Environment & Energy
Related: About this forumPlans to mine Ecuador forest violate rights of nature, court rules
Source: The Guardian
Plans to mine Ecuador forest violate rights of nature, court rules
Landmark ruling says mining permits issued in Los Cedros protected area breach Ecuadors constitution
Patrick Greenfield
@pgreenfielduk
Thu 2 Dec 2021 17.40 GMT
Ecuadors highest court has ruled that plans to mine for copper and gold in a protected cloud forest are unconstitutional and violate the rights of nature.
In a landmark ruling, the constitutional court of Ecuador decided that mining permits issued in Los Cedros, a protected area in the north-west of the country, would harm the biodiversity of the forest, which is home to spectacled bears, endangered frogs, dozens of rare orchid species and the brown-headed spider monkey, one of the worlds rarest primates.
Enami EP, Ecuadors national mining company, held rights for mining concessions that had been granted in two-thirds of the reserve. The decision means that mining concessions, environmental and water permits in the forest must be cancelled after the court upheld a lawsuit brought by communities near Los Cedros that was successful in a lower court.
The ruling by Ecuadors highest court, published on Wednesday, upheld the rights of nature, which are enshrined in the countrys constitution, and said they applied across the whole country, not just to protected areas.
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Read more: https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/dec/02/plan-to-mine-in-ecuador-forest-violate-rights-of-nature-court-rules-aoe
CrispyQ
(36,457 posts)Between 2007 and 2008, Ecuador enshrined the rights of nature in its rewritten constitution.
Dr Mika Peck, a senior lecturer in biology at the University of Sussex who is from Ecuador and first investigated the biological importance of Los Cedros in the mid-90s, compares the significance of the ruling to Thomas Paines Rights of Man, a key text in the American revolution.
The rights of nature. An interesting concept that will never take hold in our country.
Bayard
(22,061 posts)How do we get that here? (Besides booting out rethuglicans?)