Copper Mesa/Ascendant Copper

Recently, Toronto-based Pinetree Capital bought a few million shares of Copper Mesa Mining Corporation, making it the largest share owner of a failing company currently embroiled in a lawsuit . The takeover raised the price of its penny stock upwards to between three and five cents. Copper Mesa, however, got a lot more than what it bargained for.

[Presentation] In the late 1990s, people in the Intag zone of north-west Ecuador learned that a Japanese company had discovered copper in their area. They were happy. As poor farmers the welcomed the possibility of more work and better incomes. But then they found out that the project would be a huge open pit mine that would destroy an entire mountain, displace four villages, and contaminate an entire watershed. The villagers mobilized.

The Ministry of Energy and Mines in Ecuador has ordered Ascendant Copper Corporation (Ascendant) to “immediately cease all activities intended to divide the community and disturb the citizenry’s peaceful life” around its proposed Junin Project. The company is facing numerous setbacks, including the recent order to stop community relations work, high levels of community opposition and the withdrawal of a major shareholder.

This analysis was undertaken following the publication of two letters accusing MiningWatch Canada of “genocide” and of keeping the Shuar people of Southeast Ecuador in poverty (see MiningWatch Responds to Ecuadorian Letters). The letters make special reference to Corriente Resources’ ‘Mirador’ project.

It took three months of protest by local communities and an intervention by the provincial Governor and two government ministries, but Ascendant Copper Corporation has agreed to curtail its activities in the Intag region of Imbabura Province in Ecuador.

(Ottawa/Intag) MiningWatch Canada and the Ecuadorian organisation DECOIN (Ecological Defence and Conservation of Intag – Defensa y Conservación Ecológica de Intag) today released documentation showing that Ascendant Copper’s news release dated December 19, 2006, contains inaccuracies and distortions of the facts regarding the company’s ill-fated Junín mining project.