News Deeply: Women & Girls | 7/10/2017
When Bishi Metals, a subsidiary of Mitsubishi, first came to northern Ecuador’s Intag cloud forest in 1990, the area’s residents welcomed the Japanese multinational.
The mine developers promised the locals a stable income, free meals and transportation and other benefits before settling in to exploit the resources of a forest where it rains almost all year long. The air is so moist, a cloud drops into the canopy in the afternoons.
In 1995, Bishi Metals took away the perks. That’s when the marches and anti-mining campaigns began.
Bishi Metals eventually abandoned its project in Intag. Since then, the area has been the target of a rotating cast of mining companies. But a group of determined women is fighting to stop the area’s celebrated biodiversity from being devastated in the quest for copper. And today, their main target is Codelco, a Chilean company getting ready to start construction in the forest.
…
Naomi Cohen | journalist 