Llurimagua: La concesión problemática del Ecuador y las 25 razones por qué no se debe minar en Intag.
Cinco transnacionales no han podido minar la resistencia de las comunidades y organizaciones de la zona de Intag desde los 1990. La sexta transnacional que fracasa en Intag podría ser Hanrine, la filial ecuatoriana de la australiana Hancock Prospecting , que está realizando fuertes inversiones para intentar meter sus sucias manos en la concesión de Llurimagua. Si […]
Read MoreBRIEF HISTORY OF RESISTANCE TO MINING IN INTAG, ECUADOR (Updated February 2026)
Carlos Zorrilla I. Before continuing, a brief, and partial summary of the most relevant developments since I last updated the document. 2025. Besides the fact that in 2024 the Constitutional Court upheld a lower court ruling that the Llurimining mining project would violate the Constitutional Rights of Nature, and called for all mining activities to […]
Read MoreCODELCO TO ABANDON THE LLURIMAGUA MINING PROJECT
Codelco will be the third transnational to be forced to abandon the mining project Carlos Zorrilla, 2025 Santa Rosa Valley, Intag Mina de cobre, Collahuasi, desierto de Atacama Once it became official that Chile’s Codelco, the world’s largest copper producer, was abandoning the Llurimagua mining project in Intag (Ecuador) , it didn’t take long for […]
Read More¿Cómo lo llamarías?
Carlos Zorrilla Bosque nuboso típico de la región de Intag, Ecuador. Crédito de la foto: autor. Intenten imaginar; vives en uno de los lugares más hermosos y con mayor biodiversidad del planeta: la región de Intag, en el noroeste del Ecuador. Es una tierra bendecida con ríos limpios, decenas de cascadas, bosques nubosos prístinos y […]
Read MoreFrogs, coalitions, and mining: Transformative insights for planetary health and earth system law from Ecuador’s struggle to enforce Nature’s rights
Author links open overlay panel Carlos Andres Gallegos-Riofrío abc, Mario A. Moncayo-Altamirano d , Andrea Terán-Valdez e, Gustavo Redin-Guerrero f , Carlos Varela d, Stephen Posner g, Amaya Carrasco-Torrontegui bch Abstract Pachamama, Mother Earth, faces a mass extinction threat. A radical transformation in human systems is essential, guided by equity and justice at local and global scales. This transformation must reconfigure the World-System’s power structures, impacting the ecosphere (ecological functions, biodiversity, and resource […]
Read MoreBRIEF HISTORY OF RESISTANCE TO MINING IN INTAG, ECUADOR (April 2024)**
The Twins Waterfall. Llurimagua Mining Concession. (Carlos Zorrilla) –Computer translated– I. Before continuing, a brief, and partial summary of the facts and achievements since the last update 2017: La Decoin was awarded by the United Nations with the 2017 Equatorial Prize for our work in favor of conservation and support for sustainable development. It is […]
Read MoreNEW DOCUMENTARY ON THE ROLE OF INTERNATIONAL TRIBUNALS IN INTAG’S STRUGGLE AGAINST THE EXTRACTIVE INDUSTRY
This short documentary highlights one of the most powerful forces communities come up against in their resistance to extractivism that most people don’t know about. After you watch the documentary you will see what a miracle it is when communities defeat multinational coorporations. Intag has sucessfully struggled agains six of these corporations these past 39 […]
Read MoreECUADOR: THE WAR FOR THE IMBABURA COPPER BELT
Published 6 July del 2021 by PLAN V Magazine https://www.planv.com.ec/investigacion/investigacion/ecuador-la-guerra-el-cinturon-del-cobre-imbabura Last May, there was a mobilization of Hanrine company workers against the National Police Command in Quito. The company has accused this institution and the Ministry of Government of not opening the public access road to one of the concessions, which is occupied by the […]
Read MoreEcuador court upholds ‘rights of nature,’ blocks Intag Valley copper mine
by Liz Kimbrough on 31 March 2023 Communities in the Intag Valley of Ecuador have won a significant legal victory after a court ruled to halt copper mining in one of the world’s most biodiverse forests. The Imbabura Provincial Court ruled on March 29 that Chilean copper producer Codelco and Ecuador’s Empresa Nacional Minera (ENAMI EP) had […]
Read MoreCODELCO’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.