International

The struggle of the former Zaire towards democracy and away from extreme exploitation and impoverishment has been a difficult and violent process. Mining has been a lucrative business in the Congo since colonial times, but it has also been brutal and hugely destructive of the environment and peoples' health. While mining companies maintain they can bring jobs and prosperity, it is a difficult environment in which to work ethically.

Latin America has seen a major expansion in mining investments since the early 1990s, facilitated by free trade agreements and structural reforms that have deregulated the economies of the region and made them more hospitable to direct foreign investments.

Mining has played an important economic role in Mexico since pre-Hispanic times. After the Spanish conquest, it attracted settlers to the arid lands of northern Mexico, displacing the borders of the Spanish dominion. In modern times, it became one of the antecedents of the Mexican Revolution when, in 1906, workers launched a major strike against the American company Cananean Consolidated Copper in the state of Sonora. The strike was repressed with violence and bloodshed, consecrating the miners as the precursors of labour struggles in the country.

Since the early 1990s, the Intag region of Imbabura in northwestern Ecuador has been the target of mining exploration. Japanese and then Canadian interests have claimed substantial finds of copper, and have promoted the idea of building a huge open-pit mine in the middle of one of the most biodiverse areas in the world – the Intag cloud forest falls into both the Tumbes-Chocó-Magdalena and Tropical Andes hotspots, according to Conservation International.

But while some of the residents support the proposal, most are opposed to the mine, including those who stand to be most directly affected. The mine would be within the buffer zone of a major ecological reserve (the Cotacachi-Cayapas Ecological Reserve) and would obliterate a community forest reserve where local people have been promoting ecotourism. The whole region depends on small-scale farming, coffee production, and eco-tourism; the County of Cotacachi has designated itself an "Ecological County" and is committed to sustainable development and participatory democracy. As a result, there is widespread and fervent opposition to plans by Bermuda-based Ascendant Holdings to build a mine and possibly also a smelter and hydro-electric dam. In order to raise money, Ascendant -- also known as Ascendant Exploration or Ascendant Copper Corporation (ACC) – is seeking a listing on the Toronto Stock Exchange, despite questions that have been raised about the accuracy of its resource estimates and the status of its claims. In the mean time, the company has openly admitted funding a community front group, CODEGAM (Corporation for the Development of the Communities of García Moreno [parish]), explicitly to promote the mining project and to undermine the authority of the County government. There has been a barrage of threats, interference, and attempted intimidation, including death threats, against opponents of the project.

Latin American Mining Conflict Watch is a network of 18 organisations active in the region, from Mexico to Chile and Argentina. In Spanish only.