ECUADOR’S THREATENED RAINFORESTS
Since our last email 2 months ago, there have been significant developments in our campaign to rescind nearly 2 million Ha of mining concessions in protected forests and indigenous reserves secretly handed out to multinational mining companies by the Ecuadorean government.
Feb 28 President Moreno confirmed the annulment of 2000 concessions in meeting with Amazonian tribes.
However, we remain skeptical – the government has declined to release any details concerning these 2000 concessions and over 94,000 MORE hectares of indigenous land have been awarded to mining companies since January 2018.
Women from different regions of the Ecuadorian Amazon gathered in the city of Puyo, Ecuador to mark International Women’s Day” and then marched to Quito to present their demands to President Moreno.
Indigenous women march in Ecuador, vow to ‘defend our territory
We are the protectors of the jungle’: Amazon women to deliver environmental demands
The women come from all parts of Ecuador’s Amazon region but they share one thing in common: a fierce determination to stop the growing oil exploration and mining activity in their ancestral land.
On April 17 the “March for Water and Life” was held in the provincial capital city of Tulcan in Carchi, northern Ecuador (photos, video)
Activists in the south of Ecuador are also maintaining pressure on the government.
In our struggle to prevent mining at the Los Cedros Biological Reserve, we are litigating for access to documents that confirm the concession over Los Cedros which are not in the public domain. Nobody has seen the mining title except the company. Also complaints have been filed with the Canadian Embassy about interference by the company with the Los Cedros co-management committee.
MORE INFORMATION:
Jefferson Mecham’s comprehensive article “ECUADOR ENDANGERED BY EXTREME EXTRACTIVISM”
John Seed’s article “Ecuador Endangered” was published by The Ecologist and some 30 other journals.
John Seed’s interview by Derrick Jensen for Resistance Radio and Melbourne Community Radio
Rainforest Information Centre Ecuador Endangered site
The Rainforest Information Centre
http://www.rainforestinformati