A pyrrhic victory? An Ecuadorian town grapples with a divisive mine closure

Rio Blanco, Ecuador – Today, the Rio Blanco mining camp in south-central Ecuador lies in ruins.

Shattered china litters the ground not far from a hollowed-out kitchen with no walls left standing. An abandoned mine tunnel — as wide as a house — stands on a hillside, overlooking the charred remains of a diesel station.

In 2018, environmentalists hailed Rio Blanco's closure as a landmark win for conservation. A court had sided with local activists and ordered the gold-and-silver mine to suspend its operations.

But nearly seven years later, the adjacent settlement, also called Rio Blanco, struggles to contend with the mine's legacy and the divisions its closure has sown among residents.

Eloy Alfaro, an expert in mining conflicts and reconciliation, first visited Rio Blanco in 2018 as a professor at the University of Cuenca. He saw firsthand the aftermath of the mine's departure.

"The community was broken, fractured," Alfaro told Al Jazeera. "Since then, there have been murders. There have been suicides. They have been completely torn apart."

Now, with recently re-elected President Daniel Noboa seeking to expand mining in Ecuador, critics are looking to sites like Rio Blanco to understand the risks — and what life might look like after the extraction process ends.

The isolated hamlet of Rio Blanco sits in the grassy, stone-studded foothills of the Andean mountain range, mere kilometres outside Ecuador’s Cajas National Park.

About 80 families live in the village, many of them farmers who identify as Indigenous.

Income insecurity and unemployment in the region are high. While Ecuador overall has a poverty rate of 28 percent, the number spikes to more than 43 percent in rural areas like Rio Blanco.

Extreme poverty, meanwhile, is tallied at 27 percent in Ecuador's countryside as of December 2024. That dwarfs the rate in urban areas, which sits at just 6 percent.

Jhon, a community member who asked not to use his real name for fear of reprisals, said that the mine's closure has led to disagreements about the local economy.

Some believe the mine needed to be shuttered to protect the alpine water resources from toxic run-off and other environmental harms.

Others, however, have seen their livelihoods disappear with the rumble of the mining trucks.

“They say, 'I don’t have a job because of you. You took away my ability to feed my family,'” Jhon said.

These tensions have bubbled into deadly disputes, according to Jhon and others in the community.

In March 2021, for example, Andrés Durazno — a Rio Blanco environmental leader known as the "guardian of the hill" for his activism — was stabbed and killed outside his home.

Community members told Al Jazeera that he was killed by a pro-mining family member who then fled justice.

"Can you imagine? Your cousin or your sister becomes your mortal enemy," Alfaro said.

Initially, the mining project won the support of the majority of locals.

In 1999, the Canadian International Minerals Corporation (IMC) secured the rights to mine Rio Blanco and promised the community new social projects and high-paying jobs.

"They told us that, as long as the mine was operating, we’d live well [and] would have everything because they would help us," said Jhon, who worked for the mine before advocating for its eventual closure.

Yaku Pérez, a lawyer who later represented the community in court, estimated that 90 percent of Rio Blanco's residents backed the project at first.

Many even went into debt to buy pick-up trucks on the understanding that they would be driving for the mine, he said.

"They bought the vehicles, and when the time came, [the company] didn't give them work," Pérez said.

Jhon also felt a sense of betrayal. "In the end, they did nothing of substance to support us, and destroyed everything. It was like taking candy from a baby."

The IMC could not be reached for comment, as the corporation has ceased to exist. Requests for comment from the companies involved in its acquisition were not returned by the time of publication.

In 2013, the Chinese-owned consortium Ecuagoldmining took over the Rio Blanco project.

Just as with the previous owner, locals accused Ecuagoldmining of doing little to help the community.

For instance, company representatives planted non-native pines near the mine. "They told us that we could use the wood to build houses," Jhon explained.

To this day, the trees form unnaturally straight rows that mark the mine from afar. But Jhon and other community members said these invasive species have instead displaced native plants.

Community members also accused the mine of leaching arsenic into the water supply used for drinking and agriculture.

In 2016, the year the company started construction on the mine, an independent report warned of the risk to local waterways.

It found that Ecuagoldmining’s environmental studies appeared to have "underestimated" the impact of the Rio Blanco mine, including its projected arsenic discharge.

"The extremely high arsenic content in the rock in the area will very likely be released, posing an enormous risk to the health of the communities and dairy cattle downstream," Jennifer Moore, a coordinator for the advocacy group MiningWatch Canada, wrote in an introduction to the report.

Community members in the years since have blamed the mine's operations for drying up the highland wetlands and making cattle-ranching untenable.

"The mine took everything,” Eli Durazno, a local civil society leader, told Al Jazeera. "We lost our animals. We lost our streams, our wetlands, our very landscape."

Today, tonnes of drill core samples extracted during Ecuagoldmining’s exploration spill from the wreckage of the camp.

"If those samples contain sulfur, they may oxidise into sulfuric acid and, upon contact with rain, release the metals they contain [into the soil],” Sandra Barros, a local hydrology engineer, told Al Jazeera.

Ecuagoldmining did not respond to Al Jazeera’s requests for comment.

On social media, however, the company said it was committed to "sustainable mining" at Rio Blanco in a way that was "responsible for society and the environment".

It pointed to reports that it says show "no contamination of the area where the Rio Blanco Mining Project is located".

The company also touted its efforts to improve local infrastructure, including schools. "We foster productivity that drives community development," it said in one post.

As concerns about the environmental damage mounted, Ecuagoldmining’s presence split the community. Some began to look for a way to kick the multinational out.

"The locals began to realise that the mine wasn’t going to comply with any of its promises," said Pérez. "First, they started to doubt, then mistrust, and finally, they turned on the project."

A councilman from the nearby city of Cuenca filed a complaint to suspend it, arguing that the company violated the community’s right to informed consent, threatened the region’s water supply and failed to produce adequate impact studies. A local judge denied the petition.

But resistance was growing. The community started a pilot eco-tourism project to offer an alternative income source to mining. A few months later, however, Ecuagoldmining erected fences that blocked the local hiking trails.

Ecuagoldmining had no legal claim to the fenced land, according to Alfaro, the expert in mining conflicts.

"It was communal territory. It could not be sold," Alfaro told Al Jazeera.

In 2018, the human rights nonprofit FIAN Ecuador released a report alleging that both the IMC and Ecuagoldmining acquired communal lands through false claims and by pressuring families to sell property they never legally held.

For its part, Ecuagoldmining has maintained it acted within the law.

It also questioned whether locals qualified for prior consultation on construction projects, a right reserved for Indigenous people under Ecuador's constitution.

"The #RioBlanco project has complied with legislation. DON'T BE DECEIVED!" the company wrote on its Facebook page.

But community members say that the "privatisation" of communal land not only sowed strife but also disrupted their daily life as farmers.

"The community could no longer reach their pastures," Alfaro explained. "In six months, they went hungry."

He credits female activists with starting to push back: "That’s when the women rose up."

In May 2018, protests escalated to blockades. Locals clashed with mining workers. The national government sent 300 troops to "protect mining interests".

It all came to a head when a fire gutted the camp. Ecuagoldmining blamed "anti-mining groups". Local activists, meanwhile, denied responsibility.

The conflict abruptly ended a month later, when a court ruled that the mining company and the government violated the constitution by failing to consult the local Indigenous community.

It ordered the mine to suspend all operations.

But even after the court decision drove out Ecuagoldmining, the conflict continued.

Pérez remembers how, a week after the court's decision, pro-mining advocates rushed his car on the road to Rio Blanco, shouting: "You’re mining’s number one enemy! Give us back our jobs! Give us back our helmets, our work clothes!"

The angry men slashed the car’s tyres and threatened to set the vehicle on fire. They kidnapped Pérez and his companions for seven hours. Two suspects were ultimately arrested for the abduction and sentenced to more than nine years in prison.

Not long after the kidnapping, gunmen looted the abandoned mine. Rio Blanco’s environmental defenders found their homes riddled with bullets.

Some incidents ended in bloodshed. In October 2022, armed men shot and killed Alba Bermeo Puin, a local nature defender. She was five months pregnant.

Authorities attribute the violence to criminal groups dedicated to illegal mining. But David Fajardo, a legal representative for some of the locals, suspects a different motive for the violence.

He is currently prosecuting two cases involving suspects believed to be involved in the attacks.

"A theory we have is that the government and mining company sent the armed ex-miners into the area," said Fajardo.

"That way, they can argue that the only way to stop illegal mining is to let the mining company back in."

To stop the incursions, locals say they dug a moat across the camp’s access road and barricaded the mine’s entrance. They continue to monitor the area.

But the controversy and violence have left the community shattered. Some still hope the mine will return.

That hope is not unfounded. In 2018, the court suspended — but did not ban — the project, leaving open the possibility that the mine could restart its operations.

The national central government and the mining company have already filed a special constitutional appeal to overturn the suspension, but their petition is still under judicial review.

“In reality, it’s not just a judicial dispute but a political one,” Fajardo said.

Mining proponents are expecting to see an increase in activity under President Noboa, a right-wing candidate who won re-election in April.

In 2024, Noboa travelled to the World Exploration and Mining Convention in Canada and signed six agreements worth $4.8bn.

And just this month, Noboa issued a presidential decree that would dissolve the Ministry of Environment and fold its duties into the Ministry of Energy and Mining.

Critics warn these developments threaten to undercut environmental causes and the right for Indigenous communities to have prior consultation before development projects.

To prevent conflicts like Rio Blanco's, experts emphasise that implementing these rights in good faith is key. They also say communities need more resources, so that mining is not the only way out of poverty.

"These places often have no government support, leaving people to fend for themselves," said Patricio Benalcázar, a sociology professor and mining conflict researcher at the University of Cuenca.

"The government should create programmes that improve people’s lives, provide basic utilities, schools, healthcare — and should help create other ways for people to earn money, besides mining."

Alfaro, however, believes that communities cannot rely on the national government's support. Activists, nonprofits, universities and others need to step in.

"Río Blanco is the best example we have of a community working together to stop a big international mining project," he said.

"But that doesn’t mean the next steps will be easy. How do you rebuild and heal families after the industry’s damage? For a small place like Río Blanco, they can’t do it alone."

Community members, however, are taking small steps to begin healing the rifts the mining caused.

In May, Durazno — the local leader — organised a Mother’s Day event to bring together Rio Blanco’s residents.

A mother of four herself, she felt the holiday could be unifying. Still, the attendance was not what Durazno had hoped for.

As she watched a dozen children from pro- and anti-mining families play together in a sunlit courtyard, she reflected on the toll the conflict has taken.

"It took too much to drive mining out," she said. "People are tired and don’t want to hear about mining any more. If the company comes back, I don’t know if we’d have the strength to take them on again."