Plain Language Summary: The Conflict between Rights of Nature and Mining in Ecuador: Implications of the Los Cedros Cloud Forest Case for Biodiversity Conservation.

By Peck M.R., Desselas, M., Bonilla-Bedoya S., Redín, G, and Durango-Cordero, J..

Read the full paper here.

The movement to give legal rights to nature, which has gained worldwide attention after Ecuador included it within its constitution 2008, sees nature as having its own legal rights. This idea changes the way we protect the environment. In 2021, there was a major event in Ecuador as their Constitutional Court was the first in the world to stop mining in the Los Cedros Protected Forest based on, in part, potential impacts to the Rights of Nature. They did this because mining threatened unique species at risk of extinction that lived there, and the important roles these species have in keeping the forest ecosystem healthy.

In our study, we looked at what the implications of this legal decision to protect the Los Cedros Forest is for other similar protected forests, indigenous lands, and other unprotected and biologically rich ecosystems in Ecuador. We found that many of these places, covering over 16,000 square kilometres in total, are similarly at risk from potential mining activity due to concessions allocated in 2021. These areas could use the precedent set by the Los Cedros case to challenge these mining concessions using Rights of Nature, but we recognise that most of them lack the necessary environmental and ecological data needed to build a good legal case, as much of Ecuador has not been thoroughly studied. There is a pressing need for detailed biological information, and ordinary people could help collect this data through citizen science. We propose creating a new field of study called ‘ecological forensics’, which would blend local ecological knowledge, law, and science to support the legal system in effectively representing Nature’s rights. Finally, we suggest that Ecuador’s situation shows we need to rethink allowing mining in ecologically sensitive areas or places with water issues. Instead, we should focus on development that supports ecological health and social well-being.