Indigenous group opposing destructive mining in Maipo river sends greetings to anti-capitalist sabotage campaign
The group “Insurrectional Cell for the Maipo: New Subversion” (Célula insurreccional por el Mapio. Nueva Subversión) has claimed last Saturday’s arson attack in the region of Valparaíso, Chile. Seven trucks were set ablaze at the El Melón concrete plant during the night of arson, and the company offices were also targeted. No injuries were reported.
In a communiqué sent to La Zarzamora, the Mapuche insurrectionary cell cited ecosystem degradation, corruption in extractive licensing, and climate change as reasons for the attack. It also declared “unity with the fight for Mapuche autonomy” from Chile and Argentina. The communiqué sent greetings to “comrades who have dealt blows in other territories of the world”, mentioning recent attacks on cement factories in Germany and resistance to the Mountain Valley gas pipeline in the USA. The communique linked the recent attack to the international Switch Off! campaign, a loose banner for anti-capitalist sabotage attacks on the infrastructure of companies who thrive on ecological catastrophe.
The group has previously targeted cement companies in the region, which depends on the Maipo river for 70% of its drinking water and over 90% of its irrigation water. Sand and mineral extraction from riverbanks affects a river’s flow and speed, creating sinkholes that propagate upstream, leading to a domino effect of regressive erosion. This erosion destroys the surrounding living system and creates conditions ripe for landslides. Worldwide, the impact of cement production contributes to about 9%of global carbon dioxide emissions, tripling the impact of air traffic and ranking among the most polluting industries.
Over the past decade, militaristic policies against any sector antagonistic to the interests of the State have intensified in Chile, continuing today under the social-democratic government. According to the text, the government is “raising false flags of struggle, colouring itself as environmentalist, pro-human rights, pro-‘indigenous peoples’ and against gender violence, proving not only to be a fraud in each of these aspects, but also reinforcing everything contrary”.
In general, the United Nations (UN) Biodiversity Conference gets far less press than the UN climate change conferences, but I’ve seen more news items for this year’s Biodiversity Conference of the Parties (COP 16) than I have for previous biodiversity COPs. Still, I didn’t initially pay it much attention, because I’ve become so leery of these annual (for climate change COPs) and biannual (for biodiversity COPs) UN affairs. Why? Because, so far at least, these meetings have amounted to mostly good vibes, with little to no action that has any meaningful consequence in protecting the natural world.
This year’s biannual Biodiversity COP is in Cali, Colombia, a country with the dubious distinction of topping the list of the number of environmental activists killed by country in both 2022 (60) and 2023 (79). It runs until November 1, 2024.
I decided to take a deeper look at the biodiversity goals of these UN meetings at the prompting of two friends who both shared news items related to this year’s COP; one with a dismal “Expect less than nothing from COP 16. Much less.” and the other with a much brighter “Protection of nature efforts are being attempted globally.” outlook.
COP 16 will build on previous work by asking the participating parties to agree on a plan for meeting the goals and targets agreed to in the GBF from COP 15.
So, to understand the goals of these biannual biodiversity conferences, we must take a look at the Global Biodiversity Framework (GBF) from COP 15.
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The GBF (PDF) opens with “Biodiversity is fundamental to human well-being, a healthy planet, and economic prosperity for all people…”. This might sound good to most peoples’ ears, but to me, it sets the tone of “for all people” that suffuses the rest of the document—one that is human supremacist to its core.
The agreed upon outcomes specified in the framework are described in the vision, the mission, four goals and 23 targets. Let’s take a look.
The vision: “A world of living in harmony with nature where ‘by 2050, biodiversity is valued, conserved, restored and wisely used, maintaining ecosystem services, sustaining a healthy planet and delivering benefits essential for all people.’”
This clearly states that the primary goal of biodiversity is benefits for all people. There is no indication here that nature and living beings exist for their own sake. There is no recognition of the rights of non-human beings, including wildlife and ecosystems. Biodiversity is seen as something to be “wisely used” (by humans) so that we can continue to get the benefits of “ecosystem services.”
“Sustaining a healthy planet” sounds nice, but is incredibly vague and seems secondary to the “benefits essential for all people.”
The mission: “To take urgent action to halt and reverse biodiversity loss to put nature on a path to recovery for the benefit of people and planet by conserving and sustainably using biodiversity and by ensuring the fair and equitable sharing of benefits from the use of genetic resources, while providing the necessary means of implementation.”
Halting biodiversity loss and putting nature on a path to recovery would be fantastic. Especially for nature. But no, this isn’t a mission for nature’s sake at all. It is “for the benefit of people.”
“Ensuring … benefits from the use of genetic resources” is interesting. It seems a bit out of left field until you understand that this means the genetic material from plants, animals, and microorganisms, which holds potential value for research, development, and commercial applications.
In other words, the authors of this framework see the natural world as a source of genetic materials to use for making a profit. That is, they objectify the natural world in the extreme, reducing living beings to genes, with the goal of conserving biodiversity to make more opportunities to profit from those genes.
Well, at least we know what their priorities are! And again, we see no understanding or recognition that nature and living beings exist for their own sake, and have the right to do so.
The Goals and Targets described in the framework flow from this vision and mission, so we can assume they will have similar issues, and they do.
The four Goals are identified as Goals A through D.
Goal A sounds good—to maintain, enhance, and restore the integrity of ecosystems—until you get to the last paragraph, which clarifies the point to all the lovely sounding language that precedes it: “The genetic diversity within populations of wild and domesticated species, is maintained, safeguarding their adaptive potential.”
We already know that the primary purpose of that “genetic diversity” is “genetic resources” for the “benefit of all people.”
Essentially, the point of Goal A is to maintain and restore ecosystems so we can get as many “genetic resources” as possible to make a nice hefty profit. Got it.
Goal B is worse:
“Biodiversity is sustainably used and managed and nature’s contributions to people, including ecosystem functions and services, are valued, maintained and enhanced, with those currently in decline being restored, supporting the achievement of sustainable development for the benefit of present and future generations by 2050.”
So, we are to value “nature’s contributions to people.” What about nature’s contributions to itself? Apparently those don’t matter. This goal reduces nature to “ecosystem functions and services” that are useful to people and to “sustainable development.” (See the last section below for more on “sustainable development.”)
Basically this is saying that biodiversity is for people; that ecosystems are “services” for people. “Present and future generations” are generations of people, not of wildlife and ecosystems.
Goal C elaborates on the reduction of nature to “genetic resources” for people and profit, saying that “the monetary and non-monetary benefits from the utilization of genetic resources and digital sequence information on genetic resources… are shared fairly and equitably” among people.
Are you starting to get the picture now?
Their Targets are similarly problematic.
Target 1 is to “Ensure that all areas are under participatory, integrated and biodiversity inclusive spatial planning and/or effective management processes.” In other words, humans should “manage” all areas on the planet for—per their goals—people.
Don’t wild beings get a single square inch of the planet to manage (or just live in) for themselves that isn’t managed by people? Apparently not.
Target 2 is to “Ensure that by 2030 at least 30 per cent of areas of degraded terrestrial, inland water, and marine and coastal ecosystems are under effective restoration, in order to enhance biodiversity and ecosystem functions and services, ecological integrity and connectivity.”
So we are to restore ecosystems, not because nature needs intact ecosystems to survive and thrive, but rather to enhance “ecosystem functions and services” (that benefit humans, as earlier established) and “ecological integrity and connectivity” (for genetic resources to benefit humans, as earlier established). It’s all for people.
I won’t bore you with all 23 Targets, but allow me just one more.
Target 9 is to “Ensure that the management and use of wild species are sustainable, thereby providing social, economic and environmental benefits for people…” (emphasis added).
I’m sure you have the picture now.
The UN Sustainable Development Goals
We should not be surprised by the human supremacy at the heart of these biodiversity goals. This is a UN program, and as stated by the UN and in the GBF itself, the framework is “a contribution to the achievement of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development,” which is itself a human supremacist agenda.
Before we go further, we should talk about what “sustainable development” means. The definition of “sustainable” is “able to be maintained at a certain rate or level,” according to the Oxford Dictionary. The UN defines “development” as “a multidimensional process that aims to improve the quality of life for all people.”
The UN’s Quality of Life Initiative defines “quality of life” by a broad range of factors including health, work status, living conditions, and command of material resources.
We can thus understand the UN’s “sustainable development” as development that improves the health, work status, living conditions, and command of material resources for all people in a way that can be maintained at a certain rate or level.
Looking at the UN’s list of Sustainable Development Goals, we see included in that “affordable and clean energy,” “industry, innovation, and infrastructure,” “sustainable cities and communities,” “decent work and economic growth”, and so on.
Development usually means converting nature into commodities for human use, whether that’s converting a wetland into a parking lot, a river into electricity via a dam, or a forest into timber. These are the activities that drive economic growth, that are required for “affordable energy,” “industry,” and “infrastructure,” and the typical outcome of “innovation” is doing these things faster.
So “sustainable development” really means sustaining the conversion of nature into commodities at a certain rate or level.
If that certain rate or level looks anything like our lives here in the developed world, this is clearly impossible. Humans already use 1.75 Earth’s worth of “resources” (with the developed world using the vast majority of those “resources”), and so we are drawing down Earth’s carrying capacity at a rapid pace. There will be no sustaining anything at the current rate and level in the near future, given how quickly we are drawing down Earth’s carrying capacity now.
I hope it’s clear to you that the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development is all about people, and that it comes at the expense of the natural world. If you doubt that the agenda is entirely human supremacist, I would urge you to spend some time reading this substack and others about the impacts of “industry, innovation, and infrastructure” on the natural world and about how economic growth is incompatible with a living planet (e.g. my article about Ecological Overshoot and some of the resources I point to from there).
Returning to the GBF, we find that Section C affirms the role that the biodiversity framework plays in these Sustainable Development Goals by specifying that the framework is to be “understood, acted upon, implemented, reported and evaluated, consistent with” the “Right to development” (among other considerations):
“Framework enables responsible and sustainable socioeconomic development that, at the same time, contributes to the conservation and sustainable use of biodiversity.” (emphasis added).
The framework was doomed from its start by virtue of this “right to development.”
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It might be tempting to believe that a global conference on biodiversity would put the needs and interests of the natural world first, but we would be mistaken in that belief. Reading the details of the vision, mission, goals, and targets of the GBF, we can clearly see that human needs are prioritized and that the entire framework is structured around protecting biodiversity for the benefit of people.
This is a human supremacist framework. That it is should not be surprising, as human supremacy is the primary and most pervasive ideology held by humans.
Banner by Shutterstock/Molishka from COP16 UN-HABITAT
Editor’s note: Campaigning for protecting wildlife and ecosystems is rarely successful if only fought in court. But in this case, a Peruvian court decided to give the river Maranon rights that would ensure its conservation and protection from oil spills. For this decision, the indigenous groups led by Kukama women have been fighting for their river for over three years. As with many people living on the land they depend on clean water and fertile land to feed their families. Now the court victory gives them the necessary legal foundation to keep on fighting for a life free from ecological disasters.
The decision “establishes a groundbreaking legal framework that acknowledges the inherent rights of natural entities,” said one campaigner.
After years of campaigning, an organization of Indigenous women in Peru’s Loreto province celebrated “a landmark decision” on Tuesday by a court in Nauta, which found that the Marañón River has “intrinsic value” and that its “inherent rights” must be recognized by the government.
The Mixed Court of Nauta ruled that specific rights of the river must be codified, including the right to exist, the right to ecological flow, the right of restoration, the right to be free of pollution, the right to exercise its essential functions with the ecosystem, and the right of representation.
Led by Kukama women, the Huaynakana Kamatahuara Kana Federation in the Parinari district of Loreto began its legal fight on behalf of the Marañón River in 2021, demanding that the state and federal governments protect the waterway from “constant oil spills.”
Petroperu’s Oleoducto Norperuano, or Norperuvian oil pipeline, caused more than 60 oil spills between 1997-2019, and the 28 communities represented by the federation are still recovering from a 2010 oil spill that sent 350 barrels of oil into the river near Saramuro port.
Oil spills not the only threat
Indigenous groups blocked the river in protest in September 2022 after another spill sent 2,500 barrels of crude oil into the Amazon, of which the Marañón is a main tributary.
The Marañón supplies drinking water directly to communities in Loreto, and is a vital habitat for fish that help sustain Indigenous communities.
“We do not live on money. We live from what we grow on our land and our fishing. We cannot live without fish,” Isabel Murayari, a board member of the federation, told the Earth Law Center, when the group filed its lawsuit in 2021.
The Kukama women also aimed to halt infrastructure projects including hydroelectric dams and the Amazon Waterway—recognized as environmental risks by the International Union for Conservation of Nature—and warned that illegal gold mining has left the Marañón with mercury contamination that must be remedied.
Martiza Quispe Mamani, an attorney representing the Huaynakana Kamatahuara Kana Federation, said the “historic ruling is an important achievement of the Kukama women.”
“The fact that the judge of the Nauta Court has declared the Marañón River as a subject of rights represents a significant and transcendental milestone for the protection not only of the Marañón River but also of all rivers contaminated by extractive activities,” said Mamani.
In addition to granting the river inherent rights, the court named the Indigenous group and the Peruvian government as “guardians, defenders, and representatives of the Marañón River and its tributaries.”
Precedent for global river conservation
Loreto’s regional government was ordered to take necessary steps with the National Water Authority to establish a water resource basin organization for the river. The court also required Petroperu to present an updated environmental management plan within six months.
Mariluz Canaquiri Murayari, president of the federation, said the group’s fight to protect the environment in the region “will continue.”
“It encourages us to fight to defend our territories and rivers, which is fundamental,” Murayari said of the ruling. “The recognition made in this decision has critical value. It is one more opportunity to keep fighting and claiming our rights. Our work is fundamental for Peru and the world: to protect our rivers, territories, our own lives, and all of humanity, and the living beings of Mother Nature.”
The women who led the legal action noted that courts in recent years have recognized rights for other waterways, including Colombia’s Atrato River, New Zealand’s Whanganui River, and Canada’s Magpie River.
Monti Aguirre, Latin America director of International Rivers, which supported the federation in its lawsuit, said the ruling “underscores the vital impact of community-led advocacy in safeguarding river ecosystems and sets a crucial precedent for river conservation efforts globally.”
“By recognizing the Marañón River as a subject of rights, this decision is significant not only in terms of environmental protection but also in advancing the rights of nature and the rights of rivers,” said Aguirre. “It establishes a groundbreaking legal framework that acknowledges the inherent rights of natural entities, paving the way for similar legal recognition and protection of rivers worldwide.”
Editor’s note: Any compensation from chemical companies cannot make up for the repercussions of mining, in this case, salt mining. The petrochemical company Braskem, the largest plastic producer in the Americas, is responsible for the displacement of people and was well aware of the risk that the city of Maceió could sink. Yet it kept on operating the mine. As long as companies like Braskem put profit above all other needs – social, environmental, health of communities and thriving wild habitats – this ecocrisis in which we live will only get worse. It can’t go on like this anymore.
Decades of salt mining in Maceió, in northeastern Brazil, have led to earthquakes and cracks in several of the city’s neighborhoods, making buildings there unhabitable. As a result, about 60,000 people have been displaced.
Braskem, the chemical giant that acquired the original salt mining company, has agreed with authorities to clean up the affected neighborhoods and compensate locals. But those affected complain that Braskem has offered them meager amounts, with no negotiation; the sums don’t cover the value of their properties, while compensation for moral damage is also extremely low.
Locals indirectly affected do not receive compensation and continue to suffer losses, as properties within a 1-kilometer (0.6-mile) radius around the disaster zone can no longer be insured and lose value; businesses adjacent to the now unhabitable neighborhoods have also lost customers.
Maceió, Alagoas, Brazil
Streets lie deserted. Gardens have overgrown homes. Doors and windows are bricked up. The Bebedouro neighborhood in Maceió, in Brazil’s northeastern coastal state of Alagoas, is a shadow of its former self. And soon not even that.
Every building there is numbered. As soon as a property has been fenced off by iron sheets, the bulldozers will appear to flatten the land. Large parts of the historical area have already been turned into an anonymous plain.
Bebedouro is one of Maceió’s suburbs where officially nobody can live anymore. Following heavy rains in February 2018, large cracks appeared in floors and walls. Then, on March 2, a magnitude 2.5 earthquake hit the city of some 960,000 people, widening cracks and tearing up asphalt.
“Everyone went out on the street in shock, as this had never happened before,” said Neirivane Ferreira, a Bebedouro resident at the time. “Only later we learned on the news it had been an earthquake with its epicenter in the neighboring area of Pinheiro.”
But Maceió didn’t have a history of seismic activity. In 2019, the Brazil Geological Survey concluded that parts of Maceió were subsiding due to nearly 50 years of rock salt extraction, which caused the tremors and cracking. As a result, five neighborhoods were declared unhabitable by the local government; 60,000 people were forcibly displaced.
Salt mining continues
Compensation for residents was left with petrochemical company Braskem, the biggest plastics manufacturer in the Americas. But those affected complain that Braskem’s compensation program has been abusive, lacking enough coverage and often forcing them to choose between low payments or no compensation at all.
Maceió’s salt deposits were discovered during a quest for oil in 1943. Since extraction started in 1976, the city has been pierced by 35 mine shafts, the deepest reaching up to 2 kilometers (1.2 miles) below the surface.
The salt was first mined by Brazilian company Salgema, which in 1996 became Trikem, which in 2002 merged into Braskem.
One study from 2010 warned that higher underground pressure due to rock salt mining could cause the ground to sink, while subsequent research warned that subsidence caused by rock salt mining could reach up to 1.5 m (4.9 ft) in parts of Maceió. Yet, salt extraction continued as before.
“The extraction of rock salt in Maceió has always been internally and externally monitored, using the best techniques available, supervised by the competent public bodies and with all the necessary permits,” Braskem PR consultant Nicolas Tamasauskas said in an email to Mongabay. “Following the events in 2018, Braskem stopped extracting and presented a permanent closure plan that was accepted by the national mining authorities.”
As a result, since 2018, more than 14,000 premises, including homes, companies, churches and schools, have been declared unfit for habitation in the five suburbs. More than 60,000 inhabitants were forced to leave their homes. More than 4,500 people lost their businesses. Thousands had to look for alternative jobs, schools, sport clubs and health clinics.
Ferreira said the move felt abusive. “It felt like a second act of violence, as we were never consulted. We were left totally vulnerable, while Braskem was free to dominate the negotiations and establish derisory values.”
Victims claim insufficient compensation
In January 2020, Braskem reached a settlement with public prosecutors and in cooperation with the authorities launched the Financial Compensation and Relocation Support Program. Through it, Braskem helps residents search for a new home, pays for relocation and offers a temporary rental allowance of 1,000 reais ($200) per month.
Braskem works with so-called “facilitators,” who appraise properties, assist with paperwork and eventually negotiate with residents the final value of their properties. Compensation covers that value plus 40,000 reais ($7,822) for “moral damages.”
The company has allocated a budget of 14.4 billion reais ($2.8 billion) to deal with the disaster. It already spent 9.2 billion reais ($1.8 billion), some two-thirds of which was paid as compensation for damage to private and public properties. The remainder mainly concerned the process of closing the mines.
“There were no negotiations,” said Alexandre de Moraes Sampaio, president of the Association of Entrepreneurs and Victims of Mining in Maceió. “Braskem prepares a proposal, which you accept or not. If you don’t, as I did, then it turns silent for six months before you hear from them again.”
Sampaio owned a real estate agency and a small marketing company in Pinheiro, while his wife had a psychological practice. Pinheiro was the first Maceió neighborhood to experience cracking and degradation in 2018. Braskem offered them one payment for all three entities.
“I don’t want to go into detail, but it was a ridiculously low amount,” Sampaio told Mongabay. “In the end I received more, but it was still nothing compared to my real losses. However, after three years of negotiating, with hardly any income, I had no choice but to accept.”
Sampaio was on the brink of bankruptcy. Today, he lives some 100 km (62 mi) south of Maceió, where he has managed to revitalize his real estate firm. Most victims found themselves in a weak negotiating position, as they had been forced to leave their properties.
Disaster zone much larger
Ferreira also negotiated for three years to receive compensation for her Bebedouro home. “It was shameful what Braskem offered,” she said. “In most cases, Braskem offered a sum that amounted to not even half the property’s value, which made it very hard to find something similar elsewhere.”
According to Sampaio, damages related to the mining disaster have been reduced to “land and stones,” as Braskem pays the bare minimum for properties, disregarding many other costs.
“The compensation for moral damages is a mere pittance,” he said. “Braskem … should pay a higher amount to every victim, not just owners.”
Sampaio said that the 1.7 billion reais ($332 million) compensation Braskem paid the Maceió municipality was below par, as it did not account for things as lost income from taxes and lost utilities and infrastructure. “Braskem arguably should have paid four times more,” he said.
Damages exist even outside the disaster zone. The difference between what is considered safe and uninhabitable is at times only a street wide. A restaurant or company located safely “across the street” that lost half its market due to the relocation of 60,000 people receives nothing.
“Insurance companies no longer insure properties in a radius of 1 km [0.6 mi] around the designated disaster zone,” Sampoio said. “As a result, some 40,000 dwellings lost 30% of their value. Yet, none of this is compensated.”
Braskem now owns the city
In December 2023, Intercept Brasil unveiled a leaked compensation agreement, containing several special clauses. First, the signatory is not allowed to disclose the amount of compensation, otherwise Braskem can reclaim the payment.
Second, to finalize the compensation agreement, all property deeds must be handed over to Braskem. As a result, the chemical company today owns 99% of the disaster area. People in Maceió fear that Braskem aims to turn the disaster into an opportunity for future development.
According to Tamasauskas, that is not the case. He pointed at an agreement signed by Braskem and the Maceió municipality, which states the former “will not build in uninhabitable areas for housing or commercial purposes. And a change in ownership will not change that.”
Brazilian construction giant Novonor is Braskem’s majority owner, followed by Petrobras. Formerly known as Odebrecht, Novonor is in talks with the Abu Dhabi National Oil Company to sell its Braskem stake for an estimated $2 billion.
A third clause in the contract states that no one can sue Braskem on the outcome of a current or future investigation. In December 2023, a parliamentary inquiry into Braskem’s handling of the mining disaster was launched.
Finding justice abroad
In 2020, eleven victims sued Braskem in the Dutch city of Rotterdam, where the firm’s European head office and two financial holdings are based. The claimants demand that Braskem will be held liable for the disaster and needs to pay for damages.
“Braskem’s financial compensation program has been criticized for failing to hold Braskem liable for the disaster it caused,” said Bruna Ficklscherer, legal director of Pogust Goodhead, the British law firm representing the eleven victims.
Ficklscherer confirmed that people affected by the disaster, yet located outside the designated disaster zone, have had no opportunity to receive compensation, even though education, employment, health services and transportation have deteriorated in the neighborhoods surrounding the risk area.
Braskem tried to have the case dismissed by arguing the Dutch court lacked jurisdiction, as the case solely concerned Brazil. But the judge rejected the claim, on the grounds that the company has financial entities and its European head office in Rotterdam.
During the first hearing in February, Braskem consistently referred to the mining disaster as “the geological event,” while it presented the compensation program as the most beneficial possible. The eleven claimants argued the exact opposite. The Dutch court is expected to issue a verdict in towards the end of the year.
Meanwhile, Maceió’s worries are all but over. On Nov. 28, 2023, a rupture occurred in Braskem’s mine 18 in the neighborhood of Mutange. A week later, part of the suburb had subsided by almost 2 m (6.6 ft).
Fearing immediate collapse, the authorities declared a state of emergency, even though the area had been vacated. Today, nothing remains of Mutange. Braskem’s bulldozers have razed the neighborhood to the ground.
Many of the walls still standing in Bebedouro, and elsewhere in Maceió’s disaster area, are now covered in graffiti. “Here lived art, happiness, sadness and disaster,” one reads; another simply reads, “justice.”
Editor’s Note: Brave activist throughout the world risk their lives to protect the environment. We honor and respect their courage and realize that they are truly heroes. May they remain safe and in our thoughts to give them strength to carry on. Are you working with an organization that protects the environment?
Over nearly 30 years, Carlos Zorrilla and the organizations he co-founded helped stop six companies from developing open-pit copper mining operations in the Intag Valley in Ecuador. As a leader and public figure, Zorrilla is often for advice from communities facing similar struggles, so in 2009 he published a guide on how to protect one’s community from mining and other extractive operations. The 60-page guide shares wisdom and resources, including mines’ environmental and health risks, key early warning signs a company is moving in, and advice on mitigating damage if a mine does go ahead. The most important point, Zorrilla says in an interview with Mongabay, is to stop mining before it starts. Carlos Zorrilla is a leader in what locals say is the longest continuous resistance movement against mining in Latin America.
Zorrilla’s family fled from Cuba to the U.S. in 1962 when he was 11 years old. He moved to the Intag Valley in Ecuador in the 1970s, citing his love for the cloud forest ecosystem there. Soon after he arrived, so did the first of the mining companies.
Over the following decades, Zorrilla and the organizations he co-founded, including DECOIN (Defensa y Conservación Ecológica de Intag), helped block five transnational mining companies and a national company from developing operations in one of the planet’s most biodiverse ecosystems.
In the process, Zorrilla and community members say they faced personal threats, smear campaigns, arrests and violence. But the movement also notched historic wins, including a constitutional case upholding the rights of nature against Chilean state-owned miner Codelco and the Ecuadorian national mining company in 2023.
Community members holding a sign that says, “let’s save Intag.” Communities in Intag Valley have been resisting mining for nearly 30 years. Photo by Carlos Zorrilla.
As a leader and public figure, Zorrilla is often sought out for advice by people facing similar threats. In response, he and two co-authors published Protecting Your Community From Mining and Other Extractive Operations: A Guide for Resistance in 2009 and an updated version in 2016. (The guide is also available in Spanish, French and Bahasa Indonesian).
“After getting rid of two mining companies, I was constantly being asked how the hell we did it,” Zorrilla tells Mongabay. “Rather than keep answering individuals, I wrote the manual. It’s much easier to just say, ‘Read the manual!’”
The 60-page guide shares experiences and resources, including the environmental and health risks of mines, strategies to prevent mining before it starts, key early warning signs a company is moving in, and advice on mitigating damage if a mine goes ahead.
Zorrilla says the most important point is to stop mining before it starts. To emphasize this point, he also published Elements for Protecting Your Community from Mining and Other Extractive Industries, which focuses on preventing mining from gaining a foothold.
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“Stop the companies before they corrupt your communities and before they discover economically viable mineral deposits,” he says. “Once they start investing in exploratory activities it becomes progressively harder to get rid of them.”
Mining is a divisive issue within Indigenous and local communities. Some see economic benefits to address poverty, own their own mining projects, and highlight the need to negotiate better benefit-sharing agreements or collaborations with mining projects as a form of self-determination.
“But these memorandums only work with ethical mining companies and they are as rare as chicken teeth,” Zorrilla says.
Zorrilla’s opinions on mining are contentious. After the publication of the resistance guide, Ecuador’s president at the time, Rafael Correa, denounced it on public television as “destabilizing” and a foreign-led interference, in a move that Zorrilla says was “great publicity for the manual.”
Former Ecuadorian President, Rafael Correa, holds up Zorrilla’s resistance guide on public television in 2009, denouncing it as “destabilizing”.
As the world transitions away from fossil fuels, the demand for critical minerals to feed “clean” energy technologies such as electric cars is rising. Thus, mining is also increasing.
However, many experts say mining in Ecuador, especially in the Intag Valley, is just a bad idea. Aside from the earthquakes, rainfall, steep slopes and lack of infrastructure, it’s a country with a wealth of other options for development, such as ecotourism potential or sustainable agriculture.
“It’s really a poor choice to develop large-scale mining in such a rich country,” says William Sacher, professor and researcher at Simón Bolívar Andean University in Quito, who studies large-scale mining and its impacts. “If you actually do the math just in terms of cost and benefit, if you take into account the costs of large-scale mining, they outweigh the benefits.”
Zorrilla’s work with DECOIN resisting mining as well as restoring forests and watersheds has been internationally recognized with awards, including the United Nations Development Programme’s Equator Prize in 2017. This year, Zorrilla won the Global Alliance for the Rights of Nature’s award for defending nature’s rights.
It’s his connection to nature, he says, that keeps him motivated. “It is hard to put into words the connection I feel with the land and people, with the biological community I am part of,” he says. “What else could someone do that feels to be an integral part of a community? How could one not defend it against forces that would destroy it?”
In an interview with Mongabay’s Liz Kimbrough, Zorrilla discusses the guide and his experiences.
An open pit copper mine in DRC. Image by Fairphone (CC BY S.A. 2.0)
Mongabay: What inspired you to write this guide?
Carlos Zorrilla: I think two main reasons motivated me to write the guide. The first and most important was that we had gone through a lot in confronting a Japanese and a Canadian mining company in the 1990s and the early 2000s and had to do so without any idea of how to go about it. I kept wishing there was some concrete information on the best ways for communities to confront the presence of these companies. Much as I looked around, I was unable to find anything.
I thought other communities could benefit from our experience in successfully standing up to two transnational mining corporations and blocking mining development in our area (as of early 2024, civil society in Intag has been able to block five transnational mining companies and a national one from opening a mine).
The second reason is much more practical. After getting rid of two mining companies, I was constantly being asked how the hell we did it. Rather than keep answering individuals, I wrote the manual. It’s much easier to just say, “Read the manual!”
Mongabay: You mention that preventing a project in the exploration phase is much easier than stopping it once mining has started. What are some early warning signs that communities should look out for?
Carlos Zorrilla: First, it helps to clarify why it’s so much more difficult to stop a mine once it has opened. A large mining company can incur hundreds of millions of dollars in exploration costs — costs that, in most cases, the country issuing the licenses could be held liable for if the mining company is unable to develop the mining site. This is a result of a country signing bilateral investment treaties with other countries to protect the investments of private companies.
So, in essence, the more a company invests in a project, the more expensive it is for a signatory country to pay off the mining company to go home.
The other reason is that the longer a mining company is a territory, the more likely they are to learn how to co-opt people and institutions, and they waste no time doing so. It’s similar to contracting cancer or other similar diseases: you’ve got to treat its soon as possible, otherwise it becomes deadly or ravages your body so badly that it becomes unable to defend itself.
Another reason it is imperative to stop a company in its initial stage or before is that the longer a mining company explores, the greater the possibility of finding an economically viable ore deposit. If they are successful, companies are much more likely to convince governments to allow all permits and look the other way in cases of illegal activities. It is also much easier for the company to find investors if they can show they have a viable mine to develop.
Mongabay: What are the first signs a company is interested in exploring territory?
Carlos Zorrilla: You may find strange people wandering around the community asking questions. Another is if you suddenly find that private individuals start to buy large tracts of land. Your community could be subjected to social and economic surveys carried out by a government agency under the guise of social or economic development or identifying health needs.
Keep in mind that it’s essential for the companies to find out as much as they can about the communities and the inhabitants they will be dealing with. This also goes for local government needs. For example, they may identify basic needs, such as the lack of basic health services, road and school infrastructure that needs repairing, lack of safe drinking water, etc. Once these needs are mapped out, they will offer the community and/or subnational governments financial help to address them. They often even offer to create so-called development groups or organizations, such as farming co-ops or women’s groups, and provide initial funding to address some of the needs. Companies may sign financial agreements with local or state governments to help cover the costs of supplying communities with basic necessities.
Needless to say, the funding always has strings attached to it, the least of which is that the subnational governments and community groups support the mining company’s presence and, later, the development of the mine.
The most important thing to remember is that the main objective of the companies is to create complete dependency on what they provide, whether it is jobs, road maintenance, drinking water, or basic health services. The inhabitants become so accustomed to having the services provided by the companies that they forget that they have lived without these things all their lives or that it is the state or national government’s responsibility to provide them. The dependency can become so instituted that the locals stop petitioning the local or national governments to provide the services and rely solely on the companies. This can also apply to subnational governments, especially when the national governments purposely reduce their funding as a strategy for the mining projects to gain support from the local populace.
At the same time, the companies are gathering basic information about the community, they are also identifying key players within the community. These are persons who have influence or could be groomed to hold a position of authority. They are the first ones co-opted. It could be someone successful in business or a well-respected community leader. They, in turn, will do a lot of the work for the company, such as convincing their neighbors that mining is the best way for the community and families to get out of poverty. Or it’s really silly not to accept the company’s support to build that road everyone always wanted. That propaganda is infinitely more effective when espoused by individuals you know and respect.
Community members in Intag protest mining in the forest. Image courtesy of Carlos Zorrilla.
Mongabay: What do you believe are some of the best ways to stop a mine before it starts?
Carlos Zorrilla: The best way to know what you’re up against is to find out all that you can about the company: things like who the owners are, the company’s history, main sources of funding, and where the company’s stocks are traded (if it is a publicly traded company).
Once you know all that you can about the company, your main objective is to stop it before it starts gathering information, hiring community members, or buying land — certainly before it holds meetings in your community.
As soon as you suspect a company is interested in your territory, hold public meetings or assemblies where, hopefully, most of the community’s adult population can participate in deciding whether to meet with the company. It can help to invite knowledgeable people to discuss some of the problems the community will have to face if they open the door to mining.
It is absolutely essential that no one accepts meetings with company officials or government employees promoting mining development unless it’s in a public setting with everyone from the community invited.
It is strongly recommended that the bylaws of the community include provisions for any approval of activities affecting the natural environment or social peace of the community be approved by two-thirds majority of the community members. It is dangerous to let the board members of the community (president, vice president, secretary, etc.) represent the community when it comes to allowing activities that could have such terrible and long-lasting social and environmental impacts.
Mongabay: The guide says mining companies use many tactics to divide communities and quell opposition. What’s the most difficult company tactic to counter that you’ve encountered? What should communities be aware of?
Carlos Zorrilla: The companies can use multiple tactics to neutralize the opposition. We’ve experienced just about all. Anywhere from making up criminal lawsuits to try to imprison effective opposition leaders and hiring paramilitaries to violently access the mining site, to death threats, outright buying community leaders, to terrible smear campaigns aimed at discrediting resistance leaders and/or the organizations that support the communities.
Then there are soft tactics. One of the hardest to counter is the easy money that the companies offer to the leaders and, eventually, community members when they start working for the company. This is especially effective in areas where making a living off the land is difficult.
Needless to say, this will lure people away from the fields and the normally hard work that is agriculture. Remember, the company offers steady paychecks, often accompanied by social security and health coverage. One of the things we must do is point out that these jobs will not last more than a few years or until the mine opens. Only qualified personnel are required once a mine opens, with few exceptions. But the company will never admit to it.
Communities have to know what the sacrifices are of accepting the jobs the companies offer. These include very often permanent, ongoing social conflicts; it could also lead to the relocation of whole communities to make room for the mine and its infrastructure, possibly contamination of water sources, desecrating sacred lands, and direct impacts on sustainable activities like ecotourism or agroecological farming.
It’s also been documented that there is more delinquency and violence surrounding mining projects, among many other negative impacts. The impacts are especially hard on women. Most mining jobs go to men, worsening economic inequality within households. Women often have to replace men’s work in the fields, adding even more stress to their daily lives. There also tends to be more health problems from STDs, plus more interfamily violence in mining sites.
So, when mining companies come offering jobs, communities have to consider all the impacts, not just look at the positive aspects.
That is why it is so important not to let the company get this far. Communities have to know that mining companies and government officials lie when it comes to convincing communities about mining. That is one of the most important messages. They have to lie because if they were to tell the truth about the social and environmental impacts of mining, not a single person in the community would support them.
In this light, it’s important to invite knowledgeable persons and community members from other communities that have suffered at the hands of mining companies to share with the communities what really goes on when mining companies roll into your community.
Liz Kimbrough is a staff writer for Mongabay and holds a Ph.D. in ecology and evolutionary biology from Tulane University, where she studied the microbiomes of trees. View more of her reporting here.
