Ecuador

Interview with Blanca Chancoso, Kichwa member of the Otavalo peoples and vicepresident of ECUARUNARI – the Kichwa Confederation of Ecuador.

The Oilwatch network has issued an international call for creating an “Annex 0” group at the UN climate negotiations. This would mean a group of peoples or nations acknowledged for their contributions to prevent further climatic changes, for example, with the commitment of leaving fossil fuels in the ground. Initiatives under “Annex 0” include, among others, the rejection of mechanisms such as carbon markets, REDD+, and other false solutions against climate change.

The Union for Those Affected by Texaco Operations (UDAPT) has been fighting for more than 20 years to force Chevron-Texaco to pay for the ravaging contamination it caused in the Ecuadorian Amazon and to take responsibility for their actions. The different initiatives launched by the UDAPT in different countries are on the verge of reaching their goal. To get there they need additional funding. UDAPT asks people to tweet the message: “RT! Crowdfunding for those affected by Chevron in Ecuador!

The Ecuadorian environmental defence organization YASunidos has joined with Acción Ecológica and the indigenous pastorate of Chimborazo to file a legal action to protect the rights of nature of the Tangabana páramo – rights that are enshrined in the Constitution of Ecuador – in relation to a vast plantation of pine trees established in 2013 in the fragile evergreen forest and parámo grassland ecosystems of Pallo-Tangabana, in the Andes high mountains.

REDD: A Collection of Conflicts, Contradictions and Lies presents summaries of reports from 24 REDD projects or programmes with a common characteristic: they all show a number of structural characteristics that undermine forest peoples' rights, or fail to address deforestation. As offset projects, they all fail to address the climate crisis because by definition, offset projects do not reduce overall emissions: emission reductions claimed in one place justify extra emissions elsewhere.

Acción Ecológica (in Spanish, with English subtitles) Neither free, nor prior, nor informed. An independently produced video exposes the so-called prior consultation of indigenous peoples conducted during the 11th Oil Round (an auction of oil blocks in the Amazon region) in Ecuador, revealing its irregularities and the silencing of the voices of indigenous communities. A clear example of how the distortion and abuse of the rights of indigenous peoples are used to justify the implementation of infrastructure mega-projects.

"They consider us the periphery of the periphery"

Letter to the Inter-American Commission on Human Rightsurging it to call on the government of Ecuador to fully comply with the precautionary measures established for the protection of the life and personal integrity of members of Indigenous Peoples Living in Isolation in Ecuador, particularly the Tagaeri and Taromenane indigenous groups, who form part of the Waoroni people, as well as the territories they inhabit.