Ascendant loses a mining asset

Ascendant loses a mining asset

Ecuador

13th December 2005

Ibarra Reporting - http://www.elcomercio.com/noticia.asp?id=15759&seccion=2

A property of the Canadian company Ascendant Copper Corporation, interested in mineral development in the Intag zone in the west of Cotacachi, was set on fire Saturday.

According to Carlos Zorrilla, member of the organization Ecological Defence and Conservation of Intag (Decoin), farmers opposed to the mining company occupied one of the facilities and destroyed it.

According to the first information available yesterday, 300 representatives and inhabitants of 20 communities of the Intag zone, meeting in the community of Chalguayacu Bajo, decided to dismantle the facilities of the mining company. In this form they protested in against the presence of the transnational company, interested in exploring and exploiting rich deposits of copper and molybdenum that exist in the zone.

Last Saturday [December 10], the farmers, meeting in an assembly, decided "to destroy the facilities of the company, and that all property pertaining to the mining company is to be occupied by the communities and distributed to landless people".

It transpired yesterday that the functionaries of the company, Ascendant Copper Corporation, met to analyze the subject. One does not disregard that this week the respective judicial actions begin. In the meantime, in Intag, an atmosphere of uncertainty reigns.

This is the second time that a group of inhabitants of Intag have destroyed a mining camp. In May of 1997, 200 farmers, residents of nine communities in the zone, set fire to the camp of the Japanese company Bishimetals-Mitsubishi. As result of the action, the directors of the transnational company abandoned their exploration activities after two years of prospecting.

The dispute between environmentalists and miners was reactivated on March 29, 1994 when Ascendant Coper acquired the Golden 1 and Golden 2 concessions.