A letter, signed by more than 80 figures, including prominent organizations, celebrities, and international experts, calls for immediate action by the judges of the Constitutional Court of Ecuador.
QUITO, Tuesday, May 13, 2025.– A delegation made up of awenes (authorities), pikenani (elders, wise warriors) and members of the Indigenous communities represented by the Waorani Organization of Pastaza (OWAP), arrived today in Quito to demand that the judges of the Constitutional Court of Ecuador (CCE) guarantee their right and that of other Indigenous nationalities of the Amazon, to decide on their territories through the protection and development of the right to free, prior and informed consent and self-determination.
The visit takes place in the context of the treatment of Case 1296-19JP, a key case for the future of the Amazonian Indigenous Peoples. The Waorani representatives, accompanied by spiritual leaders and wise elders, delivered a letter signed by more than 80 prominent figures, calling on the CCE to issue an urgent ruling that respects collective rights and stops the advancement of the new oil auction promoted by the government. This case is widely viewed as a test of Ecuador’s constitutional guarantees for Indigenous rights, particularly the right to free, prior, and informed consent.
The ruling of the CCE is more urgent than ever in the wake of President Daniel Noboa’s announcement signaling the reactivation of the Southeast Oil Round, a government-led oil auction that threatens more than eight million acres of Amazon rainforest.
The letter in support of the Waorani’s demand is signed by 15 recognized activists worldwide, 45 national and international organizations and collectives, and 24 celebrities from the entertainment world, such as Jane Fonda, Mark Ruffalo, Cate Blanchett, Gillian Anderson, Emma Thompson, and Lupita Nyong’o. Part of the letter reads as follows:
The Ecuadorian Amazon is perhaps the most biodiverse place on Earth. It has been protected by Indigenous Peoples for thousands of years. It provides oxygen, fresh water, and protection from climate chaos; the Amazon is a resource that keeps us all alive. Yet oil companies, miners, loggers, and ranchers, often with the complicity of the government, continue to destroy it. The expansion of oil extraction will accelerate this devastation, endangering both Indigenous communities and the global fight against climate change.
For five years, the resolution of this case has been pending in the CCE. The request for a hearing in Indigenous territory has been ignored. This has not discouraged the affected communities from demonstrating in Quito.
Luis Enqueri, president of the OWAP, said: “We demand hearings in our territory, with Waorani cultural interpreters, so that the judges understand that consultation is not a form to fill out, it is a spiritual pact with the forest and future generations. Our territory is not for sale and the world already knows it. We send a national and international message for everyone to be vigilant in ensuring that governments and companies do not violate our rights. Monito Ome Goronte Enamai. “
Human rights defender and Amazon Frontlines lawyer, Lina Maria Espinosa, said: “The challenge in front of the Constitutional Court and Judge Richard Ortiz remains the same: To ensure the effective protection of the Waorani people and other Amazonian Peoples whose integrity is seriously threatened. This is an exceptional opportunity for the court to strengthen its own rulings regarding interculturality, active listening, and the advancement—not regression—of collective rights. We remain vigilant.”
The oil auction, promoted by the government, affects more than eight million acres of Amazonian Indigenous territories in the provinces of Pastaza and Morona Santiago, putting at risk seven Indigenous nationalities, many of which have already publicly rejected this threat.
Ecuador is home to a vast stretch of the western Amazon rainforest, one of the planet’s most biodiverse regions and a vital carbon sink in the fight against climate change. For decades, the country’s economy has leaned heavily on oil exports, much of it extracted from Indigenous territories in the Amazon. This long-standing dependence on extractive industries has brought recurring conflict between economic policy and Indigenous rights, especially as global energy markets and environmental scrutiny intensify.
At the heart of the current legal battle is a broader reckoning over sovereignty, development, and conservation. Indigenous Peoples such as the Waorani have safeguarded their ancestral lands for generations, but face growing pressure from state-backed oil concessions like the Southeast Oil Round, recently revived under President Daniel Noboa. The case before Ecuador’s Constitutional Court, delayed for five years, now stands to be a defining moment for the country’s legal commitment to collective Indigenous rights, and could set a precedent for resisting extractivism across the Amazon Basin.
BACKGROUND INFORMATION
In February 2025, the judge in charge of Case 1296-19JP, Richard Ortiz, recognized the case and began his analysis. OWAP, along with other Indigenous organizations in Ecuador, requested that the court hold a hearing in their territory to listen to the people whose homelands are at risk.
However, so far, the judge has only asked the Ecuadorian Indigenous federations, CONAIE (X), CONFENIAE (X), and OWAP (Waorani Organization of Pastaza), three questions regarding free, prior, and informed consultation. The federations delivered this response on Tuesday, May 13th, but it is not enough; the Court must travel to Waorani territory in the same way that the Waorani have traveled to the Court,at least five times in these five years of waiting.
On May 1st, OWAP sent a written request for a face-to-face meeting with Dr. Joel Escudero, president of the CCE, to clarify several issues regarding a questionnaire sent by the Court regarding Case 1296-19JP.
The request addressed OWAP’s well-founded concerns that the principle of interculturality is not being respected, that the case will be resolved without an active and horizontal listening process with the communities, that it will be resolved without a deep analysis that would guarantee a strong interpretation of the rights in question, or, in the worst case scenario, that the case will be left unresolved and removed from the docket.
Additionally, the request demanded once again that the Court convene a hearing in Indigenous territory and issue a ruling that generates binding, progressive, and novel jurisprudence on the right to consultation and free, prior, and informed consent. The Constitutional Court of Ecuador has just begun to hold meetings with its newly (CCE) renewed bench (renewed in March 2025). However, for five years, the Court has been expected to generate this novel jurisprudence that would guarantee the autonomy of the Indigenous Peoples that protect the Amazon rainforest and with it, our shared planet, but it has failed to do so.
The ruling of the CCE is more urgent than ever in the wake of the announcement that Daniel Noboa’s government will reactivate the Southeast Oil Round, which threatens more than eight million acres of Amazon rainforest and affects the territories of seven Indigenous nationalities: the Andwa, Achuar, Shiwiar, Kichwa, Shuar, Sapara, and Waorani in the provinces of Pastaza and Morona Santiago. In national Assemblies, some of these nationalities have already expressed their rejection of oil companies in their territories, including the Achuar Nationality of Ecuador.
The oil auction that the Ecuadorian government is trying to implement is based on the same illegitimate consultation of 2012 that was already annulled in the ruling of the Provincial Court of Pastaza on the Waorani Case, issued in 2019, and which is now under analysis by the Constitutional Court.
Faced with the clear threat to the Amazon and the Indigenous Peoples that it protects, voices have been raised worldwide to let the CCE and the government of Daniel Noboa know that the world is watching and will not allow the destruction to continue (see letter here).
For more than 50 years, Ecuador’s economy has depended on the exploitation and export of crude oil, and the fluctuation of its international price, rather than alleviating the conditions of poverty of Ecuadorians, has arguably deepened them.
At the same time, oil extractivism has left a legacy of pollution that only worsens day by day. So today’s action is a call for the Ecuadorian state to seek alternative ways to generate wealth while protecting its biodiversity and local cultures, which represent the most valuable riches of all. And for the world, this is a call to support this climate action, led by Indigenous Peoples, and important for us all.
Contact for further information, interviews and audiovisual materials:
Sophie Pinchetti, Amazon Frontlines External Communications Manager: sophie@amazonfrontlines.org
