In April , 25 years after Rio Blanco locals heard the mountain they lived on contained gold, news broke that Junefield had officially started mining the metal. But the reality? The road in the village of Rio Blanco is empty. Elizabeth explained that people once lived here, but many had moved to the historic city of Cuenca, 30 kilometres away, where there is work and a high school.
Some sold their land to the mining firm before leaving. Elizabeth and her four children now live in Cuenca. About 20 locals emerge when word gets round a reporter has arrived. Most of them have worked at the mine, as cleaners, cooks, drivers, or labourers. There is little other work here apart from raising fish or farming, and so any opportunity is valuable. Big mining firms need good community relations to ensure their own operations can run smoothly.
They received various promises: gifts of sewing machines and cooking equipment, new clinics and roads, investment in agriculture. The talks stopped altogether when the Chinese arrived, and the number of jobs available fell. Junefield reduced the number of workers and cut hours; currently employees work an average of five days a month, meaning incomes have fallen sharply.
Although drilling for oil started in Ecuador in the s, mining projects run by transnational firms are much more recent. They soon realised the foreigners and their machines would bring huge changes but no real benefits. San Pedro de Yumate is a little further away and not directly affected by the mine but opposition has been rising there too.
And its location has allowed it to cut off access to the mine. Everyone was happy to do so but then when they wanted something the company was nowhere to be found. He asked Andres if the government or company had carried out prior consultation with local communities before developing the mine. Prior consultation is a civil right, more fully expressed as the right to free, prior and informed consent FPIC , included in the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.
Because of where they live they are often affected by global demand for energy and resources. This led to the idea of FPIC as a prerequisite for any activity that affects their ancestral lands, territories, and natural resources. But often there is little drive to protect the interests of vulnerable groups, and implementation of FPIC has been difficult in the majority of countries with indigenous populations.
This was not the case in Ecuador, thanks to Rafael Correa, president of the country between and When U. However, the definition of FPIC in the convention was changed: the requirement for Indigenous people to be informed of plans in good time was retained, but their consent was no longer needed. But FPIC has proved powerful in court, especially international courts. This was a landmark decision, which gave locals in places like Rio Blanco a precedent to refer to.
There are almost 2. Lauro Sigcha is chair of the FOA. In early , after Rio Blanco locals learned they had the right to be consulted by the mining company, they contacted his organisation. The villagers originally had high hopes for it. They get no teachers, no hospitals, no roads. So when foreign mining firms turn up, the villagers hope they will meet these basic needs and provide jobs. So they looked for people with protest experience, and found ourselves and the lawyer, Yaku Sacha. The majority of Kichwa people simply describe themselves as farmers.
Several of the common surnames in Rio Blanco are Kichwa, allowing the villagers to self-identify as indigenous. And records in a nearby church proved that Kichwa people had lived here in the past. World capital markets reacted harshly treating Ecuador as a pariah. The country faced potentially serious hardships as its solvency was directly challenged, but as economic circumstances would have it the resource rich-nation, like many other commodity exporters, was able to ride the wave of rising world prices for petroleum.
This has allowed the Correa government to maintain its high rate of social spending. The continuing exchange of oil for loans has now reached dramatic proportions. Currently, while , barrels per day bpd are exported to China, it is estimated that only about 15, bpd actually go directly to China. It seems as Chinese oil companies developed their economic footprint they tend to trade more oil than they import. According to Business Insider reporter Michael Kelley, the Ecuadoran government is also looking for other ways to access Chinese loans and credit.
In March , the Correa government began auctioning off about 3 out of 8. Increased dependence on China is a function of foreign investment levels in Ecuador remaining the lowest in the region. Ecuador, about equal in area to Nevada, is in the northwest part of South America fronting on the Pacific.
To the north is Colombia and to the east and south is Peru. Two high and parallel ranges of the Andes, traversing the country from north to south, are topped by tall volcanic peaks.
The highest is Chimborazo at 20, ft 6, m. The Galpagos Islands or Coln Archipelago: 3, sq mi; 7, sq km , in the Pacific Ocean about mi km west of the South American mainland, became part of Ecuador in The tribes in the northern highlands of Ecuador formed the Kingdom of Quito around It was absorbed, by conquest and marriage, into the Inca Empire.
Spanish conquistador Francisco Pizarro conquered the land in , and throughout the 17th century a Spanish colony thrived by exploitation of the Indians.
The first revolt against Spain occurred in When Greater Colombia collapsed in , Ecuador became independent. Revolts and dictatorships followed; it had 48 presidents during the first years of the republic.
Conservatives ruled until the revolution of ushered in nearly a half century of Radical Liberal rule, during which the church was disestablished and freedom of worship, speech, and press was introduced. Although it was under military rule in the s, the country did not experience the violence and repression characteristic of other Latin American military regimes. Its last 30 years of democracy, however, have been largely ineffectual because of a weak executive branch and a strong, fractious Congress.
Peru invaded Ecuador in and seized a large tract of Ecuadoran territory in the disputed Amazon region. In and war broke out again. In May , Ecuador and Peru signed a treaty ending the nearly year border dispute. In , Ecuador experienced one of its worst economic crises. The president's economic austerity plan was protested with massive strikes in March President Jamil Mahuad was overthrown in Jan.
The junta gave power to the vice president, Gustavo Noboa. Faced with the worst economic crisis in Ecuador's history, Noboa restructured Ecuador's foreign debt, adopted the U. In Feb. Within two years, Ecuador's economy had rebounded from the brink of collapse. The economy grew by 5. But chronic corruption among senior government officials, as well as among the courts and the judiciary, has continued.
Lucio Gutirrez, a leftist colonel best known for orchestrating the coup against President Jamil Mahuad, was elected to the presidency in on an anticorruption platform. He became Ecuador's sixth president in seven years. His attempts to introduce austere fiscal reforms, however, quickly alienated his political base, and numerous national strikes took place throughout In April , Gutirrez was ousted by the Ecuadoran Congress, after replacing much of the supreme court with his allies. His estranged deputy, Alfredo Palacio, took over as president.
In , huge nationwide protests took place concerning a potential free-trade agreement with the U. In the Nov. Correa took office in Jan.
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