In a victory for indigenous communities in Ecuador, the country’s highest court ruled on Friday that they should have a much stronger voice over oil, mining and other extractive projects that affect their land.
The ruling is a blow to the ambitions of Ecuadorian president Guillermo Lasso, who planned to double oil production and expand mining in the coming years.
“We are a small community, but we have achieved something so grand, so historic, that it will serve other communities who have the same problems with mining, oil and other extractive activities on their territory,” said Wider Guaramag, a member of the A’i Kofán community of Sinangoe, in the north of the country, who filed the lawsuit with legal representation from Amazon Frontlines, a non-profit organization.
According to the ruling, if an indigenous community refuses a project, the government can proceed in “exceptional cases”. But it also states that “under no circumstances can a project be carried out that makes undue sacrifice to the collective rights of communities and nature.”
Brian Parker, a lawyer at Amazon Frontlines who worked on the case, said the ruling marked “a huge shift in power” in the country. The government has been able to do what it wanted, he said. “Now they have to get permission.”
A growing body of research shows that wildlife is healthier on the more than a quarter of the world’s lands that indigenous people manage or own. Two substantial oil spills have polluted the Ecuadorian Amazon since 2020, the most recent being last week.
Indigenous communities in the area are against oil extraction, Guaramag said.
Sinangoe’s A’i Kofán community is home to hundreds of people who live along the Aguarico River in northern Ecuador, where the foothills of the Andes meet the Amazon. Their cause has its roots in gold mining, which has devastated areas of the Amazon in recent years as world prices soared. When prospectors illegally searched for gold on their land, they organized community patrols and arrested some of them. Then, in early 2018, they found heavy equipment on the bank of the river opposite their land. When they learned that the government had allowed it, they filed a lawsuit and won in a lower court. The gold mining concessions were cancelled.
But their business didn’t end there. Ecuador’s highest court chose to intervene, and the ruling applies to all 14 of the country’s recognized indigenous groups. Their land comprises 70 percent of the Ecuadorian Amazon, rich in oil and minerals, according to Amazon Frontlines.
Proponents said the case would reverberate worldwide.
“It is by far one of the most powerful statements to date supporting free, prior and informed consent for indigenous peoples,” said Oscar Soria, campaign manager at Avaaz, a human rights organization. “This will have huge consequences.”