This year’s Prospectors and Developers Association of Canada (PDAC) conference came to a close yesterday, marking the end of the world’s largest gathering for mining companies, investors, and government agencies. Yet, it concluded on a powerful note as Brazilian, Ecuadorian, Canadian, and U.S. organizations and communities broke the corporate decorum and took a bold stand, vocally condemning the threats and devastation wrought by mining in the Amazon.
In a unified voice, Amazonian Indigenous leaders and their allies shone a spotlight on Belo Sun’s Volta Grande gold mine in Brazil and Solaris Resources’ Warintza copper mine in Ecuador. These cases starkly highlight Canada’s role in enabling the harmful practices of its influential mining sector, challenging us to demand better and act for change.
As Amazon Watch’s Brazil Campaign Advisor, I had the opportunity to travel to Toronto to witness the spectacle of PDAC firsthand, where industry backers tout the benefits of mining without considering its inherent risks and promise to dig ever deeper to meet rising global demand for minerals, particularly those we’re being told are critical to the clean energy transition. Alongside grassroots allies and messages from our Amazonian partners, we were there to let them know that the world can’t mine its way out of climate catastrophe, and that the Amazon and its forest communities must not become another sacrifice zone to the rapacious behavior of the mining sector.
On Monday, I watched Ecuador’s President Noboa, whose last-minute decision to travel to Canada was clearly an attempt to promote a new era of mining for the country. It was his first time attending, and his presence and message during “Ecuador Day” was intended to reassure investors’ concerns over the country’s current security crisis and recent setbacks faced by the mining sector in hopes of positioning the country as a major mining destination. But government officials avoided mentioning the fact that 12 of the country’s most important mining projects face legal challenges, opposition, or are paralyzed – many due to the lack of Free, Prior and Informed Consultation and Consent of Indigenous peoples affected by the projects.
Days before Noboa’s presentation, with Amazon Watch support, the Shuar Arutum People (PSHA) filed a complaint before the British Columbia Securities Council over Solaris Resources’ failure to continuously disclose material information to shareholders given PSHA’s explicit and continuous rejection of its Warintza copper mining project.
“We know the government is in Canada trying to sign agreements with mining companies, but there has been no consultation for the Warintza project. The project violates the Ecuadorian constitution and our rights. Let it be known that we have not given our consent,” said Jaime Palomino, PSHA President.
To counter the PSHA, Solaris had scrambled to bring Indigenous leaders favorable to its operations in an attempt to present a veneer of social license to operate. This questionable effort was embraced within the insular environment of PDAC, where participants often overlook the industry’s true impacts. However, PSHA remained steadfast against President Noboa’s optimistic portrayal and Solaris’ attempt at presenting a facade of environmental responsibility, prompting President Palomino to deliver a scathing rebuttal.
Meanwhile, I walked the halls of PDAC’s “Brazil Mining Day,” watching familiar actors in Brazil’s Ministry of Mines and Energy and Brazilian Mining Agency try to position my country as the next bonanza in critical minerals, claiming that “mining could be as big in Brazil as agribusiness” as planned policy shifts gut key socio-environmental safeguards behind project licensing. Such a comparison with Brazil’s destructive agribusiness sector is revealing, as much like the country’s ruralistas, Brazil’s burgeoning mining sector openly covets the riches in the Amazon’s Indigenous territories and other protected areas, with dire human rights and climatic consequences.
My work both inside and outside of the conference was to shine a spotlight on the disaster portended by Belo Sun’s proposed Volta Grande mega-mine on the banks of the Amazon’s Xingu River. Both in PDAC, where I distributed our “10 reasons not to support the Belo Sun mining project” fact sheet and in a protest with allies from Canada’s Mining Injustice Solidarity Network outside a conference gala, I brought both our message and that of our Amazonian partners: Belo Sun must be stopped for the future of the river and its peoples.
As our rally vociferously denounced Canada’s mining sector with a loudspeaker and colorful signs, we were confronted by participants at the PDAC gala who identified themselves as mining investors, claiming that we were hypocrites who relied on mining like everyone else. Pushing back, I told them that we were there to spotlight the abuses of mining companies in places like the Amazon. While they denied such abuses existed, they were silenced when I mentioned Belo Sun, to which they grudgingly admitted we had a point.
Ultimately, this is why Amazon Watch needed to show up at PDAC, where our adversaries showcased their predatory industry and worked to increase their power and influence. Another narrative is needed – one that doesn’t accept the destruction of the world’s largest forest as a necessary byproduct of advancing modern society and, perversely, of fighting climate change. As the mining industry and its government backers set out to reap massive profit in the Amazon and on the lands of its Indigenous peoples, we must stand alongside our partners and help amplify their efforts to push back.
