Canadian miner Dundee Precious Metals secured an environmental license to exploit the Loma Larga deposit in Ecuador’s Cajas páramo, alarming scientists along with residents who depend on the high-altitude wetland for water.
Douwe den Held and Anastasia Austin report for The Guardian.
In short:
- Ecuador’s environment ministry approved Loma Larga’s exploitation licence, unlocking a $450 million build that the company says will create about 1,200 jobs and tap gold worth more than $6 billion.
- Local referendums and a 2023 court ruling had stalled the project, but President Daniel Noboa extended the concession and folded the environment ministry into the mining ministry, moves critics call politically driven.
- Independent reviews fault the company’s impact study and warn that blasting beneath the Quimsacocha páramo could taint rivers serving Cuenca and the Amazon headwaters and erase dozens of endemic amphibian species.
Key quote:
"Protection is not just a matter of the environment. It is a matter of survival."
— Sandra Barros, municipal hydrology engineer
Why this matters:
High-Andes páramos act like cloud-fed sponges, releasing a steady trickle that sustains farms, cities and rainforest headwaters far below. Their peat soils filter water and store more carbon per acre than many forests, yet they are only a few meters deep and scar easily. Once mining tunnels fracture the bedrock, acid drainage and heavy metal runoff can seep for decades, traveling downslope through watersheds that supply nearly a million people in southern Ecuador. The conflict also highlights a regional pattern: governments courting foreign investment while weakening environmental oversight and criminalizing protest.
Learn more: Mining will remain dominant in the Pan Amazon for decades
