Ecuador communities resist Canada-backed gold mine in sacred highlands

Ecuador communities resist Canada-backed gold mine in sacred highlands

This is the second part of a three-part series on underreported issues involving Canadian mining companies and Indigenous peoples or local communities. Read part one here. Shrouded in the lush vegetation of the páramo, the Andean tundra landscape, the quiet wetlands and moorlands of Quimsacocha in southern Ecuador are at the center of a dispute. Hortensia Zhagüi, a water defender and leader of the Tarqui community in the country’s Cuenca canton,…