By CIVICUS
Aug 7 2024 – CIVICUS speaks with Darío Iza Pilaquinga, president of the Kitu Kara People of the Kichwa nationality of Ecuador, about a historic court ruling that applied a constitutional provision recognising the rights of nature.
On 5 July, an Ecuadorian court issued a ruling recognising the rights of the Machángara River, which flows through the country’s capital, Quito. While other countries in the region recognise the right of people to a healthy environment, Ecuador’s constitution also recognises the right of natural elements not to be degraded. The lawsuit to protect the rights of the river, affected by high levels of pollution, was filed by the Indigenous Kitu Kara people. As a result of the ruling, the Municipality of the Metropolitan District of Quito must produce a plan to clean up the river.
Darío Iza Pilaquinga
What rights does the Ecuadorian Constitution recognise to natural elements?
The constitution recognises nature as a subject of rights. In practice, any person or community can demand that the authorities respect the rights of nature. The constitution also establishes the right to environmental restoration, which means the state must eliminate or mitigate the harmful effects of human activities on the environment.
The fact that Ecuador recognises the rights of nature clashes with western legal concepts, but for us it is an issue that goes beyond the legal and even the environmental realm. For Indigenous peoples, rivers and mountains are unique sacred entities that must be protected and preserved.
What tactics do Ecuadorian social movements use to demand environmental protection?
Citizens and Indigenous communities are demanding public policies that recognise the violation of nature’s rights. However, because we don’t want to depend on the changing will of successive administrations, we view court rulings as a fundamental tool for guaranteeing rights, including long-term environmental protection.
Through litigation, we have obtained Constitutional Court rulings that establish clear rules and oblige all public officials to protect rivers, regardless of changes in government. These rulings oblige institutions to define public policy to that effect and commit citizens to respecting nature and being aware of the environmental impact of their actions.
Finally, we run media campaigns to inform the public about the pollution levels of rivers and organise community litter picking. These campaigns are essential because, even if the government sets ambitious goals for itself, it cannot achieve them in the absence of people’s active participation.
Why did you file a lawsuit to protect the Machángara River?
The Machángara River, which flows through Quito, is very polluted. It looks more like an open sewer than a river. We believe that by failing to clean up its waters, the Quito authorities are violating the right of people in Quito to a healthy environment and the right of the river itself to not be degraded or polluted.
When the Kitu Kara people, alongside their communities and organisations, decided to join this action to defend the rights of the river, other environmental and cultural collectives joined us. Citizens’ groups, academics and researchers joined the cause, as well as former municipal officials who provided evidence of the lack of maintenance and conservation work on the river.
The city government is directly responsible for the failure to prevent pollution. Its public enterprises include the Municipal Public Company of Water and Sanitation (EPMAPS), responsible for drinking water supply and sewerage. Only three per cent of wastewater is treated, while the rest is discharged directly into the river. This affects water quality and environmental safety.
In our lawsuit, we hold the Municipality of Quito responsible for the pollution of the river and the violation of our rights. After hearing witnesses and scientists, the court found that in some stretches the river has only two per cent of oxygen, while the minimum required for animals and plants is 80 per cent. This is due to the presence of a large number of bacteria, parasites and viruses that consume the oxygen in the water.
In its ruling, the court recognised that the river’s rights were being violated and stated that the municipality must clean up the river and develop a methodology alongside citizens to educate them about the importance of protecting nature.
This landmark ruling is not the first: almost two years ago there was a similar one concerning the Monjas River. Although each case is unique, both rulings provide others in Ecuador with the legal tools they need to demand the protection of their rivers – such as people in the province of Pastaza, who have begun to demand the recognition of the Puyo River as a subject of rights.
How has the municipal government reacted?
Since the beginning, the city government tried to boycott the trial. They started by saying that our lawyer had a conflict of interest because he had been a judge at the Constitutional Court in the Monjas River case. But the judge rejected this.
Then they tried to take advantage of our naivety to get us to drop the case. A few days before the hearing, they called us to a meeting where they encouraged us to also sue the Ministry of the Environment, which is responsible for the rivers and for issuing permits, as well as EPMAPS. But our lawyers told us that if we requested the inclusion of additional defendants, the existing process could be declared null and void.
Once the process started, the mayor went to the media to announce that a project to build 27 treatment plants had been approved, in an attempt to show he was addressing the problem. When we asked for and received more information, we discovered that one of the main proposed plants, which would treat a large proportion of sewage, would be built on land that was part of the ancestral community of Llano Grande, which had not yet been consulted. In other words, the Indigenous communities’ right to free, prior and informed consent was being violated.
Even if the municipality had carried out the consultation and the community had given its consent, the project couldn’t have been carried out easily, because it would have destroyed an archaeological and agricultural zone and a preserve of Andean dry forest, violating the rights of nature. In short, the municipality was trying to solve one problem by creating another. When we objected, they accused us of obstructing their actions to solve the problem we had created.
Finally, their reaction to the ruling was also negative: the city government appealed the decision and promoted an extensive social media campaign to justify its position. This was aggravated by the activation of a troll campaign against us, as well as the intervention of other groups trying to take advantage of the situation in their fight against the current municipal administration.
However, we are optimistic. We believe that the Provincial Court and, if it comes to it, the National Court will ratify the decision, because the violation of rights we have denounced is so clear and obvious.
Civic space in Ecuador is rated ‘obstructed’ by the CIVICUS Monitor.
Get in touch with Darío Iza through his Instagram page and follow @daroizap on Twitter.
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