"Chinese Companies in the Ecuadorian Mining Sector: The cases of the Mirador and San Carlos Panantza Projects", March 2018

Open Letter to Chinese Authorities.

We write this letter from the parishes of Tundayme, San Miguel de Concha and Santiago de Panantza, located at the South of the Ecuadorian Amazon. In our parishes, there are two copper mining projects: Mirador and San Carlos Panantza. Since 2010, Mirador is owned by Chinese companies Tongling Nonferrrous Investment Co. Ltd. (TNMC) and China Railway Construction Corporation Limited (CRCC), which make up the company Ecuacorrientes S.A. (ECSA). Since 2012, new mining concessions with Chinese financing were also granted to the company Explorcobres S.A. (EXSA) thus creating the San Carlos-Panantza project... We also want to inform you that our peoples are opposed to these mining projects. In the few years of existence of these projects, they have already provoked violence, evictions, abuses and have negatively transformed our environment and our lives, not only because of the destruction of the environment, but also because they have impoverished us economically. We believe that the Chinese government, particularly the entities that authorize operations abroad, as well as the Chinese companies and banks that have supported these projects, are co-responsible for what is happening in our territories. We hope that the information we share in this document will help you to reconsider your intervention, and specically we ask you to do the following:

• Accept our invitation to visit our territory and check on-site what is stated in this document. We will be happy to coordinate the meetings, and adapt ourselves to your time and availability.
• Conduct a comprehensive assessment of the social and environmental damage, and design a comprehensive plan to compensate for damages to people and the environment. We suggest that such evaluation be carried out by independent entities with international credibility.
• Be open to consider the closure of the Mirador project and stop the San Carlos-Panantza project

Certainly, we will continue to exercise the right to resistance and mobilization - which are rights enshrined in the Constitution of Ecuador - in order to recover our territory and achieve reparation for damages. However, we hope that with your support and understanding we can, hopefully very soon, use our energy to make our own dreams come true.

Sincerely,

Luis Sánchez Shiminaycela, President of the Amazonian Community Condor Mirador Mountain Range (CASCOMI)

Vicente Numi Tsankip, President of the Organization of the Pueblo Shuar Aruntam