- Nearly 60% of Ecuador’s voters supported a referendum last year to stop oil drilling in the Ishpingo-Tambococha-Tiputini (ITT) oil field, which would protect the nature of Yasuní National Park and its Indigenous communities, while keeping a billion barrels of oil in the ground.
- People worked for a decade to bring this to a popular vote, but the nation’s current crises have shaken the government’s resolve to enforce the rule. Now, advocates are turning to a relatively new legal instrument, the ‘rights of nature,’ to cement the decision.
- “The vote to protect the Yasuní was not based on the rights of nature, but on the right of people to participate in decisions on matters of public interest. The rights of nature, however, provides a path forward to protect the Yasuní,” a new op-ed argues.
- This post is a commentary. The views expressed are those of the authors, not necessarily Mongabay.
With the past 10 years, the hottest on record, and four days in July the hottest ever recorded, the climate emergency is coming ever more into focus. Directly linked to the acceleration of species extinction and ecosystem collapse, the need to take bold steps to curb climate change, including reducing fossil fuel emissions, is clear.
Ecuador took such a step last year when nearly 60% of people voted to stop oil drilling in the Ishpingo-Tambococha-Tiputini (ITT) oil field, a decision which would keep a billion barrels of oil in the ground. Located in Yasuní National Park in the Amazon, an ecosystem in severe crisis, the people of Ecuador fought for a decade to bring this to a popular vote.
The Yasuní has one of the highest levels of biodiversity on earth. In 1979, Ecuador designated it as a national park, and in 1989, UNESCO designated it as a biosphere reserve. Indigenous groups live in the Yasuní, whose territorial rights are recognized by Ecuador’s Constitution. In addition, Yasuní is the home of the Tagaeri and Taromenane, Indigenous peoples living in voluntary isolation, whose rights are also recognized.
Citizens had to petition Ecuador’s Constitutional Court in order to bring the Yasuní citizen-proposed initiative (consulta popular) to a vote. Following the vote, the court ordered suspension of oil drilling within one year.
Nonetheless, drilling continues as government officials and oil corporations seek to put the vote on hold citing costs and engineering challenges. This comes in the midst of massive corruption and drug gang violence that is plaguing Ecuador. The government has raised taxes and eliminated subsidies to finance the war against the drug cartels.
While oil company leaders advocate to simply ignore the will of the people, citizens have returned to the Constitutional Court for help. Meanwhile, the government has announced that it will ask the court to put the decision on hold, and there are proposals to hold another vote, asking the people to reverse their decision and allow the continued exploitation of the Yasuní.
Yet Ecuador’s Constitution explicitly provides that consultas populares are binding and require immediate enforcement. Failing to comply would be unconstitutional and raise profound democratic questions.
See related: One year after oil referendum, what’s next for Ecuador’s Yasuní National Park?
The rights of people and nature
In 2008, the people of Ecuador ratified a new constitution enshrining the rights of nature (Pacha Mama). Nature now possesses rights including the right to exist, regenerate, evolve, and be restored.
Much environmental damage has been stopped and prevented due to the effective application of these new rights. The Constitutional Court has affirmed and enforced the rights of nature and has emphasized that – like all constitutional rights – the rights of nature apply throughout Ecuador, including in the Amazon.
Ecuador’s neighbors within the Amazon bioregion have followed its lead. Colombia’s Supreme Court recognized the rights of the Colombian Amazon in 2018 and this year, a Peruvian court recognized the rights of the Marañón River, a tributary of the Amazon River.
Ecuador’s Constitution, in recognizing the rights of nature, also recognizes the right of the people to enforce these rights. Indeed, the majority of cases brought into Ecuador’s courts to enforce the rights of nature have been brought by people and communities.
The vote to protect the Yasuní was not based on the rights of nature, but on the right of people to participate in decisions on matters of public interest. The rights of nature, however, provides a path forward to protect the Yasuní.
In 2021, Ecuador’s Constitutional Court ruled that under Article 73 of the constitution, part of the chapter on the rights of nature, the state must take a precautionary approach to prevent species extinction and ecosystem destruction, something that court even compared to genocide. It ordered an end to mining in the Los Cedros Protected Forest, which is a fragile ecosystem and habitat of at-risk species, as a violation of the rights of nature. Similarly, in the 2021 Mangroves case, the Court stated that fragile ecosystems, such as coastal mangrove forests, require special protection from the state. Failure to protect them violated Article 73.
Following its own precedent in these cases, the court should apply the rights of nature when deciding the fate of the Yasuní, which is also home to endangered species and fragile ecosystems.
The court should also take into consideration that drilling in the Yasuní is a result of an exception to the constitutional prohibition on extraction in national parks. In 2013, Ecuador’s National Assembly authorized the exception, declaring drilling as being in the national interest. This caused citizens to bring forward the consulta popular to override the assembly’s actions and protect the Yasuní.
Citizens are beginning to invoke the rights of nature as a central argument to protect the Yasuní. As climate change accelerates, these constitutional rights have emerged as essential to protecting nature and fighting back against threats, not only to the Yasuní, but democracy and the rule of law.
Mari Margil is Executive Director of the Center for Democratic and Environmental Rights (CDER), and Hugo Echeverría, external attorney for CDER, is a leading expert on the rights of nature and the environment.
Related audio from Mongabay’s podcast: A conversation about new ways the legal system is aiding conservation, like the rights of nature in Ecuador, listen here:
For more information on the referendum, see this related feature:
One year after oil referendum, what’s next for Ecuador’s Yasuní National Park?
Related Mongabay podcast episode: How the Indigenous Shuar of Ecuador regained their ancestral forest. Listen here:
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