Copper Mesa Mining
Eye Witness to Correa’s Profit Mining and Environmental Destruction: No News There!
This is yet another report about industrial activities in Ecuador, a country ruled by an authoritarian, economistic anti-environmentalist, who despises traditional ways of living when it stands in his way of mining and drilling for oil, building roads, riverways and airports, but who loves to present himself – in the media – as a friend of indigenous peoples, wearing traditional outfits and speaking (mountain) Kichwa. Welcome to Correa’s Ecuador:
Locals fight mining in Ecuador’s cloudforest
Christian Tym
Green Left Weekly, 2 May 2009
Many people still speak sincerely about the existence of “corporate responsibility”. While doing volunteer work in the Ecuadorian community of Junin, I got a different picture.
The story of the efforts of Copper Mesa Mining, one of Rio Tinto’s collaborators in gold and copper exploration in Ecuador, to overcome community resistance is an example of what modern “corporate responsibility” looks like.
The mining concession Copper Mesa bought from the Ecuadorian government is centered on the community of Junin and the Intag River.
The proposal was to evict four entire communities, 100 families in all. These people live off their land and depend on the outside world for only electricity and medical supplies.
Mining would destroy their entire way of life.
colonos 