In 2008, Ecuador approved a new Constitution that recognized the right to prior, free and informed consultation of indigenous communities, peoples and nationalities, including the right to pre-legislative consultation. Despite this, there is deep unease in Ecuador about the gap between the constitutional text and reality.
The right to prior consultation has not yet been enshrined in the corresponding secondary legislation, in state institutions, or in the public budget, which has made its full implementation in practice difficult. Projects for the exploration and exploitation of natural resources are carried out without prior consultation and without obtaining the consent of those affected. Likewise, important laws affecting peoples and nationalities have been approved without their participation in the discussion of those laws.
Ecuador and Ecuadorian civil society have sought to build a plurinational state through state reforms and a new Constitution, which establish a framework for changing the situation of social exclusion and poverty experienced by Ecuadorian nationalities and indigenous peoples. However, the exploitation of natural resources without prior consultation with the affected peoples and the implementation of highly polluting projects have set aside real plurinationality to make way for a model of economic development that is not always in harmony with the environment and with the territorial and community property rights of indigenous peoples.
The cooling of dialogue between representatives of indigenous nationalities and peoples and the Government on such sensitive issues as the water and mining laws is evidence of latent social conflict within the framework of the struggle to stop the destruction of indigenous lands in the name of economic progress, given that there is still no comprehensive law regulating prior consultation and there is a lack of national authorities adequately prepared to apply the international standards that protect this right.
Emblematic conflicts between companies, the State and indigenous peoples.
1. In the field of mining
a. Gold mining in the territory of the Shuar people
b. Copper mining in the territory of the Junín communities
2. In the field of hydrocarbon activities
a. Oil exploitation in the territory of the Shuar people
b. Oil exploitation in the territory of the Sarayaku people
c. Oil exploitation in the territory of the isolated Tagaeri and Taromenane indigenous peoples.
In both cases, the situation does not look favourable, as the Ecuadorian government has expressed its interest in establishing 7 mega mining projects aimed at the exploitation of copper and the concession of an area two and a half times larger than the ITT Yasuní project, which will affect at least 5 different indigenous ethnic groups. In both cases, the prior consultation stipulated in the Constitution is apparently going to be skipped.
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