QUITO, July 9, 2025. —The organization Amazon Frontlines warned on Wednesday that the new draft of the Law for the Strengthening of Protected Areas, approved in its second debate by the Economic Development Commission of the National Assembly on Tuesday, represents “a structural threat” to the territorial and collective rights of the Indigenous Peoples of Ecuador. The bill will be put to a vote in the plenary of the Assembly tomorrow afternoon, Thursday.
According to a technical and legal analysis published by the organization, the legislative proposal, processed with urgent economic character, does not strengthen environmental protection, but rather reorganizes protected areas under mercantile, centralized, and regressive criteria. Amazon Frontlines identified at least five critical aspects in the proposed law’s articles:
1. Covert privatization. The text encourages private investment in protected areas through discretionary contracts, legalizing a form of privatization that, although formally denied, is enabled through concessions, trusts, and the delegation of functions without democratic control.
2. Violation of ancestral rights. The project does not recognize the collective ownership of Indigenous territories within protected areas, nor does it guarantee the right to free, prior and informed consultation. “The State arrogates to itself the ownership of the territories, ignoring their historical and constitutional pre-existence,” states Amazon Frontlines.
3. Weakened community sovereignty. The law proposes temporary and revocable land use mechanisms instead of recognizing collective ownership. “This violates the right to self-determination and subjects communities to unequal and hierarchical legal relations,” the organization pointed out.
4. Militarization of territories. The text authorizes the intervention of the Police and Armed Forces in protected areas without establishing clear safeguards. Amazon Frontlines warns that this measure opens the door to the criminalization of communities and Indigenous guards exercising legitimate territorial surveillance.
5. Concentration of power in the Executive. The regulation of the law remains in the exclusive hands of the President of the Republic, without legislative control or binding participation. “This design allows for the consolidation of a highly subjective, opaque, and authoritarian system over the country’s natural patrimony”, concludes the analysis.
Amazon Frontlines also warns that the law ignores Article 57 of the Ecuadorian Constitution, which recognizes the right of communities to define their territories and to participate in decisions that affect their environment. “Without pre-legislative consultation or guarantees of real participation, the project consolidates a legal architecture of dispossession,” it stressed.
The organization calls on legislators, human rights defenders, and international organizations to reject the advance of this regulation until constitutional standards and international obligations regarding collective and environmental rights are guaranteed.
International support for Indigenous Peoples’ Claim
International civil organizations such as Avaaz and Amazon Watch, and celebrities such as the American actress Jane Fonda are joining the call of Indigenous Peoples and nationalities who are demanding that the Ecuadorian government and the National Assembly respect their right to be consulted regarding the law proposal for the Recovery of Protected Areas.
In an Instagram post, Jane Fonda said, “A bill being rushed through Ecuador’s Congress threatens to hand over protected areas – including Indigenous ancestral territories – to private companies. These lands are not empty: they are alive, sacred and cared for. I join the Indigenous Peoples of the Amazon who are calling on legislators to listen, protect life and defend the Constitution of Ecuador. The world is watching, and it is on their side,” said the American actress.
For their part, the international organizations Avaaz, Amazon Frontlines, ICCA Consortium (Indigenous and Community Conserved Areas) have signed a statement in which they demand that the National Assembly “reject the bill of the President of the Republic for being unconstitutional, ineffective and dangerous, by ignoring the rights of Indigenous Peoples and their territories”.
Likewise, they also demand in the statement that the Constitutional Court “exercise its mandate and act in a preventive manner before the possible and serious violations to human and collective rights and the rights of nature, which derive from the non-compliance of the principles and dispositions established in the Constitution”.
These organizations thus echo the pronouncements of Ecuadorian coalitions such as the Confederation of Indigenous Nationalities of Ecuador (CONAIE), which has condemned the bill in a statement, and the Alliance of Organizations for Human Rights (Alianza de Organizaciones por los Derechos Humanos), which has stated in a post that “no measure affecting Indigenous Peoples can be applied without due consultation”.
This legislative project, which is under accelerated analysis in the National Assembly, contemplates the intervention of national and foreign private companies in the management of nearly 5 million acres of ancestral and biodiverse territories superimposed by protected areas. The Ecuadorian Constitution, in its Article 57 paragraphs 7 and 17, obliges the State to consult with Indigenous Peoples on bills that compromise the autonomy and governance of ancestral territories.
In fact, this principle stems from the ratification of ILO Convention 169, the 2007 United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, the Nagoya Protocol and the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework, where the principle of protection of human and collective rights of peoples and nationalities, and the recognition of their ancestral territories is highlighted. However, the National Assembly members who support the bill, presented by President Daniel Noboa, have been complicit in denying the right to Free, Prior and Informed Consultation to Indigenous Peoples and nationalities to express their opinions and concerns about the interference of third parties in decision-making over the territories they inhabit, and which they have inhabited long before Ecuador existed as a country.
Therefore, it is necessary to remind the National Assembly of the responsibility that comes with the ratification of international agreements, especially when these are linked to the commitment to the equal protection of human and collective rights of children, women and adults, and this is no exception in the case of Indigenous Peoples and nationalities.
If the Assembly members vote in favor of this initiative, they will go down in history as accomplices in increasing the risks to which Indigenous Peoples in Ecuador have been historically exposed: physical violence, racism, discrimination and expulsion from their territories. From different regions of the world, citizens, civil organizations and scientists are observing what decision Ecuador will make regarding this law and the fundamental rights of Indigenous Peoples and nationalities.
FOR MORE INFORMATION:
Luisana Aguilar – Amazon Frontlines National Press Coordinator (+593 99 924 0129), email: luisana@amazonfrontlines.org
Raul Estrada – Amazon Frontlines Campaigns Manager (+525580196422), email: raul.estrada@amazonfrontlines.org
