Ecuador

Mining is one of the direct causes of deforestation. In spite of that, not only has this industry continued with its activities, but in the last years it has also managed to introduce changes in national and international legislation and policies, which favour the consortiums of the sector. This has been done to the detriment of the legislation that protects indigenous peoples and the environment.

Within the rationale for privatisation in Ecuador, the Ministry of the Environment is intending to delegate its functions and responsibilities to a private law body, CORFORE (Corporación de Promoción y Desarrollo Ferestal del Ecuador – Ecuadorian Corporation for Forestry Promotion and Development).

Since the 2nd of January, the inhabitants of local communities, students and environmentalists have been carrying out a permanent and peaceful occupation of the most fragile zone of the Los Guarumos forest, at the entry of the Mindo Nambillo cloud forest, to halt the construction of a new oil pipeline which will cross the whole of Ecuador. The 500 km long oil pipeline will transport heavy crude oil for the Oleoductos de Crudos Pesados (OCP) company, (see bulletin 45, April, 2001).

Over 30 years ago, the destruction of mangroves was started in order to build ponds in beaches and bays. According to data from the former INEFAN and the National Aquaculture Chamber, in January 2000 there were 207,000 hectares or 170,000 hectares respectively of shrimp ponds, of which 50,454 hectares were operating legally. The rest are illegal. In the province of Esmeraldas, where the best conserved and tallest mangroves in the world are to be found, over 90% of the ponds installed there are illegal.

A second joint letter from international environmental and human rights organisations is being circulated urging the head of the financing German bank, the Westdeutsche Landesbank (WestLB), the Prime minister of the German Federal State Nordrhein Westfalen, NRW (the main shareholder of WestLB), and the two responsible ministers for finances and economy in NRW, to stop the financial support to the Ecuadorian oil megaproject OCP (Oleoducto de Crudos Pesados). (to see the full text of the letter please go to: http://wrm.org.uy/alerts/september01.html)

Eucalyptus Pacifico S.A. - EUCAPACIFIC is a new company set up at the end of 2000 to carry out a major eucalyptus plantation project on the Ecuadorian coast, in the Province of Esmeraldas, specifically in the Tonchigüe and Sua sector. This company, composed of transnational capital, has received approval by the Ministry of the Environment to carry out large scale plantations.

"People in the Rainforest of Ecuador" is an exhibition currently running in Frankfurt's municipal botanical garden, the Palmengarten. The exhibition describes some of the vast knowledge indigenous people have of plants and ecosystems in the rainforest. The posters advertising the exhibition are sponsored by Aventis CropScience and feature the company's name and logo. As a piece of public relations it is brilliant. Aventis CropScience hopes to gain from having its name associated with indigenous expertise.

In Ecuador, the relaunching of oil palm cultivation has given rise to different reactions. In a long interview published by a widely read newspaper, for instance, the question was raised on whether oil palm plantation in the province of Esmeraldas would bring this poor Ecuadorian region nearer to paradise (El Universo, 11/3/2000), while at the same time other headlines stated that oil palm cultivation is destroying native forests and that thousands of hectares have been destroyed in San Lorenzo (La Hora, 18/5/2001).

In the last issue of the WRM bulletin we included an article written by Acción Ecológica on an oil pipeline project in Ecuador, which would cross the country from east to west, carrying oil from the Yasuní National Park in Amazonia and affecting indigenous peoples and ecosystems throughout the country.

The Ecuadorian government has signed a contract with the company Oleoductos de Crudos Pesados (OCP) to build a pipeline that will cross the country from east to west, through the three geographical regions that form its territory. It will affect fragile areas of great importance from an ecological and agricultural point of view.

Verónica Yépez, from the Ecuadorian NGO FUNDECOL, sent us a message in relation to an article published in WRM bulletin 43 (“Ecuador: action to save the mangroves in Guayas”). She thanks us for having publicised the issue and makes some clarifications about the information provided in the article.

As part of a social uprising that has brought Ecuador to a virtual standstill, a growing number of protesters from environmental and human rights organizations have occupied the offices of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) to protest the IMF's role in Ecuador's current social crisis.