are close to 240 pools used by illegal miners to wash stone material in search of gold in the community of Yutzupino, in Napo. These large wells have mercury-containing water and were dug on the banks of the Jatunyaku River. Although the Ministry of the Environment announced that it is carrying out water studies to confirm the contamination of the tributary, environmental groups and community members already take it for granted.
In that area, where a joint operation between the Police and the Armed Forces was carried out, the environmental damage covers between 40 and 70 hectares. It is estimated that up to 4,000 people worked in the area extracting the metal. 124 backhoes used in this activity had been seized until February 23 last.
However, This brutal impact on nature would have been avoided if the authorities had not ignored the complaints about illegal mining in Yutzupino that environmental and indigenous organizations made two years ago.says Leo Cerda, a Kichwa from the Amazon and spokesperson for the Napo Resiste Collective.
Two years ago, at the beginning of the pandemic, Cerda assures, the gold rush began in the province, since the concession of 7,125 hectares of Amazonian forests located in the Jatunyaku and Anzu river basins to promote mining projects became known.
“Without prior consultation with the communities, the government gave these hectares to the mining companies. There we already announced what would happen, we filed a complaint and a protection action. We filed the complaint when there were only five backhoes in Yutzupino, which is five minutes from Tena,” he says. At that time there was no response from any authority.
The removal of machinery from the Yutzupino area, in Napo, where illegal mining activity was detected, begins
According to the Federation of Indigenous Organizations of Napo (FOIN), illegal mining activity continues to grow in this territory under the protection of “legal” concessions: “The environmental situation has been violated by extractive companies and, in turn, by the concessionary permit of the State. Mining activities have involved the rupture of the social fabric and the emergence of conflicts fueled by companies and other actors (illegal operators, local authorities and government institutions) between those who oppose mining and those who agree with it.
The absence of the State in these territories that does not arrive with good education, sources of work and security has caused the social fabric to break and that part of the communities, lacking opportunities, accept illegal extractive activity.
Illegal miners used at least 50,000 grams of mercury in the 70 affected hectares, says Cerda. In addition, she adds, traces of diesel and gasoline were dumped directly into the rivers. The community members, who live near the affected area, can no longer grow cassava or plantain, even for food, due to the contamination of the land.
The Jatunyaku and the Anzu become the Napo River. On the banks of this tributary, one of the largest in the Amazon, more than 1,500 indigenous communities live. “This means that the problem is not only the contaminated water that is drunk by the communities, but also that the fish are going to be contaminated and people are going to eat those fish. Mercury accumulates in the human body until the individual becomes ill or dies from high levels of this metal.”, Cerda explains.
The Government decided to temporarily suspend all mining activity in Napo. However, Zenaida Yasacama, vice president of the Confederation of Indigenous Nationalities of Ecuador (Conaie), affirms that this is not enough to deal with pollution and social problems in the area.
Almost a hundred excavators were seized in the Yutzupino mining area, in Napo
He points out that an audit of all the control authorities is needed to find out why they did not act on time, an environmental audit, establish dialogue tables to support the affected communities, guarantee the safety of the people who are denouncing the damage caused by legal and illegal mining, investigate who are the beneficiaries of the resources that are being extracted, trace the route of the extracted gold.
Cerda and Yasacama affirm that this time the focus is on illegal mining, but that legal mining, which is supported by the government, also pollutes and “generates death.” (I)
Source: Eluniverso
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