Indigenous Peoples’ Rights and Global Governance of the Environment in the Amazon Basin: Case Study Ecuador

Abstract

This chapter provides an overview of the process of the creation of international instruments to protect the rights of indigenous peoples, including the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP) of 2007, and the efforts of indigenous peoples themselves to be recognized as equal partners to nation states on the global stage. It examines indigenous communities’ response to the 2008 Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation (REDD+) initiatives. Focussing on the Ecuadorian Amazon, the chapter explores the history of indigenous communities’ resistance to colonial occupation, and the structural conditions that led to concessions being awarded to Chinese companies in 2016 to drill for oil in the Yasuní National Park, which had been designated by UNESCO as a World Biosphere Reserve in 1989. Yasuní is also the home of communities living in voluntary isolation whose way of life is threatened by extractive operations. The final section analyses successful indigenous and international NGO campaigns mounted to protect areas of Ecuadorian rainforest that provide evidence of the value of social media and the press in amplifying the voices of the unheard and exerting pressure on government agencies and individual officials to modify development policymaking and planning.