The Constitutional Court of Ecuador upheld the right of indigenous peoples to decide on their territory in what is known as the Sinangoe Case, after the Amazonian Cofán nationality demanded that it not be consulted on dozens of mining concessions on their ancestral lands.
“This Court ratifies the sentences issued by the judge of the Multicompetent Judicial Unit based in the Gonzalo Pizarro canton of the province of Succumbs and the Single Chamber of the Provincial Court of Justice of Sucumbíos”, reads the ruling of the high court on the lawsuit filed by the affected indigenous nationality and the collaboration of the NGO Amazon Frontlines.
The Constitutional court He also indicated in his sentence issued today in Quito that reparation measures ordered in the last judicial instance that heard the case must be carried out, which he recalled, “they are mandatory and immediate compliance.”
In 2019 the Provincial Court issued a resolution considered historic by human rights organizations for the community of Sinangoewhose case was selected by the Constitutional court to establish jurisprudence at the national level regarding the numerous violations of the right to prior and informed consultation of indigenous peoples.
“Today we have achieved one more victory, a favorable ruling,” Nixon Andy, leader of the Sinangoe community guard, told Efe.
For Amazon Frontlines, the ruling guarantees the right of indigenous peoples to decide on their territory and thus protect 9,300 hectares of jungles, forests and other essential ecosystems to sustain the planet’s climate balance.
“Now any mining project, any mining company that wants to come here to our territory has to pay attention to our decision, our decision is our vote, it is our territory,” Andy said from the Cofán territory.
In the previous instances, the community demanded the fact that they had not been consulted about 52 mining concessions for the exploration and exploitation of gold in their ancestral territory crossed by rivers. Chingual and Cofaneswith which the population has a special bond.
Although the judgment of the court of Succumbs dates from February 2019, the nationality had denounced that the reparation measures it established have been breached, especially by the Ministry of the Environment.
Last January, a large group of representatives of different indigenous nationalities from Ecuador went to the headquarters of the Constitutional Court in Quitoto deliver the 365,515 endorsement signatures collected around the world.
The Ecuadorian President, William Lasso, Last July, he issued a decree to try to double the country’s oil production, an action described as “unconstitutional” by social organizations, which accuse him of doing so without mediating the mandatory consultation of the communities that could be affected.
The indigenous organizations assure that their experience, over decades of oil extraction in the Amazon, shows that the benefits of these extractivist activities do not reach the communities and that, in addition, they entail the high risk of irreparable disasters for nature. and the life of the native peoples.
