Aug 07 (IPS) – CIVICUS speaks to Darío Iza Pilaquinga, president of the Kitu Kara people of the Kichwa nationality in Ecuador, about a historic court ruling that applied a constitutional provision recognising the rights of nature.
On July 5, an Ecuadorian court ruled that recognized the rights of the Machángara River, which flows through the country’s capital, Quito. While other countries in the region recognize people’s right to a healthy environment, The Constitution of Ecuador also recognizes the right of natural elements not to be degraded. The lawsuit to protect the rights of the river, which has been 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 draw up a plan to clean up the river.
What rights does the Ecuadorian Constitution grant to the elements of nature?
The Constitution recognizes 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 that the state must eliminate or limit the harmful effects of human activities on the environment.
Ecuador’s recognition of the rights of nature clashes with Western legal concepts, but for us it is an issue that goes beyond the legal and even environmental domain. 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 government policies that recognize the violation of the rights of nature. However, since we do not want to be dependent on the changing will of successive governments, we see judicial decisions as a fundamental tool to guarantee rights, including long-term environmental protection.
Through litigation, we have obtained rulings from the Constitutional Court 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 in this sense and oblige citizens to respect nature and be aware of the environmental impact of their actions.
Finally, we conduct media campaigns to inform the public about the pollution levels of rivers and organize community waste clean-ups. These campaigns are essential because even if the government sets ambitious goals for itself, it cannot achieve them without the active participation of people.
Why did you file a lawsuit to protect the Machángara River?
The Machángara River, which flows through Quito, is very contaminated. It looks more like an open sewer than a river. We believe that by not cleaning the water, the Quito authorities are violating the right of the people of Quito to a healthy environment and the right of the river itself not to be degraded or polluted.
When the Kitu Kara people, together with their communities and organizations, decided to join this action to defend the rights of the river, other environmental and cultural collectives joined us. Citizen groups, academics and researchers joined the case, as well as former municipal officials who provided evidence of the lack of maintenance and protection 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 percent 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 ruled that in some places the river has only two percent oxygen, while the minimum required for animals and plants is 80 percent. 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 acknowledged that the river’s rights had been violated and stated that the municipality should clean up the river and develop a methodology together with citizens to educate them about the importance of nature conservation.
This groundbreaking ruling is not the first: almost two years ago, there was a similar ruling on the Monjas River. While each case is unique, both rulings provide others in Ecuador with the legal means they need to demand protection of their rivers – such as people in the province of Pastaza, who have begun demanding recognition of the Puyo River as a subject of rights.
How did the city council respond?
From 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 Environment, which is responsible for the rivers and for issuing permits, and EPMAPS. But our lawyers told us that if we asked for the inclusion of additional defendants, the existing process could be declared null and void.
Once the process had begun, the mayor went to the media to announce that a project to build 27 treatment plants had been approved, in an attempt to show that 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 portion of the sewage, would be built on land that belonged to the Llano Grande ancestral community, 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 council had carried out the consultation and the community had given its consent, the project could not have been carried out easily, because it would have destroyed an archaeological and agricultural zone and a reserve of Andean dry forest, which would have violated the rights of nature. In short, the council tried 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 council appealed the decision and conducted an extensive campaign on social media to justify its position. This was aggravated by the activation of a troll campaign against us, as well as the intervention of other groups who tried to take advantage of the situation in their fight against the current city council.
However, we are optimistic. We believe that the Provincial Court and, if it comes to it, the National Court will uphold the decision, because the violation of rights that we have denounced is so clear and obvious.
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Contact Darío Iza through his Instagram page and follow @daroizap on Twitter.
© Inter Press Service (2024) — All rights reservedOriginal source: Inter Press Service
