Ecuadorian President Rafael Correa this month moved a step closer to his goal of large-scale mining development in his country, signing a contract that will enable a Chinese-controlled company to undertake the Mirador open-pit copper-mining project. The deal, signed March 5, culminated two years of negotiations with Ecuacorriente, which is controlled by the Chinese companies Railway Construction Corp. and Tongling Nonferrous Metals Group Co. It marks Ecuador’s first large-scale, open-pit mining project, with production expected to begin in 2014 following construction of infrastructure including a copper processing plant, a 129-megawatt hydroelectric plant and water- and waste-treatment systems. The Mirador project site is located in the mountains of Tundayme Parish, in the southern province of Zamora Chinchipe. Ecuacorriente...
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The United Nations Special Rapporteur on the Right to Food, Olivier De Schutter, has urged Mexican authorities to rethink their approach to genetically modified corn cultivation, suggesting that they reimpose a moratorium. The recommendation came in a broader study of food insecurity in Mexico—along with companion studies on China and South Africa—that De Schutter presented to the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva on March 8. Pointing to what he called an “acute” risk to the diversity of native maize landraces, De Schutter argued that “it would be close to impossible to maintain the coexistence of native” maize varieties with transgenic corn planted on a commercial scale without the risk of contamination. Because Mexico is the birthplace of corn and home to countless...
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Meeting in Lima, environment ministers from the eight Amazonian countries agreed this month to cooperate on issues ranging from monitoring deforestation to managing water resources and defending indigenous forest dwellers. In a statement to be presented at the Rio+20 summit in Brazil in June, the ministers of the Amazon Cooperation Treaty Organization (ACTO) countries—Bolivia, Brazil, Colombia, Ecuador, Guyana, Peru, Suriname and Venezuela—called for greater collaboration to address common issues. The statement, issued March 21 at the conclusion of a two-day meeting, mentioned protection of indigenous groups that shun contact with the outside world, forest-fire prevention and control, ensuring food security and promoting “responsible and sustainable tourism” to reduce poverty. A two-page annex was devoted to wildcat gold mining in...
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