Ecuador

We Hold Its Value to Be Self-Evident
Ecuador approved a new constitution this weekend that, among other things, grants inalienable rights to nature, the first such inclusion in a nation's constitution, according to Ecuadorian officials. "Nature ... where life is reproduced and exists, has the right to exist, persist, maintain, and regenerate its vital cycles, structure, functions, and its processes in evolution. Every person, people, community, or nationality will be able to demand the recognition of rights for nature before the public bodies," the document says. The specific mention of evolution isn't accidental; besides being an activity nature arguably likes to do anyway, evolution as we know it has close ties to Ecuador's territory of the Galapagos Islands, where Charles Darwin formed his famous theory. Ecuador's constitution grants nature the right to "integral restoration" and says that the state "will promote respect toward all the elements that form an ecosystem" and that the state "will apply precaution and restriction measures in all the activities that can lead to the extinction of species, the destruction of the ecosystems, or the permanent alteration of the natural cycles."

Instituto de Ecologia y Desarrollo de las Comunidades Andinas (The Ecology and Development Institute of Andean Communities IEDECA).
IEDECA works with indigenous communities and small farmers to develop sustainable livelihoods and environmentally sound productive relationships with the natural environment -- water, soil and forests. IEDECA has been concerned about World Bank and Inter-American Development Bank irrigation projects that promote increased cost recovery and privatization. IEDECA has developed alternative proposals for a National Fund for Small Farmer Irrigation and Soil Recuperation. Recently, the World Bank s private sector investment guarantee agency, the Multilateral Investment Guarantee Agency (MIGA), backed its first ever water privatization project in Guayaquil, Ecuador by providing a $18 million guarantee to the Bechtel subsidiary, International Water Services. IEDECA and other citizen s organizations will be monitoring the impact of the privatization on workers, public health, and access to safe, affordable water.

Workers Contest the Process of Privatization in Guayaquil, Ecuador