Imbabura as a World GEOPARK, the first in Ecuador. Geoparks territories must be managed under the lines of Conservation, Education, and Tourism.
C. Opposition. There is broad opposition to the Intag mining project; including:
12. The new threat has mobilized more than 90% of organizations at the local, cantonal and national levels that were not previously involved. If before mining only affected Junin, now it affects the entire Intag area due to the irresponsible granting of mining concessions throughout the area.
13. Twenty-seven years of resistance has honed legal skills, and communities do not give up. The right to resistance is now a right protected by the Constitution)
14. On three occasions, Intag’s most important civil society organizations wrote a letter to Chile’s presidents to make sure they understood that the organizations will defend the area against Codelco or any other mining company that irresponsibly tries to develop a mine in the Intag area.
In 2021, a letter signed by most Intag organizations was given to the managers of the companies that have mining concessions in Intag as well as to President Lasso and the Ministers of Environment and Water and the Minister of Energy and Non-Renewable Natural Resources, warning them about the environmental and social violations and risks associated with mining in Intag, and the Llurimagua project in particular.
On November 2014, 100,000 signatures from citizens around the world were delivered to the Chilean Consulate in Germany, in support of the rejection of mining in Intag, and in favor of the communities in resistance.
In the same 2014, it was when the state and Codelco, being blocked from socializing their mining project, used about 400 police and military to violently impose the mining project. It was the only way Codelco could enter its concession. The mining camp was even set up in the community forest used for community tourism. The explorations financed by Codelco, seriously affected the community forest, cut down millenary trees and contaminated water sources (more information in the Comptroller’s Report of March 2019)
D. Exaggerated deposit
15. In 2007, Micon International, an entity contracted by Ascendant Copper to evaluate the Junín copper deposit, said that it could not confirm its previous estimates due to sample degradation. Copper Mesa had been saying that the Llurimagua copper deposit had four times more copper than the Japanese deduced after years of exploration. In total, 2.26 million tons were inferred by the Japanese, which represents just under a tenth of what the world consumes annually (and which would take decades to exploit).
In 2018**, Codelco reported in its annual report that the Llurimagua deposit could contain 3.84 billion tons of ore with a copper content of 0.44%. The company irresponsibly did not specify whether the deposit was proven, or inferred. In total the deposit could have (if confirmed) only 17 million tons of copper. That is, 3.67 billion tons would end up in the tailings pools mixed with the aforementioned heavy metals, along with billions of liters of water. This unimaginable amount of waste does not include what is between the ground, and the deposit, which in this case is several hundred meters deep. In many mining projects of these characteristics, this waste (called overburden) easily surpasses the waste from the deposit itself.
16. The area receives between 3,000 and 5,000 millimeters of precipitation per year (real data from the Los Cedros reserve). Heavy rainfall and abundant groundwater, coupled with the heavy metal content in the reservoir are a deadly mixture. This situation greatly increases the price of any mining project, while greatly increasing the risks of anthropogenic disasters, such as landslides and tailing dam disasters.
To get an idea of the disaster produced by a landslide in an open pit mine,I recommend that you visit the site: http://blog.skytruth.org/2013/04/landslide-at-bingham-canyon-mine-utah.html . This disaster occurred in an arid area of the UNITED STATES.
The horrific environmental and human disasters that occurred in Brazil in November 2015, and the one that occurred on January 25, 2019, which killed 300 locals due to the collapse of a tailings pool, should serve as a warning to every company of the true cost of setting up a mining project in sites like Intag, and the Ecuadorian government of the immense irresponsibility of allowing large-scale mining in places like the Cordillera de Toisán. Engineer Steven Emerman, of Malach Consulting, after visiting the Llurimagua mining area concluded that the risk of a tailings rupture within the mining concession or surrounding areas was the worst of the worst examples he knew.
17. IMPACTS IN PERPETUITY. The deposit contains arsenic and other heavy metals is of type porphyry (high in sulfur compounds, which would cause Acid Mine Drainage -AMD). Contamination from AMD is perpetual.
18. According to the Japanese EIA, there is an overabundance of groundwater in the mining area. This should be very worrying for a mining project, as it makes mining very expensive and causes huge environmental problems.
19. The area is topographically very rugged, which also contributes to making all large-scale mining more expensive and significantly increases the risk of tailings pool collapse and landslides and thus water pollution.
20. There are clear indications that Llurimagua copper is very deep (according to the Japanese report of 1998). This makes mining environmentally much more destructive, and copper mining economically much more expensive.
- The Toisan Range, where the copper deposit is located, contains numerous geological faults, which represent significant earthquake risks. Mining itself is a highly dangerous activity, but much more dangerous in places where there are seismic risks.
- The damming reports of the Comptroller’s Office and Ombudsman’s Office
Comptroller General of the State: In March 2019, the Comptroller General of the State published its final report* on the Special Examination of the Llurimagua mining project in which it documents dozens of serious breaches by the company and officials of different state institutions carried out during the more than four years of Codelco’s presence in the Junin community forest, which is wholly within the Llurimagua concession. The breaches and illegalities are too extensive to list in this text, but they were of such magnitude that the Comptroller’s Office called the attention of the regulatory institutions for not having insisted on the cancellation of the mining project’s environmental license. The information contained in the report, could be used in future legal actions.
The Report of the Ombudsman’s Office: In May 2019, the Ombudsman’s Office of Ecuador also published its report on the Llurimagua mining project where it reveals and denounces serious violations of human and collective rights, because of the implementation of the Llurimagua mining project. It also called for the state to recognize the area’s Rights of Nature and prohibit mining.
23 . The Blood Copper of the Toisán Mountain Range.
For any company thinking of extracting copper that lies beneath the native forest of the Llurimagua concession, which is home to more than 100 endangered species, 43 water sources, and where several communities will have to be relocated, it will be impossible to sell copper as socially and environmentally responsible. It will be, and that will be taken care of by local, national and international organizations, seen as nothing less than blood minerals, linked to historical human rights violations, devastation of one of the most biodiverse forests on the planet that are home to unique species, and responsible for displacing peasant communities.
24. International Support.
Since the beginning of the resistance to mining, the communities have been supported by very prestigious international entities. Finally, even the Hollywood actor, Leonardo DiCaprio, has joined energetically to draw the world’s attention to the danger that this project presents to communities to species that are on the verge of extinction, and to the rights of Nature. These campaigns will only continue, until Codelco, or any other company, leaves Intag, just as the other two transnationals have done.
The worst mining project of all time.
Given the cultural and environmental riches, plus the geological and ecological conditions of this fragile ecosystem, aggravated by the inability and/or lack of control of the state to control and regulate mining, added to the high rate of corruption in the country, it is guaranteed that if mining is allowed in the Intag area it would be giving the green light to one of the worst environmental disasters in the world.
*http://www.contraloria.gob.ec/WFDescarga.aspx?id=57938&tipo=inf
Report of the Ombudsman’s Office: https://bit.ly/2v6poKz
** https://bit.ly/3clVhVh
Further research
www.decoin.org
Youtube Hatun Pandemic: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fmWnjwh3rF4&t=390s
Codelco en Intag: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z-kztjjSHrQ&t=4s
The ABC of the mining problem in Ecuador https://bit.ly/3wWPJsg
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