The paradise just crossing the border

While there is a social-environmental conflict at the Peruvian side, all seems to be kind at the Ecuadorian side.

 

A FACTORTIERRA Investigation

 

ZAMORA, Ecuador – Do you know Zamora City? People here are proud of the jungle – lots of trees, falls, rivers, natural reserves… In fact, Amazon forest is around the place. Green is the dominant color. Zamora is the capital city of Zamora-Chinchipé Province, located at Southern-central Ecuador, just next to Peruvian Departments of Cajamarca and Amazonas.

 

 Weather is warm and wet, it is home of “tapirs, capybaras, guatusas, jaguars, birds and insects”, according to Wikipedia website.  It also contains Podocarpus National Park, a place where trees look like rocks and you can find a hundred lakes plus a crazy geography. You can find other related sites as Palphinia to protect orchids, Chicaña to improve cattle as well as Natentza, where you can go fishing too

 

Zamora is trying to have a double fame – it seems to be the Miner Capital of Ecuador, and the City of Birds and Falls at the same time. Or maybe it could be a mix-up — Chorrillos Fall is projected to be a part of a hydroelectric development in the short-term. So the region is familiar with that reality, and it explains in part why they didn’t react when the Rio Blanco issue started just crossing the border, in Peru, with possible consequences in its territory.

 

An old partnership

Chris Eager got a job in Ecuador many years ago, as he realized he wanted to work in Latin America. He stayed a time before he started to study a MBA in France. Then he met Richard Angus, who made an interesting offer –buying a mining project developed by Newcrest Mining where Angus was working, and to create a new company. In June 2002, Monterrico Metals born and Eager and Angus became the top chairmen.

 

Monterrico’s Río Blanco Project is not too far from the places Zamora is trying to promote as eco-touristic. It meant for Monterrico a possibility to reduce poverty in Piura Department highlands.  Opponents insist that the problem is that it will operate in a delicate area where there is a cloud forest that produces part of clean water that Piura uses everyday, and if Monterrico enters, the next one could be Newmont that got titles at the páramo area next to Huaringas lakes.

 

For the London-based company, voices against it were just a minority. Even those experts suggested investing in Monterrico:  “The inevitable risks of mining in developing countries then reared their heads: environmental protest, political worries, and now a modest delay in Rio Blanco's bankable feasibility study,”.

 

 They expected to develop other projects around the world, but that was not the right time. They were focused on Rio Blanco; however, they denied it is “a one-project company”. This is not a mad vision from two executives but an European vision that conceives Latin America as Eldorado, like their recent ancestor who came for the same dream half-millennium ago.

 

 Good expectations

Company top capital reached UK£ 71 million in 2006, but the share was decreasing when 2007 began. They have a reserve of 1.26 billion tons, according to Monterrico Metals’ CEO Andrew Bristow explained at Peruvian Congress in Lima – 1200 people could get a job and other 7000 can depend around the first group.

 

The company said they planned to generate new opportunities for agriculture, cattle and tourism, and a forest protection programme. Monterrico’s chairman Richard Ralph also said there were parties interested in participating in Rio Blanco project. “The proposal is still subject to a number of preconditions, including satisfactory completion of due diligence, which have to be satisfied or waived before any offer can be made” as Sharecast news feed reported on December 21^st, 2006.

 

Monterrico projected to produce about 200K tons of cooper per year and 2500 of molybdenum.  “The scale of the resource offers potential to double production after three to four years,” said one of the experts. “As part of the study, there has to be a new Scope of Works for process plant and tailings (residue) management, plus relocation of the tailings dam closer to the mine site”, he continued. Other project attraction was the possibility to build a pipeline to transport minerals.

 

In Zamora, people are still receiving visitors to show forest and rivers, maybe to have an excursion to Shuar villages. Maybe you want to go to Palanda, the home of black-billed mountain toucan, maybe you want to meet the natives. People didn’t see a threat just crossing the border , where Blanco River starts and also impacts in their side, because it feeds Chinchipé basin, shared by Peru and Ecuador.

 

©2007 Asociación Civil Factor Tierra. All Rights Reserved.

 

Also check: Tourism in the province of Zamora Chinchipe Ecuador CODESo