Environmental activists staged a peaceful demonstration at the embassy of China Monday to protest a contract between Ecuador and a Chinese company to mine copper in the Amazon, an activist said.

Yvonne Yanez, leader of the group Ecologist Action, said 10 women from a variety of groups went to the embassy to deliver a letter opposing the contract, which was to be signed later Monday with Ecuacorriente (ECSA), a Chinese-financed mining company.

She said the activists entered the embassy without incident, and that the women were waiting inside to deliver the letter to the ambassador, who had not appeared. About 50 other activists were outside the diplomatic mission.

ECSA plans to extract 2.3 million tons of copper from the mine in the Condor range in southeastern Ecuador, in an area that the protesters say is one of the country's most biodiverse.

The mining company's work "will affect for all time the territory of indigenous people and nature," the letter said.

"We reject the signing of the contract... without approval of an environmental impact study and without the knowledge of indigenous communities," it said.