[R-G] Ecuador's Future for Canadian Transnationals: An Exchange of Indigenous Perspectives

[Anthony Fenton]

ECUADOR'S FUTURE FOR CANADIAN TRANSNATIONALS:
AN EXCHANGE OF INDIGENOUS PERSPECTIVES
Written by Jennifer Moore
Wednesday, 20 May 2009

“The sorrows are ours; the cows are not.”
Translation of a lyric written by Atahualpa Yupanqui (born Hector  
Roberto Chavero; died 1992), an Argentinian Communist exiled to Paris  
and who lived out his life there. The original Spanish is: “las penas  
son de nosotros, las vaquitas son ajenas.”

http://upsidedownworld.org/main/content/view/1871/1/

“Welcome to the future,” says the sign behind the gated area where  
Vancouver-based Corriente Resources is developing an open-pit copper  
mine in Ecuador's Southern Amazon. Bumping along in the back of a pick- 
up truck on her way to visit one of several communities slated to be  
displaced by the project, the idea that the future is fenced off with  
restricted entry for local communities that have lived on the land for  
years, even generations, hit home for Anne Marie Sam.

 From the Nak'azdli First Nation in central British Colombia, Sam is  
one of two indigenous representatives who visited communities affected  
by Canadian-financed mining activities in Ecuador earlier this month.  
“We don't even want Canadian companies in our territory, so we don't  
blame Ecuadorians for not wanting them here either.” The Nak'azdli  
Nation opposes a proposed gold and copper mine on their territory that  
they have determined “would not strengthen them as a community”  
which includes about 1,700 members.

The trip was a critical response to President Rafael Correa's recent  
invitation to the Canadian Embassy to help delegitimate the position  
of various indigenous leaders who are critical of his mining policy.  
The Embassy is still responding and will soon host a second delegation  
of indigenous leaders. This most recent visit was coordinated by the  
Quito-based Pachamama Foundation in cooperation with the Confederation  
of Indigenous Nationalities of Ecuador (CONAIE).

The CONAIE has criticized Correa for continuing with World Bank-backed  
policies to substitute the country's dwindling oil reserves with metal  
extraction. Ecuador has been an oil producer for more than forty  
years, but no large scale mining project has yet entered production  
here. The CONAIE is worried about possible impacts on both water and  
local livelihoods. They further argue that indigenous peoples and  
other affected communities should have the right to consent over what  
projects take place on their lands or territories. A position  
substantiated by international law.

However, Correa is unequivocally opposed to local communities having  
“a veto” over what he sees as a matter of national interest. He  
calls his critics “infantile environmentalists” and the “greatest  
threat” to his political project.

Coming from Canada - the world's principal source of financing for  
global mining activities – Robert Lovelace, a leader from the Ardoch  
Algonquin First Nation in Eastern Ontario, says his experiences in the  
Andean nation reveal that indigenous communities in both countries  
“share a heck of a lot in common.” Not only does Canada have its  
share of environmental disasters from extractive industry and not  
uphold the right to consent for indigenous communities, it also lags  
behind Ecuador for not having ratified international conventions that  
recognize these rights including the American Convention on Human  
Rights, Convention 169 of the International Labour Organization and  
the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.

“We need to see much more of each other and we need to compare  
notes,” Lovelace says. An ongoing relationship, he believes, could be  
mutually beneficial. “When people in Ecuador stand strong,” he  
says, “it also helps us because it tells the mining companies that  
nobody is going to take the stuff that they've been giving out  
regardless of where they are.”

Canada's Glowing Reputation

While Correa hopes that indigenous leaders invited by the Canadian  
Embassy will drown out the CONAIE's criticisms, the recent visit by  
Sam and Lovelace revealed that Canada's story is not as harmonious as  
Correa would lead Ecuadorians to believe.

“[Canada] has understood how to respect and benefit its ancestral  
peoples,” said Correa during a national radio address. The first  
people to benefit in Canada from mining, he added, “are the ancestral  
peoples.”

But Lovelace, speaking during two events in Quito which included  
members of Ecuador's Constitutional Court, the Ministry of Mines and  
Petroleum and an international group of lawyers, called Canadian  
mining a “two fold problem: for us and the rest of the world.” He  
insisted that within Canada it has to be seen within the context of  
colonialism and poor regulation.

The firm but soft-spoken leader explained that indigenous peoples are  
the most impoverished group in Canada, with high rates of suicide  
particularly for those who have lost their traditional ways of life,  
and that they have suffered official attempts to destroy their social  
and cultural fabric leading to rampant addictions and many broken  
homes. This, he explained, is a cost of the extractive and commercial  
mindset with which Canada was founded and continues to operate.

Lovelace has been opposing a proposed uranium mine on Ardoch  
territory, and shared his experience about how his community was sued  
for $77 million dollars by Frontenac Ventures and about his three and  
a half months in jail as a result of efforts to prevent mining  
activities on their lands.1 Radioactive contamination of lakes and  
rivers from uranium mining, occupational health hazards, and the uses  
of uranium for nuclear energy and arms are a few reasons why they do  
not support the mine.

Speaking to the national press, he added that the proliferation of  
Canadian mining companies can be explained by the fact that “we don't  
have tough rules” and have poor infrastructure to enforce the rules  
that we do have. The Toronto Stock Exchange (TSX) lists almost 60% of  
mining companies worldwide with over 1,400 projects in Latin America  
and more than 8,000 around the globe.2

He thinks stronger regulation, backed up by good monitoring and  
enforcement, should be “the cost of doing business for companies that  
are invited into other countries and invited onto indigenous land, as  
a bare minimum. Canada has to acknowledge that and do that because it  
is immoral not to.” The United Nations Committee on the Elimination  
of Racial Discrimination (CERD) has also urged Canada to develop such  
legislation.

But Canada has been reticent. It took the government four years to  
respond to parliamentary recommendations to strengthen its mining  
legislation for extractive industry abroad, and its recent decision  
reinforces voluntary guidelines rather than tightening regulations.

Interestingly, Ecuadorians from the northwestern valley of Intag  
recently launched a lawsuit against the TSX with the objective that  
the case will help lead to stronger regulations in Canada. Inteños  
have broadly opposed open-pit copper mining for over twelve years, but  
this has not stopped current project owner Copper Mesa Mining  
(formerly Ascendant Copper) from trying to use forceful means to try  
to reach its concessions. The TSX was warned before the company was  
listed that further financing could lead to human rights violations  
and violence in the valley.3

Environmental irresponsibility, not Canadian?

However, Correa would have Ecuadorians believe that TSX-listed  
companies who are irresponsible, well, they are simply not Canadian.  
“Be careful!” he has warned on national radio. “There are some  
companies that try to pass themselves off as Canadian because they  
trade on the Canadian stock market, but they're not Canadian. Canada  
has strict, very strict, environmental requirements.”

But the Canadian public does not even know how much pollution mining  
operations have generated.

Only several weeks ago, the Federal Court released a “strongly worded  
decision” ordering the Canadian government to “stop withholding  
data on one of Canada's largest sources of pollution - millions of  
tonnes of toxic mine tailings and waste rock from mining operations  
throughout the country.”4 Indicating the strength of Canada's mining  
lobby, it has taken sixteen years since the National Pollutant Release  
Inventory was created for the sector to be held to the same reporting  
requirements as every other industrial sector.

When Anne Marie hears a question translated for her from an audience  
in Quito: “Mining companies say that their projects will be clean,  
that they won't have serious enviromental impacts, what do you  
think?” she laughs at the coincidence. “We hear the same thing,”  
she remarks. “But the question isn't whether a company will  
contaminate our water, it's when.”

Given the industry's track record in her home province, Anne Marie's  
nation has not been swayed by company promises that environmental  
impacts will be mitigated. A recent press release from the Nak'azdli  
Nation states, “There are close to 2,000 abandoned or closed mines in  
BC and two third of them are still polluting the land and water.”5

So, when the Nak'azdli First Nation was approached by Terrane Metals  
to develop a gold and copper mine on their lands at the headwaters of  
the Peace River watershed, they did not jump at the opportunity for an  
agreement with the company. They did, however, take the chance to do  
some of their own investigations and accepted the company's offer of  
$150,000 CDN without promising any further agreement.

Anne Marie was appointed to study the issue. “Our elders advised us  
not to focus just on the economic aspect, but to also seriously  
consider the social and cultural implications,” she said. With the  
company funds, they hired their own experts and examined the social,  
cultural, economic, environmental and legal ramifications of the  
project put together in what she calls an “Aboriginal Interest and  
Use Study.”

They concluded that they could not support the project. Even when they  
hit a period during which many of their members were without work,  
they determined that the kinds of jobs they could qualify for based  
upon their education and experience – cleaning, cooking and  
construction – did not outweigh the impacts.

Their disapproval has not stopped the company from seeking other  
nearby First Nation communities that would accept the project. Nor did  
it stop the provincial government from recently approving the  
company's Environmental Assessment despite not having consulted the  
Nak'azdli Nation. However, it has been a key tool in their resistance.

It is a challenge because “time is not on the side of First Nations  
when it comes to a mining project. It's always the timeline of the  
company.” But, she laughs, thinking about the time it took to read  
through the 6,000 page environmental assessment that the company  
provided and in which they found many weaknesses, “if I didn't read  
[the study], I wouldn't be able to tell you this story.” Education  
and communication, she says, “are key.”

Sorrow is Ours, the Cows are Not

The newly elected Prefect of Ecuador's southernmost Amazonian  
province, Salvador Quishpe, welcomed the Canadian delegation to their  
final event in El Pangui. The Condor Mountain Range stretches along  
the eastern horizon of this steamy jungle town situated near some of  
the most contentious mining developments in the country.

Whereas Bob Lovelace contextualizes Canadian mining in terms of  
colonialism, Quishpe frames Ecuadorian mining around twenty five years  
of neoliberalism that he says continues despite Correa's slogan “Our  
patrimony belongs to all.” He jokes for a moment: “the Canadians  
came along and said, “Belongs to all, eh?” “Hey, that's good,  
then that includes us too!”

Quishpe reminded the 400-strong crowd that UNESCO has declared part of  
the Condor Mountains a World Bioreserve which has over 48 distinct  
ecosystems and is one of the highest priority areas for scientific  
research in the neotropics. He also reminded the audience that vast  
stretches have been claimed for mining exploration and that the  
principal concession holders are Vancouver-based Corriente Resources  
and Toronto's Kinross Gold.

He observes that the industry's principal proponents -  the Ecuadorian  
representatives of Canadian transnationals - are in large part former  
officials from the Ministry of Mines and Petroleum. So, he remarks,  
the same people who helped institute the neoliberal framework for  
mining in the 1990s are now sitting on top of some of the best  
deposits of gold and copper. “It is ultimately the companies, not the  
government, who makes mining policy in this country,” he concludes.  
“And while it's a mortal sin to say it,” he continues, “mining  
should be nationalized.”

Having recently been called “an enemy of the government” and a  
“dumb leftist” by Correa, Quishpe adds, “We are not against  
development.” Rather, he emphasizes, his province needs proper  
planning with strong participation. He proposes at least one industry  
– tourism - that he plans to promote during his upcoming term in  
local office. “We want development for the well-being of our peoples,  
not so-called development by which a transnational company takes away  
our riches for itself.”

Sam has a similar comment. “Our community has always said, we're not  
against development. But we need to have a say in what development  
happens in our area and where, and right now we're not being given  
that opportunity.”

The Waterkeepers

As the event wraps up, Anne Marie hands Salvador a card. She explains  
that the image of a red and green frog was drawn by an artist from her  
community. The frog represents the waterkeepers, she says, and  
Salvador is a water defender just like she and the rest of her clan  
from the Nak'azdli First Nation.

“Coming here has opened my eyes to how connected we are,” says Sam  
reflecting on the visit shortly later, “and how similar the fight we  
have to protect the land and the connection [we have with the land]  
whether indigenous or not.” She thinks about El Pangui's struggle at  
the headwaters of the Amazon, and recalls her own at the headwaters of  
the Arctic. “What we need,” she says, “is a stronger role for  
indigenous people that is not after the fact or after claims are made  
on the land.”

In British Colombia, she says they are using new technology that  
enables helicopters to identify and take images of what minerals are  
in the ground just by flying over their territories. “Instead of this  
information going direct to the internet so that people can begin  
staking claims,” she says, “the information should go to First  
Nations first. And then we can decide if we want to do small scale  
mining, or if we want to do something else because open pits are not a  
nice site to look at and a recreational lake in an open pit (which is  
what the Terrane Metals promises to leave behind in her territory)  
isn't an ideal situation for us.”

Robert Lovelace also believes that a much more meaningful  
participation is necessary. He describes it as a spectrum that usually  
begins with information sessions or token consultations.  
“Consultation,” he explains, “is still a form of tokenism because  
to consult with someone does not mean that you're going to agree with  
them or even take their advice into account especially when there's a  
power differential, whether based on capital or politics.”

“But when the values of each of the parties are truly recognized,”  
he says “and we look at consensual partnerships where both parties  
are able to give consent, then if one party can't give consent, a  
project or development doesn't go ahead. But that's honest  
partnership.”

“As long as the power of First Nations are recognized then they may  
assign their authority to a corporation or a level of government in  
order to facilitate something happening. But that's their choice,  
they're not being forced or imposed upon to do that. The last stage is  
true self-governance. That's having full authority to choose to move  
forward with development or not, or to choose another future  
altogether.”

While it has yet to be seen what the Canadian Embassy's upcoming  
delegation will share with Ecuadorian's, it will most definitely get  
broader coverage from the Ecuadorian press. As well, one can be almost  
sure that free, prior, and informed consent; recognition of the  
inherent rights of indigenous peoples; and the possibility of  
different futures other than the Canadian-owned, open-pit and  
underground mines envisioned for El Pangui, Yantzaza, Intag, Victoria  
del Portete, Molleturo, Ponce Enriquez, and many other parts of  
Ecuador will not be up for discussion.


Notes:

1. For further detail see: Justin Podur, “Canada's latest political  
prisoners” http://www.zcommunications.org/znet/viewArticle/17019
2. 2007 figures based upon the Toronto Stock Exchange's Mining  
Presentation
3. For more information see http://www.ramirezversuscoppermesa.com/index.html
4. Press release “Court victory forces Canada to report pollution  
data for mines” available at http://www.commondreams.org/newswire/2009/04/24 
-0
5. Press release “Proposed BC mines cannot proceed without Nak'azdli  
First Nation” available at http://www.rightsaction.org/articles/Nakazdli_abuse_031909.ht 
ml