Canada has finalized negotiations on a free trade deal with Ecuador, but claimed human rights protections ring hollow in light of alleged state repression.
By Brandi Morin (Cree/Iroquois), Photos by Ian Willms
The mist rolls through Las Pampas as Juan Carlos Carvajal Silva, president of the ‘collective defenders of water and life’ in this remote community, sits on a wooden stump near the hilltop church, overlooking the village he has sworn to protect. Roosters crow in the distance as he gestures animatedly, his dark hair perfectly slicked back, his clothes crisp and immaculate. His shoulders bear the weight of a dozen criminal accusations, and a price on his head, but his easy laugh punctuates stories of resistance.
"If it’s terrorism to defend the land, if it’s terrorism to be at the head of a community and say no to a foreign extractive company — if that’s terrorism, let them condemn me. I’m here," he says, his voice firm with conviction. At 38, Carvajal Silva leads this community of 1800 in their fight against a new mining project brought to them by a Vancouver-based company.
Silva’s fight is with a series of new mines set to begin operations in the lush landscapes of Ecuador’s northern Cotopaxi province. Canadian company Atico Mining is readying for its La Plata project to come online, and promising that economic prosperity will accompany it.
Criticism of Canada’s role in enabling projects like this came to a head in early February, when Ecuador finalized negotiations on a new trade deal with Canada. The country’s conservative president says this deal will promote local job growth, and hold both countries to the highest of labour and environmental standards.
But the Atico endeavor is raising serious questions about environmental protection and human rights in one of the world’s most biodiverse regions.
The project, valued at $91 million, aims to extract copper, gold, silver, and zinc from beneath Ecuador’s soil. Every day, approximately 850 tonnes of rock will be excavated — equivalent to the weight of 425 cars — in an operation expected to run for eight years.
While the company has only explored 1.6 per cent of their land holdings, suggesting the potential for expansion, locals are rallying against Atico’s state-backed operation due to concerns about the project’s environmental footprint. Ecuador’s government and military have responded swiftly to quell dissent, resulting in violent clashes.
The mine’s shadow has turned neighbor against neighbor and poisoned daily life in the surrounding rural communities, where farmers who once worked side by side now eye each other with suspicion, and gatherings that used to celebrate harvests now turn tense with arguments over the project’s promises and threats.
A large white-painted wooden cross above the village pierces the morning mist, a beacon of faith overlooking a valley where simple ways of life collide with modern extraction methods. On a family-owned farm nearby, Carvajal Silva, impeccably dressed even among the sugar cane processing facility, moves with practiced efficiency through his family’s operation. His hands sift dried cane and feed spent stalks into the fire beneath the heating vats.
Steam rises from the boiling liquid, carrying the sweet scent of generations of knowledge.
"This is really our way of life. This is our gold, as they used to say," he explains in Spanish, wiping sweat from his brow. "The product inside has been what has given us our daily life here, that has given us clothes, food, medicine, everything."
His words reflect the pride and determination of Las Pampas, a farming community where traditional knowledge and modern resistance go hand in hand. But that tradition is under threat because of the La Plata project, which is set to break ground only 15 kilometers away.
Las Pampas pulses with morning life. The aroma of charcoal-grilled meats wafts up from restaurant kitchens as owners prepare for the day. Children in pressed uniforms make their way to school, calling out greetings to neighbors. Mules laden with goods clop through the streets, their handlers exchanging news at each stop. Even in these early hours, the village hums with activity — a vibrant, close-knit community where everyone knows each other, where daily life continues as it always has. Carvajal Silva’s connection to this land was forged in childhood, growing up poor but happy on a family farm in Las Pampas.
“To be born in the countryside meant becoming familiar with each tree, to be able to play and interact with a tree, to be able to play in the water,” he recalls. “What really identifies me (as of this place) is to be able to defend a tree, and know that when I was little I played in that tree, and today that tree is so big. Today, I say to that tree, when I was little you were also little, but today you are bigger than me, and today you give me shade.”
The same deep connection extends to the waterways that sustain the region.
“To be able to see a river, and say to that river, when I was little you were big for me and I was afraid of you, but today you are my best friend, because I share with you, because you refresh me. How could I not love a river? It’s part of my life, it grew up with me and it still continues to flow in the same place it has for as long as I can remember, and it will be there for generations to come.”
But this pastoral life exists under constant threat. Since 2017, the community has successfully stalled the mine’s advance through peaceful resistance. In response, the government has deployed a familiar playbook: criminalization, intimidation, and violence. More than 100 community members – simple farmers and families – now face charges of terrorism and organized crime for defending their land.
Painted as terrorists and organized criminals
"People are being criminalized because there exists no basic guarantee of the right to protest," Carvajal Silva explains.
"They are criminalizing small-scale farmers who don’t have the financial resources to access justice and who also don’t have the means to organize and travel far distances. It’s a strategy to wear people down. It’s a burden with economic, physical, emotional, and psychological implications."
In March of 2021, the threats turned terrifyingly real for Carvajal Silva. He was kidnapped by unknown assailants at gunpoint on his way to a community meeting in a neighbouring province.
"They surrounded us, pointed guns and pulled us out of the car, threw us into the trunk, and took us to dump us in the bush," he recounts. "Feeling a gun to your head, being told if you move, they will kill you… those were tough moments. I said, ‘if you’re going to kill me, I just want to see where I’m going to die.’ Let me raise my head and then kill me."
He survived, but the dangers continued. He says government authorities attempted to buy his silence with offers of a ministry position. "The state wanted to play me, they wanted to buy me and I didn’t agree," he says. "Above all else I hold my dignity and loyalty to my people. I will not sell my dignity."
When bribes failed, threats followed. “We are going to put you in prison. La Roca jail is waiting for you,” he says he was told by local authorities.
The government’s latest weapon is Decree 754, which attempts to fast-track environmental consultations for mining projects.
“The decree enables and facilitates the government being able to do what it did with the armed forces," Carvajal Silva explains. "A consultation that should take six to seven years — they want to rush it through."
The executive order was actually struck down as unconstitutional by Ecuador’s highest court in late 2023. Yet in a contradictory move, the court allowed the decree to remain in effect until new laws could be passed — creating what environmental lawyer Mario Melo calls "a legal gray area that hurts not only local communities but many government projects that also need clear rules."
Then in March of 2024, amid the legal chaos created by Decree 754, the clash between community and corporate narratives erupted into violence.
After multiple failed attempts to impose an accelerated consultation process in 2023, military and police forces returned with overwhelming force in March of 2024. More than 1,000 heavily armed personnel descended on the nearby town of Palo Quemado and Las Pampas, transforming the peaceful farming communities into what residents describe as a war zone. The confrontation left multiple community members seriously injured from bullets and tear gas canisters fired at close range. Among them, a 40-year-old farmer and father who now lives with permanent disfigurement after being shot in the face and back of the head — left unable to work and support his family.
‘They don’t want me to speak’
In the courtyard of Mesías Masapanta’s rented home, laundry hangs on the line and chickens scratch in the dirt. He sits outside in a wheelchair, his face permanently disfigured on the right side, his jaw hanging inside by a thread and held together only by a metal chain. His loyal pet parrot named Chou hasn’t left his side since he returned from the hospital seven months ago. Every word is a struggle now, his speech slurred from injuries inflicted by military forces during March’s environmental consultation protests.
"I grew up here, and when I could, I dedicated myself to agriculture and with it I was able to get my daily bread," Maspanta says softly, his gentle presence undimmed despite his broken body. Before the military shot him, he worked the land like his ancestors — tending livestock, harvesting naranjilla, processing panela sugar cane. Now it’s hard for him to even walk around.
The day that changed everything started like many others in this resistance. “We went to the environmental consultation protest with a group of friends,” he recalls. “When we arrived, we found the surprise that the military had been waiting for us.”
What happened next plays on repeat in his fractured memory: "The soldier was aiming at me and hit me in the face. I flipped backwards and I don’t remember any more."
He spent nearly three months in a coma. When he finally woke and was able to recognize his family again, doctors said he was lucky to be alive, let alone able to walk or speak. But seven months after leaving the hospital, Maspanta faces a new battle — finding $100,000 for urgent surgery to repair his jaw. The bullet that shattered his face wasn’t alone. Another bullet is still lodged near his cervical spine. "I can’t exert force," he explains, gesturing to the back of his head.
In the courtyard, his father Marcelo Robayo, 60, bounces Maspanta’s eight-month-old daughter in his arms, throwing her up in the air as she squeals with delight, her pink bonnet framing huge brown eyes and thick black hair. The joy of the moment is pierced by his father’s tears streaming down his tanned, weathered face, his calloused hands testament to a lifetime of working the earth.
"My son was a very hard worker in supporting the family," he says, breaking down. "I taught my son to work hard and to be an honest person. He wasn’t fighting with anyone; he was a good boy."
The family lives day to day, grinding sugar cane for whatever money they can earn.
"There are days that we eat, there are days we don’t eat,” says Robayo.
When Maspanta was hospitalized in Quito, his parents traveled there with almost nothing, often going a day with just one meal. "I was calm, because I’m not a terrorist," his father, who is also facing charges of terrorism and organized crime, says. "I have a clear conscience. I am a hard-working peasant."
Maspanta’s wife, Marcia Leon, 30, tries to stay strong as she holds their baby, but breaks down showing X-rays of her husband’s skull, the thick chain visible where bone should be. She can’t work because he needs constant care.
"It’s very hard to see him. He used to be on his own," she says. "My daughter is small… It’s been eight months and I’m still fighting. I only ask God to give me strength to move forward."
The family faces more than just medical challenges. Maspanta’s sister, Martha Masapanta, 43, says that while he was in a coma, there were attempts on his life.
"They even ordered him to be killed," she says, placing the blame on the mining company and government.
The family took turns guarding him day and night, checking every medication. Phone calls came from unknown numbers — people claiming to be sergeants, demanding information. "It was scary for us."
Now Maspanta’s wife reports what she describes as constant surveillance. "They are always watching… the police or those who work in the Atico mining company. They always know more and they say about me: there she is, what she does, where she goes."
Maspanta has mostly been quiet about what happened, until now.
"They don’t want me to speak, nor do they want me to give my version," he says. "They said that I am like this because I have fallen, I have stumbled, but I did not fall. It was the bullets."
His sister, herself charged with terrorism and organized crime for opposing the mine, refuses to be silenced. She and other community members take turns working Maspanta’s land one week, their own the next, trying to support the family.
"After all, he gave the only thing he had," she says. "Imagine giving your life for all of us. So we cannot disrespect that."
The community is helping build Maspanta and his family a small house, so they’ll have something of their own.
"When this accident happened, when he went out to fight, he had nothing, he was just a working man, just like all of us here,” she says.
Their resistance continues, even as many face charges of terrorism and organized crime. "We are peasant defenders of water and life," Maspanta’s sister declares. "We want our voices to be heard… Please stop this because they are killing us day by day."
Maspanta, once a strong farmer who fed his extended family, now struggles through each day. But his spirit remains unbroken. "We want to live in peace like every human being," he says. "That is what I would ask on my part, that our voice is heard."
As evening approaches, his father cradles the baby granddaughter who barely knew her father before the shooting. His weathered voice carries both pride and pain: "We are humble, hard-working people. I’m not afraid. What I ask is that the company no longer comes here. I ask from the bottom of my heart that they don’t come. We don’t want them to spill blood anymore."
On a different day in nearby Palo Quemado, the scene is tense as another government sanctioned environmental consultation process is underway. Unlike what we might expect from a consultation meeting, the building is surrounded by police officers.
Carvajal Silva, dressed for business in his crisp white shirt, black jacket, and perfectly pressed jeans, peers through the tinted windows of a van parked at a safe distance.
"I stayed in the car, first, for my own safety," he murmurs, eyes fixed on two plainclothes officers scrutinizing the vehicle.
"See these two people who are always surrounding the car, they are people that the mining company sends to persecute me, together with the police, because I have many complaints against me for mobilizing the people."
His voice remains steady, but his tension is palpable. "I’m always on the defensive in this area, because there are many people who have already put a price on my head. So really coming here is for me like almost coming looking for death."
In December of 2024, Indigenous journalist Brandi Morin and photojournalist Ian Wilms traveled to Ecuador on the eve of a new free trade deal with Canada to report on the brewing conflict between the Shuar people and a Canadian mining giant.
This is part three of four in a series. Read part one here and part two here and stay tuned for part four!
