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File photo of a burned area of the Amazon in Labrea, Brazil
By Alexandra Valencia
PUYO, Ecuador, March 15 (Archyde.com) – Leaders of indigenous groups from nine countries in the Amazon basin meeting in Ecuador on Tuesday called on South American governments to stop extractive activities damaging the rainforest and urged them to respect the agreements and legal rulings that recognize the rights of the communities over the territories.
Governments in the region are not fulfilling their promises to protect indigenous groups, said representatives of more than 500 peoples, who added that they feel a lack of respect when they are not consulted regarding the exploitation of oil and mining projects in their territories.
“We are demanding that humanity support us in our struggle for life, for water, for the mountains, for our identity,” said José Gregorio Díaz Mirabal, of the Coordinator of Indigenous Organizations of the Amazon Basin (COICA).
During meetings in Puyo, a city in eastern Ecuador, where rituals with sacred plants were performed, Díaz Mirabal called on governments to respect the laws and constitutions of countries regarding extractive projects.
“Let that letter come true,” he added.
Indigenous communities in the Amazon basin face problems including oil spills, deforestation, and river pollution from legal and illegal mining, all of which negatively affect people and wildlife, the leaders added.
Home to jaguars, pink river dolphins, anacondas, howler monkeys and thousands of other species, the Amazon, which in some parts has barely been touched by the modern world, is considered by researchers to be key to curbing climate change.
In Ecuador, the struggle of indigenous communities once morest extractive activities has gained strength following the country’s Constitutional Court suspended environmental permits for a mining project and ratified the communities’ right to prior consent for the development of projects that affect their way of life or are located in their territories.
However, Marlon Vargas, president of the Ecuadorian indigenous organization Confeniae, warned that the rulings will not help without action by the government, which sees the growth of mining and oil extraction as a means to finance the ailing economy.
“It worries us and it has to worry all of humanity, all the governments that and the territories are being massively damaged,” he told Archyde.com. “If we don’t stop, practically the entire Amazon basin will be a desert.”
(Reporting by Alexandra Valencia, Editing by Manuel Farías)
