Carlos Zorrilla: The most important thing is to know that the mining companies and government will lie to your face. They’ll only supply minimum amount of information. They will avoid, as I said, mentioning some of the more drastic impacts and you need to know that mining will divide your community. That’s the first thing. People say, contamination, well people get contaminated before water gets contaminated. They get contaminated by these false promises, and the mining company purposely will introduce into a community to get people on their side knowing that they’re lies, it doesn’t matter. So you need to know that’s what they will do, and you need to find out how to combat that by being aware.

Mike DiGirolamo: Welcome to the Mongabay Newscast. I’m your co-host, Mike DiGirolamo, bringing you weekly conversations with experts, authors, scientists, and activists working on the front lines of conservation. Shining a light on some of the most pressing issues facing our planet and holding people in power to account. This podcast is edited on Gadigal Land. Today on the Newscast, we speak with Carlos Zorrilla, co-founder of the Civil Society Group, DECOIN. Zorrilla has been organizing and helping his community fight against open pit copper mining in the Intag Valley of Ecuador for nearly 30 years, often considered the longest continual opposition to a mining project. In a high profile legal battle in 2023, an Ecuadorian court ruled that the Chilean Mining Company, Codelco and the Ecuadorian National Mining Company violated the community right to consultation and the Intag Valley’s rights of nature. Mongabay staff writer Liz Kimbrough, wrote the original story on Mongabay along with a documentary video, by producer Romi Castagnino. In this conversation, Zorrilla talks to me about how his community’s grassroots campaign succeeded in helping convince the court, what role rights of nature laws played in the decision and what threats remain to the Intag valley, one of the most biodiverse regions in the world. In the Llurimagua mining concession, Zorrilla tells me fauna not seen in over a decade have finally resurfaced and what other vulnerable species remain. His 30 years of organizing have yielded him so much knowledge that he documented it in a manual for activists on how to fight mining projects. He tells me the most important lessons to know when defending your community from these interests, what risks you can face, and how to press on when challenges mount.

Carlos, welcome to the Mongabay Newscast. It’s great to have you with us.

Carlos: Thank you very much.

Mike: So just to recap briefly for our listeners, you and DECOIN have helped lead a grassroots campaign and a legal case in the Intag Valley and Ecuador, challenging copper mining permits given to two companies that are responsible for the Llurimagua Mining project. An Ecuadorian court ruled these mining permits violated communities’ rights to consultation and the Intag valley’s rights of nature. So this was like a very huge victory for one of the world’s most biodiverse hotspots and the communities who have been resisting it for 30 years. So can you talk to me about why the grassroots campaign has been so successful?

Carlos: Yeah, that really requires a book, which I hope to one day produce, but in summary, it’s one of the exceptions because once communities confront a mining company, they’re not just confronting a mining companies. You’re confronting everything that’s behind a mining company, the government, World Bank loans, export import, bank loans, all kinds of regulations that favor mining. It is very rare for communities to hold out so long. What has worked here I think has been from the beginning we realized that we needed to inform people about the real impacts of mining because the…as most people involved in these kind of situations, mining companies and the government sell the idea that mining is beneficial. For communities and the government and the country. And that’s not true. Especially that’s not true in such biodiverse areas as Intag. So we spent a lot of time going from community to community, from house to house, talking to people with hard information to just open their eyes about the real impacts of what it means to have a large scale mining project in your community. The real impacts, which could be violence, relocation of whole communities, contamination, a lot of social conflicts, tremendous amount of social conflicts. So people learn. Enough people got that message. We also were lucky to get a hold of the only environmental impact study in Ecuador not paid by the mining companies. And that gave us an idea of what some of the real impacts would be. So people were shocked enough, people were shocked, and so we helped them organize. We were the first environmental organization in Intag, not only opposing mining, but in general. So we were able to get enough funds to move people around and educate them. The education is key, and then we started buying land and gave them to the communities to protect their watersheds. You see so that was also key, that people were protecting watersheds that the mining companies could contaminate. And then we helped in the case of, Junin, we helped them establish an ecotourism project. And the forest that they were using sits above the ore body, the copper ore body. So there was a lot of factors involved, but those were the main ones. Enough people got the message and they were able to organize. And now we were the first organization, now there’s about 10 to 12 organizations. Not all of environmental, but they all have the same vision of development that has to be good for the people and not just for the economy. It has to be good for the environment. Enough people get that message, luckily.

Mike: Wow. There’s so much in what you just said that really sheds a light on the immense effort and undertaking this was. And so can you tell us how much did Ecuador’s 2008 constitutional ‘rights of nature’ influence this case?

Carlos: In Ecuador, the laws are written, but they’re on paper and they’re not enforced unless the communities, civil society pressures. So we, in order for us to win in court, we have to mobilize people and public opinion. And then, we were able to refer back to the constitutional rights of nature. And the rights of community to be consulted about any kind of project that may impact the environment. And we were lucky to get, sympathetic judges that agree with that. So yeah, the constitutional rights were very important, but they don’t work unless the civil society pressure, and we were able to do that, to get that pressure.

Mike: And can you tell us if that this precedent, this case influenced others in Ecuador or any other locations that you’re aware of?

Carlos: We’re the only case, the only mining case that has won knowing that there’s a large ore deposit. So it’s very difficult. you can win cases, for example, […], but they never explored. Here in our case, the Llurimagua Mining concession that Codelco is trying to develop, they know that there’s a lot of copper there, so it’s very difficult. There’s a lot of pressure on the government to develop these mines. So it’s different. So we were able to win in spite of the fact that the government knew that there’s a huge mining deposit there. Yeah, we were, it is very difficult to summarize what all went into it, but the constitution played an important role. So did the investigation. The biological investigation that we funded to find endangered species, that also contributed, those were solid arguments that the judges were able to grab onto and rule in favor of nature and the communities.

Mike: And so since this time, since this ruling, you say there’s been no illegal mining in the valley, if I have that correct. But you have seen the presence of a jaguar in the former mining concession, which hasn’t been there for more than a decade, I think you, you told us. Can, you talk to us about that? Can you explain the significance of this and what other animals your campaign has discovered that really shines the light on the biodiversity of this forest?

Carlos: I think everybody was shocked too. We now recorded two jaguars in an area that had not seen jaguars in 15 years. Especially since the mining came in, most mammals, just large mammals disappeared because the exploratory activities. Most people say, the mining companies would love to say, exploration. It doesn’t cause so much impact, but it does. It’s really a lot of noise, related to advanced exploration because they’re drilling holes into the sub soil, so it creates a tremendous amount of noise. So all large animals got out of there, pumas spectacled bears, anteaters, sloths and jaguars. So once that stopped and Codelco left in 2018, we’ve seen a lot more large animals come back. And how do we know that? Because we work with the local people. DECOIN and other organizations work with local people setting up camera trips. And also we trained them to go into the forest to look for signs of wildlife. So we were lucky that one of the cameras captured in daytime, a jaguar and beautiful images of a jaguar. And just a month and a half ago we also captured another jaguar, and this was at night. And so most people, and this is important for your audience to know, there’s a lot of attention being drawn to the Amazon and rightly so. It is a beautiful area, biodiverse. But the cloud forest in Western Ecuador where I live are amongst the most biodiverse in the whole planet because of the altitudinal range. So there’s a lot of endangered species per kilometer, square kilometer, a lot more than the lowland Amazon rainforest. So this is one, and jaguars, for example, that are almost gone in Western Ecuador are coming back because there’s still enough forest and enough people protecting them. So I think it’s, it is just amazing that we were able to be part of a initiative that makes it possible for jaguar to reclaim their ancestral territory.

Mike: And so you are in the process of updating the species list for the Llurimagua concession, if I have that correctly. And you’ve told us that there are about, I think you said a hundred species are currently vulnerable. What can you tell us about that?

Carlos: Yeah. It’s interesting because when the companies do their environmental impact study, they go out their way not to report key species that may become obstacles for development of the mine. This happens everywhere, but we were able to get enough funding to seek out species in Llurimagua. So in 2016, we hired some biologists from the central {…}, and the first night they were there, they found a frog that hadn’t been seen since 1989. And the IUCN had declared it extinct. Then three years later, they found another frog that it will be new to science. And then we were able to go in there again with other teams of biologists and eventually the list built up and critically endangered fish. Three species of monkeys, critically endangered in Ecuador. One is a critically endangered in IUCN. That is the one of the most endangered primates in the world. The brown headed spider monkey. The spectacled bears also endangered, there’s two kinds. You name it. In every animal group there’s endangered, vulnerable, or critically endangered species. In all this 100, including Ecuador is endangered. But 40, 45 just on the IUCN is still, it is one of these biological gems that, it just breaks my heart to imagine it becoming a open pit, large scale, open pit mine.

Mike: Hello listeners. Thank you for tuning into this interview. As mentioned at the top of the show, I encourage you to read the original article and watch the video documentary to learn the backstory of Carlos Zorrilla’s fight for his community. But if you’re enjoying this conversation and our work on the Mongabay Newscast, please subscribe to the show and leave us a review. These two actions are some of the most important ways you can support us, but if you want to support our nonprofit journalism further, you can donate to us at mongabay.com by clicking on the donate button in the upper right corner of the screen. Thank you very much. Back to the conversation with Carlos Zorrilla.

Now you say that the county government has declared Intag a life sanctuary. What does that mean exactly?

Carlos: Yeah, that only means what the government and people want it to mean because there’s not a protected category called ‘Life Sanctuary.’ We actually created it here. We invented it, our organization did. It’s a way to draw attention, public attention. But this area, it really is a sanctuary of life. There’s a few, there’s very few native forests in Western Ecuador and what there are, they’re unbelievably biodiverse and there’s also communities, agricultural communities, if people are making a decent living. So we created that to draw attention to this area. And so far it’s working because the municipal government adopted it. They passed it as a resolution, and now it is, it’s becoming like a brand for Intag and our Cote Cache, county, Intag santuario de vida or Life Sanctuary.

Mike: So what happens now? I assume that for now the community in Intag Valley is protected, but what threats remain?

Carlos: Yeah the problem is that the government and mining companies know that there’s a lot of copper lying underneath this primary forest, there’s 43 sources of rivers and streams just within the 5,000 hectare mining concession. So the copper’s there, and as long as mining companies have a easy access to places like Llurimagua there’s always gonna be a threat. We’ve already kicked out four mining companies that have tried to develop a Japanese, Canadian, the Chilean company, and now the state owned Ecuadorian Mining Company we’ve been able to kick out, but the copper’s still there, so that means the threat is still there. The government could turn around and give this mining concession–there’s actually, right now, there’s an Australian mining company called, it is based in Australia. It’s called Hancock Prospecting. They’re desperate to get a hold of the mining concession. They could, the government could sell it to them, and the whole process will start again. It would have to go in and, explore, socialize, and so on. We’re hoping that the Supreme, the equivalent of Supreme Court will stop the development based on the ruling against the Chilean mining company Codelco. But you don’t know that. We don’t know that in countries like Ecuador, where there really is no respect for the…there’s no rule of law here really. There just has to be a lot of public pressure, so we don’t know what’s gonna happen in, in a country like Ecuador. There’s so much corruption that what will help is for people to be vigilant, and for us to keep using the courts here and abroad to stop this project from developing.

Mike: So, Codelco, which is the one that was..that their mining license got revoked, tt appears that Codelco and its investors have launched a dispute against Ecuador and, a tribunal is set to take place. Can you tell us where in that process they are?

Carlos: It’s been over, I think they started in, December…they started in 2022. It’s almost been two and a half years, and it’s complicated. But Ecuador, as most countries signed these bilateral investment treaties, which basically means that Ecuador commits to protecting overseas investment. Canadian companies, Australian, Chilean, they commit to protect those investments. So what happened was that Codelco’s claiming that Ecuador violated that treaty by which they came to explore Llurimagua. So in order to pressure the government into letting them develop the mining project, they took them to international tribunal. And if they lose, they could ask for millions of dollars. In some cases it could be hundreds of millions of dollars. So that’s what’s happening now. It’s in, it’s still in the tribunal headed by the World Bank. They have not decided. There’s three judges, one picked by the country affected, one picked, one judge by the company, and one judge is, agreed by both parties. They will decide whether Ecuador violated the treaty and how much they would owe Codelco or whether the government will be forced to allow mining in spite of the fact that the court ruled against it. So it’s a very interesting case. The Canadians did this already, the same mining project, and they won $20 million even though the judges recognized that they use dirty tactics. They won though because all these, the international laws favor these transactional mining companies.

Mike: Something else that you told us, that you told our reporter, is that environmental impact studies, and you alluded to this earlier, environmental impact studies conducted in Ecuador are very often paid for by mining companies themselves–

Carlos: Always.

Mike: –and they often leave out sensitive information. What can you tell us about this situation?

Carlos: This is true everywhere. I don’t know about the US or Australia, but it’s true everywhere. What happens is that a mining company will hire a company that does environmental impact study, that company, if they report what they really find, they will not be hired again. So they, either that or they will be…some companies are ethical. Which is a rare case, and they’ll turn this document over to the mining company. The mining company will edit it. And I know this because a friend of mine was a translator and she saw how it was edited by the mining companies to leave out very sensitive information, like heavy metal contamination, endemic species and so on. So that this happens everywhere, which is why it’s important, that we have this one environmental impact study that was actually paid by the Japanese government, not by the mining companies. And there you see the real impacts of what even a small…this environmental impact study was based on a very small copper ore body. I get the drastic, the impacts were massive deforestation, contamination with heavy metals, there would be so much contamination the environmental impact study said that it would start to dry up our climate. It was that drastic. Those are the kind of impacts that these companies edit out.

Mike: Wow. And so the impact study that was done by the Japanese government, that’s the one that, that DECOIN used, to influence the Ecuadorian government, you say?

Carlos: No, we had enough information from the species that we’ve discovered. And we were able, and we were, we had to come through their massive, fake environmental impact study to pick out those things that they were bypassing and highlight those to the judges. And I think the judges were conscientious enough that any kinda large scale mining project in an area of such biodiverse, so full of water sources, very steep would be obviously, would violate the rights of nature. So I think they were convinced with just information we provided without even hardly mentioning the Japanese study.

Mike: Now you have published a manual for activists on how to resist mine proposals. This is based on your experience fighting these battles for so long. Why did you write this? And then what is the first thing to know about resisting a mine?

Carlos: I wrote it because when we were battling the Japanese back in the nineties, there was no information on what to expect if you’re a community. And I wish there was, and also so many people were asking me and how were you able to persist against two mining companies that I just decided to write it instead of answering all the individual emails and so forth. Those are the two main reasons. What is the most important thing to know about stopping minding development. You have to think of it as like a cancer that you need to treat it immediately and you need to look for signs that your body, in this case, your community is sick. For example, if people start showing up, asking questions about, what are the needs of the community? If they, if you see helicopters flying around with special equipment, if you see people, wanting to know who the leaders are and if a land is for sale. You try to put all these together and then find out, from internet sources, if there is some kind of mining project or mining concessions in your area, you have to stop it before they gain ground. The more you wait, it is like a cancer and it’s harder to get rid of. Once a company starts investing, it’s gonna be much harder for you to defeat them. They’ll be able to convince the government that they spend all this money. The government will therefore be liable for the mining companies, and the longer they’re in the territory, the more they’re able to convince people about the benefits of the project without mentioning any of the negative impacts, which is, that’s why grassroots organizations are important ’cause we’re there to show them the real impacts. But if you let them in, they hire experts, they really hire experts to convince people that this is what, that they’re poor, that you need better roads, that you could use a clinic, that your kids need better education, and that [the] company will provide all this. They will supplant local governments. So this is one of their strategies. They’ll supply the same services local governments would supply. So it’s in their benefits that these areas are abandoned. That’s how they work. So you gotta stop ’em before they gain ground.

Mike: Now that’s incredible insight there. And obviously mining projects are going to vary from nation to nation and from community to community. And you’ve already mentioned some things that I think have commonality to other locations, but what would you say are some commonalities that are applicable to any activist or anyone anywhere, that you want them to know?

Carlos: Yeah, the most important thing is to know that the mining companies and government will lie to your face. They’ll only supply minimum amount of information. They will avoid, as I said, mentioning some of the more drastic impacts and you need to know that mining will divide your community. That’s the first thing. People say, contamination. Well, people get contaminated before water gets contaminated. They get contaminated by these false promises, that the mining company purposely will introduce into a community to get people on their side knowing that they’re lies, it doesn’t matter. So you need to know that’s what they will do, and you need to find out how to combat that by being aware. Educate yourself and know that your life may be at risk. As several of us have been, threatened, I…the Canadian money companies made up a lawsuit against me to try to put me in jail. A community leader was jailed, because he was so effective. Trumped up charges, completely made up charges. So you need to educate yourself on what to expect. This is why I wrote the manual. But all these mining companies have these things in common. They need, they divide communities. They lie to you. They will supplant social services in order to get people on their side. And they will definitely never tell you the whole story. That’s common everywhere.

Mike: Carlos, it’s clear that you’ve been through quite a lot and 30 years is an extremely long time to fight anything, let alone a mining project. What kept you going in the toughest moments? In the darkest hours?

Carlos: Yeah, people ask me that. It is very difficult to explain, but I feel connection with the land. I belong to a social community, San Rosa, the small community, the people around here, but I’ve become aware that I’m also part of a biological community. I am part of this biological community. I think the question should be asked, how could you not defend it if you… once you’re part of a community. And once you know the community’s threatened, how could you justify not defending it? So to me, it’s natural to defend it even though it’s been… let’s face it, 30 years of my life. And just about every day I have to think about mining and this, I’m not exaggerating, so my life now revolves about mining. Even though we won a case, I know they’re gonna come back ’cause the copper’s there and there’s a lot of demand for copper. So your life changes radically. It’s very difficult except that I do feel this very strong bond with this land, with the communities, with the river, with the tree ferns and the mountains. And so that’s what keeps me going. And I know it is difficult to grasp, but that’s what it is for me.

Mike: Is there anything else about this situation that we haven’t discussed that you want people to know about?

Carlos: Yeah, what drives companies to far away, places like this remote, beautiful, pristine forest all over the world? What drives them is a demand for metals. And so ideally people would reflect on what they’re buying, find out where these resources are coming from. Ask yourself, do you really need this stuff? This is important because if there were no..if the need wasn’t there as it is for copper, especially now with the energy transition, this mining project is too expensive unless the price of copper is really high. It’s just too expensive. It rains over five meters of rain, very steep, pristine forest. It’s gonna be very expensive to mine, but the price of copper keeps going up and it keeps going up because consumer keeps buying, keep buying stuff they don’t need. Electric cars is a good example. It makes no sense. Absolutely. To put so much minerals. Cobalt is one of’em, nickel, copper, lithium into private transportation. That to me is a crime, especially knowing where all these minerals are coming from. Much more important to take care of basic necessities of people, health, public transportation first. If we do that, if we limit–if we limit the demand for all these minerals and copper is just one of them, cobalt is much worse. We have to limit the demand for these minerals. You say climate change is an issue? It is an issue. Loss of biodiversity may eventually be a bigger issue once the ecosystems become less biodiverse, it becomes less resilient. The forest lying above the ore deposits all over the world are actually storing carbon. They’re helping to mitigate the climate crisis. So we need to stop just buying things because people tell us they need for their health, for their happiness. This is it. This over consumption is what driving these companies to far away places, destroying communities, destroying land, where critically endangered species are. And weakening the systems that make ecosystems resilient. We need to be aware, stop buying things we don’t need, and become more aware of what’s happening in your community, in your country, and where all these minerals are coming from to make your life more comfortable and take action.

Mike: Carlos, where can people find your manual that you’ve written?

Carlos: Yeah, it’s in several places, including Cultural Survival. Especially try and get the latest edition, the 2016 edition. DECOIN, D-E-C-O-I-N.org, is also there if you just put in, ‘protecting your communities from mining.’ And other extractive industries, you should be able to get it. It’s in a few places and in a few languages.

Mike: I’ll be sure to link that in the show notes as well. Carlos, it was a privilege speaking with you today. Thank you so much for joining us on the Mongabay Newscast.

Carlos: No, I thank Mongabay, I think you guys are doing an incredible job highlighting, the threats that economic development implies for places like Intag. So, I thank you and all your listeners. Thank you.

Mike: Thank you, Carlos.

If you want to read more about Carlos Zorrilla’s work in the Intag Valley, or to read his manual, see the links in the show notes. As always, if you’re enjoying the Mongabay Newscast or any of our podcast content and you want to help us out, we encourage you to spread the word about the work we’re doing by telling a friend and leaving a review. Word of mouth is. Among the best ways you can help expand our reach, but you can also support us by becoming a monthly sponsor via our Patreon page at patreon.com/mongabay. Mongabay is a non-profit news outlet, so even pledging a dollar per month makes a very big difference and it helps us offset production costs. If you’re a fan of our audio reports from Nature’s Frontline, go to patreon.com/mongabay to learn more and support the Mongabay Newscast. But you can also read our news and inspiration from Nature’s frontline at mongabay.com, or you can follow us on social media. Find Mongabay on LinkedIn at Mongabay News and on Instagram, Threads, Blue Sky, Mastodon, Facebook, and TikTok, where our handle is @Mongabay or on YouTube @MongabayTV.

Thanks as always for listening.