Despite a long history of opposition by local communities, INV Metals is aggressively seeking its final permits to commence a large-scale mining project at Quimsacocha (locally known and referred to hereafter as “Kimsacocha”) near the Andean city of Cuenca in Azuay, Ecuador. The proposed project is located in an area classified as páramo. The páramo is a complex alpine tundra wetland ecosystem existing exclusively in high, tropical, mountain environments between the tree line and snow line.

The porous andosol soils that make up the páramo ecosystem have evolved from volcanic ash deposits and layered organic matter over millions of years. These unique low-density soils have a high capacity of water retention that play an essential role in water regulation of wide-ranging regions through interconnected water balancing components. The complex hydrology of the páramo is not well-understood, but what is known is that this ecosystem provides a home for many species and a vital source of water to all living beings.

INV Metals’ proposed Loma Larga Project

Significant impacts are inherent with any construction within the páramos. This simple understanding has informed legal and regulatory policies that have preserved these unique habitats and their inhabitants for current and future generations.

In order to extract the targeted ore at Kimsacocha, INV Metals plans to construct a large-scale underground mine in which long-hole and drift-and-fill methods are utilized; a process involving a constant cycle of drilling and dynamite blasting using heavy vehicles (40-ton trucks) and machinery. If permitted to proceed, INV Metals plans to inject and blast 2,500 kg of AMFO dynamite per day. The process will also require constant draining or “dewatering” of the site through a series of sump pumps in order to achieve workable conditions. Dewatering will impact both ground and surface water as well as saturated endemic páramo vegetation.

In addition to these irreparable modifications, the project poses a high risk of water contamination given the complex hydrological nature of the paramo ecosystem. According to INV Metals’ own Feasibility Study, the water discharged from the water treatment plant will exceed “the Ecuadorian Freshwater Aquatic Life and Wildlife Standards (Freshwater Standards) for some solutes including aluminum, copper, nitrate, lead, arsenic, chromium, iron, mercury, manganese, and zinc.” The Feasibility Study also noted that all of the waste rock will be acid-generating, which heightens the risk for acid-mine drainage in the long-term.

Species Impact: Amphibians

 The unique soils of the páramo provide critical habitat and or nesting grounds for hundreds of species, many of which are endangered or critically endangered and endemic i.e., specifically adapted and restricted to the Andean highlands of Ecuador. These species play an essential role within a complex web of biological interactions that maintain Azuay’s water quality.

The well-being of amphibians known to live in and around the Loma Larga project are of particular concern considering the essential role amphibians play in the ecosystem, their susceptibility to chemicals and disease, and the depleted status of many of these species (Bralower, T. and Brice, D., n.d.). Amphibians play a central role in the food chain serving as both predators that balance insect populations, and as prey for many animals including snakes, birds, mammals, and other amphibians. Consequently, amphibian populations influence other species within their ecosystem and its processes (U.S. Fish & Wildlife Services, 2015). Amphibians also provide a host of important ecological services including nutrient cycling, bioturbation, pollination, seed dispersal, and energy flow through ecosystems (Cortés-Gomez, et al., 2015). Most amphibians use aquatic habitats for part of their life cycle, and are notoriously sensitive to changes in habitat quality and toxins due to their highly permeable skin and eggs which allow water and oxygen to pass directly and absorb (U.S. Fish & Wildlife Services, 2015).

An alarming global decline in amphibian species due to a combination of ongoing threats including climate change, commercial exploitation, the introduction of invasive species, habitat fragmentation and degradation, and infectious diseases has been broadly recognized (Collins, 2010). Chytridiomycosis, a deadly skin disease caused by Batrachochytrium dendrobatidis fungus compounded by other threats has been implicated in catastrophic declines and mass die-offs of amphibian species around the world. 

The genus Atelopus which are distributed across tropical forests, cloud forests, and the paramos of Central and South America has been particularly hard hit by Chytridiomycosis with declines reported in all species restricted to elevations above 1000 meters 75% of which have disappeared (Tapia, et al., 2017). As of 2017, Atelopus represented approximately 15% of the 528 amphibian species categorized as Critically Endangered. This is of particular concern in Ecuador given its relatively large number of Atelopus residents - 26 described and at least 7 undescribed (IUCN). Of the 26 described species, 12 are considered Critically Endangered (IUCN). At least 4 Critically Endangered Atelopus species are known to occur in the Azuay province and may reside in and around the Loma Larga project site.

For example, the Azuay Stubfoot Toad (Atelopus bomolochos) is an endemic species known to occur in the humid, montane forests, sub-páramo, and páramo at elevations between 2,460 and 3,400 meters above sea level (IUCN). Historically this species was abundant, and could be found along the Cordillera Oriental in the Azuay, Cañar, Loja and Morona Santiago Provinces but disappeared entirely from its range in the 1980’s. The species was then rediscovered and recorded in the Vicinity of Cuenca in the Azuay Province in 2015 and 2016.  This species, and it’s rediscovery, are particularly significant since it was the first in Central and South America confirmed to be infected by the now-widespread chytrid fungus. 

The Jambato de las Tres Cruces (Atelopus nanay) is another endemic species known only from páramo habitats near Laguna Toreadora, Cajas National Park and Patul, in the Cordillera Occidental, and the Azuay Province of Ecuador (Coloma, 2002). This species’ scientific name nanay - a Quechua word that means sadness - was chosen to call attention to the sharp decline of highland amphibians in the Ecuadorian Andes and the sadness Indigenous peoples often express when referring to the disappearance of highland Atelopus species (Coloma, 2002).

The IUCN has categorized Atelopus bomolochos and Atelopus nanay as Critically Endangered on the basis of their restricted range, small population size, susceptibility to disease, and a continuing decline in the extent, and quality of their habitat due to invasive species, agricultural and mining development, and predation by invasive species.  Given their cultural and ecological importance, Atelopus species and other endemic amphibian species are the subject of intense research and ongoing conservation efforts by local organizations including Amaru Zoo and 'Balsa de los Sapos' at Museo de Zoología de la Pontificia Universidad Católica del Ecuador. While Chytridiomycosis appears to have subsided in these species, recovery will be challenging considering compounding threats.

INV Metals’ - What Are you Hiding?  

INV Metals’ 2020 Feasibility Study stated that four [unnamed] “Endangered or Critically Endangered” amphibian species were observed within the project area, and that impacts could be mitigated by avoiding streams and wetlands “whenever possible during the Project design.” This is a gross misrepresentation of the water-based ecosystem where the proposed project will take place, and is demonstrably impossible. Even if INV directly avoided amphibian reproductive habitats, heavy metal pollution released elsewhere—flowing through the interconnected páramo hydrology— would eventually reach, and devastate, this frog’s livelihood. Furthermore, no information has been provided as to how noise and seismic vibrations related to daily blasting, nor how INV’s heavy machinery and sophisticated dewatering program will NOT jeopardize the well-being of many sensitive, water-dependent amphibian species nearby. Loss of these species would have devastating consequences for the entire ecosystem (Bralower, T. and Brice, D., n.d.). 

Despite continued claims of transparency, and that it is “working with local communities,” INV Metals has denied legitimate requests for information about the potential impacts of the Loma Larga Project by local organizations that will be directly impacted by the company’s operations. If the company is convinced that the project will not impact the páramos watershed, then there should be no reason to continue to withhold technical information from those who have the most at stake.

DTA and its partners have delivered an Open Letter to INV Metals encouraging the company to uphold its obligations and commitments as a Canadian company operating abroad by responding to local organizations’ request for information. We look forward to INV Metals’ swift, positive, and timely response so that the true impact of the Loma Larga project can be objectively evaluated before more irreparable damage is permitted to move forward.

Join us in demanding that INV Metals make the EIA and other studies public:

TAKE ACTION to support communities in Southern Ecuador by demanding the company release this critically important information to the public.

References

Bralower, T. and Brice, D., n.d. Human Impact on Amphibians, Penn State’s College of Earth and Mineral Sciences’. Available at https://www.e-education.psu.edu/earth103/node/960. 

Collins, J.P., 2010. Amphibian decline and extinction: what we know and what we need to learn. Diseases of aquatic organisms, 92(2-3), pp.93-99.

Coloma, L.A., 2002. Two new species of Atelopus (Anura: Bufonidae) from Ecuador. Herpetologica, 58(2), pp.229-252.

Cortés-Gomez, A.M., Ruiz-Agudelo, C.A., Valencia-Aguilar, A. and Ladle, R.J., 2015. Ecological functions of neotropical amphibians and reptiles: a review. Universitas Scientiarum, 20(2), pp.229-245.

Tapia, E.E., Coloma, L.A., Pazmiño-Otamendi, G. and Peñafiel, P., 2017. Rediscovery of the nearly extinct longnose harlequin frog Atelopus longirostris (Bufonidae) in Junín, Imbabura, Ecuador. Neotropical Biodiversity, 3:1, 157-167.

IUCN SSC Amphibian Specialist Group. 2019. Atelopus bomolochos.

The IUCN Red List of Threatened Species 2019: e.T54492A98640844.

IUCN SSC Amphibian Specialist Group. 2018. Atelopus nanay. The IUCN Red List of Threatened Species 2018: e.T54532A98642265. 

U.S. Fish & Wildlife Services, 2015. Conserving Amphibians: What the Amphibians are Telling Us and Why We Should Listen. Available at https://www.fws.gov/ecological-services/highlights/04222015.html.