Defend Them All and its partners are actively supporting local advocates and indigenous community members protesting a destructive underground gold mining project in the province of Azuay, Ecuador. Locally known as “Kimsacocha,” the Project site is located within an incredibly sensitive area classified as páramo, an alpine tundra ecosystem that houses an important wetland system, with significant ecological, economic, and cultural values. The ecological risks of the Project are unacceptably high, and given the sensitive nature of páramo ecosystems and their inhabitants, any amount of contamination will have devastating effects.

In coordination with its local and international partners, DTA is pursuing legal and non-legal avenues to combat the Loma Larga project. We will continue to catalogue, evaluate, and drive awareness of the project’s inevitable impacts to the land and to the animals – human and non-human – that inhabit it.

• May 2020 joint letter with environmental NGOs to INV Metals and its shareholders urging withdrawal of mining operations at Loma Larga.

• October 2019 open letter to INV Metals expressing opposition to the Loma Larga Mining Project.

• August 2019 Amicus Curiae in Support of Allowing Prefect Pérez’s Popular Consult regarding mining in Azuay, Ecuador.