Declaration of the People of Abya Yala for Water and Pachamama

Originally published: Dec. 2, 2011
Republished: Feb. 19/2013

Organizations, communities, nationalities, collectives and people from the continent, together with academics, researchers, scientists, writers, poets, artists, dreamers, lovers of life, who met months ago in Cuenca de Guapondelig (Cañari city) to defend water and Pachamama and after exchanging experiences, reflecting, debating and building proposals that help guide a better walk through Life agreed and with the aim of sharing it with all the people of the world the following DECLARATION OF THE PEOPLES OF ABYA YALA FOR WATER AND PACHAMAMA.

• The dimension of the ecological devastation and of our human habitat, as a consequence of the civilizing model whose axis is the market and the accumulation of wealth.
• It is time to take urgent measures to stop and reverse this barbarity expressed in the extractive model and particularly in large-scale mining, as well as in the expansion of the oil frontier that robs peoples, communities and nationalities of their rights over their territories and ancestral ways of life, violating Human Rights and Nature Rights, even in the form of environmental services hidden in the figure of conservation programs.
• That extractivism deepens the patriarchal capitalist model, exploits and contaminates territories and peoples, causes illness and death, subjugates women and devalues their daily work of caring for life, ignores their participation when carrying out consultations for projects or policies, generates violence, femicides and rapes. 
• That Sumak Kawsay is life in harmony between human beings and Pachamama of which it is a part, that Sumak Kawsay is born from the Andean peoples as a universal proposal.
• That agroecology is part of food sovereignty and the worldview of Sumak Kawsay
• Since water is a source of life and access to it is a human right, we ratify the defense of water sources and ecosystems, and their vital cycles, which are essential for the reproduction of life. 
• That the criminalization of people and organizations defending the rights of communities and nature has become a State policy that violates human rights and those established in the Constitution and in international instruments.
• That the Bishops of our continent, assuming themselves as Prophets of Life, firmly urged that in interventions on nature "the interests of economic groups that irrationally destroy the sources of life, to the detriment of entire nations, should not predominate..."
• That the Constitution of the Plurinational State of Ecuador guarantees the participation of nationalities and peoples with their own organizational and institutional structures to exercise the human right to Communication from a plurinational state.

• To our Abya Yala free from large-scale metal mining, looting and depredation.
• To the territorial intervention and destruction generated by mining corporations as crimes against nature.
• Our opposition to the expansion of oil frontiers, to the construction of refineries and petrochemical complexes.

• The permanent resistance and mobilization of the peoples and nationalities of Abya Yala is legitimate and sacred and the only way to build Sumak Kawsay. Consequently, we declare October 11 as the Day of Continental Freedom and Resistance.
• Our support to the peoples affected by oil exploitation, we recognize in their struggle the hope of abandoning the oil "civilization" for the civilization of Sumak Kawsay
• Community and public water management as a guarantee to preserve the rights of nature and communities.
• The importance and value of ancestral knowledge and know-how, as part of humanity's scientific and cultural heritage.
• That the Yasuní Initiative is a concrete proposal at a global level to combat the climate crisis, to save the free peoples who have recreated the forests and to safeguard one of the areas of greatest biodiversity on the planet. We condemn the intention to exploit the Yasuní known as Plan B.

• The Universal Declaration of the Rights of Nature.
• The cessation of mining and the expansion of oil and mining exploitation, especially on a large scale, on our continent. The restoration of sites affected by oil and mining and their natural use.
• The right of indigenous peoples and communities to continue their ways of life and decide on the destiny of their lands and territories. 
• Prior, Free and Informed Consultation as an inalienable right, an expression of the collective rights of peoples and nationalities, whose decision must be taken into account and respected. 
• End the complicity and sponsorship of governments with the interests of national and transnational extractive companies, allowing the violation of human rights and nature. 
• End the criminalization of nature defenders. 
• The deprivatization and deconcentration of water for its social redistribution.
• That the governments of the Americas reveal the negotiations on Climate Change, Biodiversity and Water, which conceal the privatization of the functions of Nature and the appropriation of territories 
• That governments prioritize the Good Living of peoples, their Food Sovereignty and the Rights of Nature. 
• That universities contribute to promoting Sumak Kawsay, through encounters of ancestral knowledge and practices, to the production of knowledge and the recreation of science with ethics, sovereignty and autonomy, free from conflicts of interest of transnational corporations, committed to the defense of Life and Nature.

• Defend life and organize resistance through all types of struggle (mobilizations, public denunciations, etc.).
• Establish a legal platform to file actions and complaints before national and international organizations against mining companies responsible for the depredation and violation of rights.
• Promote actions to repeal legal instruments that facilitate oil and mining exploitation, as well as the construction of hydroelectric plants and other infrastructure projects aimed at plundering and devastation. We will support the legitimate actions of the people to prevent their operation.
• Publicly and forcefully reject the concept of Environmental Services, which constitutes an expression of the commercialization of life. 
• We offer our support to the Kichwa people of Sarayacu in their process before the International Court of Human Rights. We support the Kawsay Sacha life plan.
• Maintain solidarity and respect with the Amazonian Peoples whose tenacity and living testimony of the atrocities committed by Texaco/Chevron has achieved a favorable ruling. We will remain vigilant to ensure that the ruling is carried out.
• Support the Montubia communities of Río Grande in the Province of Manabí, so that their integrity is safeguarded; the public forces must leave the territory of these communities.
• Promote the implementation of the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples and the real application of ILO Convention 169, as well as the instruments that protect collective rights (Territory, Consultation, Intercultural Policies, etc.) 
• Form commissions (with affected groups and support organizations) to monitor the right to due process of people criminalized by the State and/or companies for defending their rights and those of their communities.
• Request from social organizations an on-site visit to Ecuador by the Rapporteurship on Human Rights Defenders of the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, in order to verify the situation of human rights and nature defenders. 
• Create an information system so that communities affected by megaprojects have information about their impacts, their rights and enforcement mechanisms.
• Promote Sumak Kawsay in urban communities: forms of social organization, housing, communication, food, transportation and clean energy.
• Promote spaces for popular education, build alliances with teachers so that they integrate information, exhibitions, talks, conferences, traveling workshops, etc. into the educational process that raise awareness and promote Sumak Kawsay.
• Follow up on the proposals of this meeting by holding local and provincial events, forums, social networks, and publications.