Long before the State created protected areas, even before the State itself existed, Ecuador’s natural heritage has been protected and managed by Indigenous Peoples and nationalities, the ancestral owners of these lands.
The Ecuadorian Constitution establishes the importance of protecting this natural heritage in articles 404, 405, and 406. It explains that the natural heritage of the country consists of, among other elements, the physical, biological, and geological formations with environmental, scientific, cultural, and scenic value, requiring their protection, conservation, recovery, and promotion. It also includes fragile and threatened ecosystems such as moorlands, wetlands, cloud forests, dry and humid tropical forests and mangroves, and marine and marine-coastal ecosystems.
And to strengthen this protection, 15 years ago, Ecuador became the first country in the world to recognize Nature as a subject of rights in its Constitution, in Article 711, granting it the power to demand respect for its existence, the regeneration of its evolutionary processes, and the preservation of its vital cycles.
Establishing the rights of Nature necessitates the recognition of the profound connection between Indigenous Peoples and their territory, including the non-human beings, and the spirits that inhabit and give life to the land. It is this inseparable framework between human beings, nature, and spirituality that constitutes the very essence of Indigenous Peoples’ existence. To ignore it, and to attempt to commodify nature without the participation and consent of Indigenous Peoples, is to fracture their way of life, violate their collective rights, and promote the homogenization of thought. This goes against the principles of interculturality and plurinationality enshrined in the Constitution.
However, on June 14, 2025, the government of Daniel Noboa, with the intent of commodifying Nature, sent its proposal for the “Law for the Recovery of Protected Areas and the Promotion of Local Development,” to the National Assembly. This new law aims to privatize the country’s Protected Areas and put them in the hands of private companies, allowing them to exploit Ecuador’s resources as part of an economic recovery plan.
Many of the unilaterally designated Protected Areas overlap and extend over nearly five million acresof ancestral territories inhabited by at least 10 Indigenous nationalities, Afro-Ecuadorian, and Montubian communities. However, in the text of the proposed law, there is not a single reference to the life, existence, or rights of these communities, peoples, and nationalities that have lived and cared for these territories for hundreds of years. These lands are essential for their physical, spiritual, and cultural survival, as the Constitutional Court made clear when it established that the State must guarantee and respect their collective property as well as how they decide to manage and govern their territories.
The type of bill proposed by the Presidency of the Republic was classified as economically urgent and requires that the Assembly analyze, debate, and approve the bill within 30 days. This is a serious violation of the right to consultation and Free, Prior and Informed Consent of Indigenous Peoples before the adoption of any legislative or administrative measure that may affect their collective rights (in Ecuador known as pre-legislative consultation)2. This right is established at the national level by the Constitution3 and on the global stage by Ecuador’s ratification of treaties and instruments on human rights, biodiversity, and climate change mitigation, including the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples and ILO Convention 169.
President Noboa is using the internal armed conflict as an excuse to pressure the Assembly into legislating his urgent economic project, which violates the Constitution by promoting measures that evade democratic oversight and undermine fundamental rights in order to protect private interests.
As the world seeks to improve the legal security of Indigenous Peoples and nationalities and territories, to guarantee life and cultural identity, and to protect biodiversity, the Ecuadorian government seeks to promote invisibilization and dispossession.
In addition, the bill puts Isolated Indigenous Peoples in Initial Contact (PIACI) who transit through Yasuní National Park at serious risk. Their survival depends on absolute respect for their right to no contact and the integrity of their territory.
In summary, the new bill goes against Ecuador’s Constitution and the promises the government has made to the international community to protect ecosystems and biodiversity. It treats Protected Areas as strategic assets and enables funding sources with security guarantees–raising the risk of these areas becoming militarized.
It is not only a matter of this law favoring private capital and the privatization of Protected Areas; the additional risk from this law is that the State can abruptly make changes to these areas, which will clear the way for the imposition of extractive activities.
Therefore:
WE DEMAND that the National Assembly reject and shelve the law proposal of the President of the Republic as unconstitutional, ineffective, and dangerous for disregarding the rights of Indigenous Peoples and their territories.
WE DEMAND that the Constitutional Court exercise its mandate and preventively act in the face of potential serious violations of human and collective rights and the rights of nature, which arise from the failure of the laws derived from the Constitution to meet the principles and provisions it establishes.
WE ALERT the international organizations dedicated to the protection and defense of human, collective, and the rights of nature, about the repeated disregard for the most basic rules of democratic coexistence in a country that defines itself as plurinational, intercultural, and founded on rights.
Organizations that have joined this statement:
- Ceibo Alliance
- Amazon Frontlines
- Andema Kañasûndekû Cofan Bermejo
- Confederation of Indigenous Nationalities of Ecuador (CONAIE)
- Ancestral Community of A’i Cofán Sinangoe
- Federation of Indigenous Organizations of Napo(FOIN)
- Achuar Nationality of Ecuador (NAE)
- Kichwa of Pastaza Nationality (PAKKIRU)
- Sapara Nation of Ecuador (NASE)
- Shiwiar Nationality of Ecuador (NASHIE)
- Siona Nationality of Ecuador (ONISE)
- Siekopai Nationality of Ecuador (NASIEPAI)
- Article 71 of the Contitution of Ecuador, pargraph two: “Any person, community, people or nationality may demand from the public authority the fulfillment of the rights of nature. In applying and interpreting these rights, the principles established in the Constitution shall be observed, as applicable.” https://www.defensa.gob.ec/wp-content/uploads/downloads/2021/02/Constitucion-de-la-Republica-del-Ecuador_act_ene-2021.pdf
- Article 57, paragraphs 7 and 17 of the Constitution enshrine the collective right of Indigenous Peoples to be consulted prior to the adoption of legislative measures that may affect their collective rights. The Constitutional Court ruling No. 20-12-IN/20 (Triangle of Cuembí Case) clarifies that “legislative measures” shall be understood to mean any normative act issued by the public authority, regardless of its nature.
- Constitutional Court, Judgment No. 20-12-IN/20, para. 127. “(…) this Court observes that prior consultation and obtaining the consent of the respective peoples and communities was essential for the adoption of any decision by the State that could legally affect, modify, reduce, or extinguish Indigenous property rights.”
