Movie Title: The Curse of Copper 54 min. 2007 Friends of the Earth Producer: Jenny Sharman Description: The Intag region in Ecuador is one of the world’s ten most threatened biodiversity hotspots. On the border of the Cotacachi-Cayapas Ecological Reserve, Ascendant Copper Corporation proposed to construct an open-pit copper mine. After a fierce battle in the 1990s between local people and mining corporations, the local government declared the whole of Cotacachi an “Ecological County”, and banned mining activities in the region. Despite this, in August 2002, two mining concessions in the Intag were secretly auctioned off by the Ecuadoran Ministry of Energy and Mines to a private trafficker in mining concessions.
These rights were subsequently sold in 2004 and then transferred to Ascendant Copper Corporation (ACX), based in Vancouver. The communities of Cotacachi have continued to resist the encroachment of Ascendant Copper on their lands and have gained the support of international organizations including Friends of the Earth, Mining Watch Canada and Rainforest Concern.Website: www.foecanada.org
Friday, February 8, 2008
World Community Film Festival
Check out the World Community Film Festival at Langara College this weekend. Of note pertaining to issues of corporate social irresponsibility is The Curse of Copper. It is screened in Theatre 3 tomorrow (Saturday) at 12 pm:
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment