The concession of almost 5,000 hectares threatens endemic species, which led to the filing of a protection action.
Editorial IMBABURA
A new fight between a large-scale mining project the rights of nature is aired in the courts of the province of Imbabura.
This time, communities surrounding the intervention area, environmental groups and nature defense groups imposed a protective action to prevent the progress of the mining project called Llurimagua, which, they say, affects citizens and would cause the extinction of endemic species in the area.
Paradoxically, Llurimagua is also located in the canton Cotacachi, Zone of intag, place where less than two months ago a similar lawsuit was won against the State and the company that owns two mining concessions that threatened the Los Cedros protective forest, After an analysis of the case by the Constitutional court.
Llurimagua case
The community members who feel affected by the project presented the protection action with the support of the Alliance of Human Rights Organizations, in coordination with the initiative called ‘Intag Sanctuary of Life’.
The hearing began on January 31, 2022 and will continue at least until this February 2, where the defendants are the Ministry of the Environment and Ministry of Energy and Renewable Resources for alleged violations of constitutional rights in view of the imminent danger in which the Intag area finds itself, in the event that copper exploitation is carried out.
However, this it’s not the first time that the case of Llurimagua reaches judicial instances, because in the 2020, a judge has already granted the protection action and precautionary measures to take care of nature and its species; but months later this decision was annulled by the Provincial Court of Imbabura, since a new judge in the case dismissed it.
Thus, the community and organizations defending human and environmental rights requested a new protection action, that seeks to protect once and for all the species in danger of extinction, the human communities and the natural resources of the area.
Unique species in the world
The reasons behind this new protection action are, mainly, environmental.
the biologist Natalie Greene has exposed that the Intag area is home to various endemic species.
Among them are the confused nurse frog (Ectopoglossus confusus) and snout harlequin (Atelopus longirostris), of which the first It is in danger of extinction, while the second declared extinct, but was rediscovered in 2016, by the World Conservation Union (IUCN), precisely in the intervention area of Llurimagua.
Both species, according to the researchers, they only exist in this part of the planet, but they are not the only ones at risk, because with them there are another 15 species in danger of extinction, which would be affected by the mining project.
Vulnerable natural areas
The organization decoin (Defense and Ecological Conservation of Intag) states that the mining concession of Llurimagua is located in the Toisán mountain range, encompassing primary and secondary forests, with hundreds of endangered species and within the buffer zone one of the most important protected areas on the planet, the Cotacachi Cayapas National Park.
“Before Codelco acquired the concession, was in the hands of, first, a subsidiary of the giant Mitsubishi Corporation, in the 90’s. And in the 2000s from a Canadian company. They both had to abandon the project due to the determined resistance of the communities and organizations of the Intag area”, they detailed.
“That resistance is still standing and it was what forced the government of President Rafael Correa, in May 2014, to use hundreds of police and military elite groups to violently enter the mining concession. It was the only way. It is, in short, a mining project that was born illegitimate and is plagued with problems,” they added.
Irregularities detected
The problems to which they refer from the Decoin, were exposed by a report of the Comptroller General of the State, in 2019.
At this time, it was noted 12 irregularities in the Llurimagua mining concession, ranging from problems between the alliance to form a mixed economy company between the state mining companies of Chile and Ecuador, which operates and invests in the project, until environmental shortcomings, in the licenses, studies and management plans, detecting the first damage to water sources.
Seek protection with local laws
Another inconvenience for mining companies, according to Decoin (Defense and Ecological Conservation of Intag), is that the municipal government of the Cotacachi canton, where the Intag area is located, has approved various environmental ordinances to protect its biodiversity and water resources.
The latest response to the mining threat is the bill to declare the entire Intag area as a ‘Sanctuary of Life’, for protect forests, water sources, endemic species and primary ecosystems.
“It should be noted that in Intag is not only the Llurimagua project, but also about twenty other mining concessions, including several from the giant BHP Billiton (which has not been able to start exploration). One of the things promoted by the bill is to ask the National Government to annul all metallic mining concessions of this jurisdiction”, they explained.
Let’s call on Ecuador’s courts to uphold the country’s rights of nature next week as a municipal court hears a case to determine the future of a large-scale open-pit copper mining project in the irreplaceable Intag-Toisan #KeyBiodiversityArea. #SaveIntag (????: Gustavo Pazmiño) pic.twitter.com/EutNEV1uD7
— Leonardo DiCaprio (@LeoDiCaprio) January 29, 2022
Leonardo Di Caprio became interested in Intag
The new trial that confronts the interests of large-scale mining and the rights of nature, for the Llurimagua project, has had such an echo on an international scale that the artist Leonardo Dicaprio, in their social networks (Instagram Y Twitter), promotes a campaign to protect endangered species, under the hashtag #SalvemosIntag.
“Let us make a call to the courts of Ecuador so that defend the rights of nature of the country, next week when a municipal court hears a case to determine the future of a open pit copper mining project on a large scale in the irreplaceable key area for biodiversity of Intag – Toisán”, he wrote.
Desde 2018, el proyecto Llurimagua no tiene mayores avances, pues Codelco comenzó un proceso de arbitraje internacional contra el Ecuador, por incumplimientos.
Parte de los reclamos de los habitantes de Intag es que se de una consulta previa, donde sea la misma población la que decida si quiere o no minería a gran escala en su territorio.
Intag lleva más de 30 años de resistencia frente a la explotación minera.
