QUITO, Ecuador On Jan. 28, 2022, Ecuador’s Heavy Crude Oil Pipeline (known by its Spanish acronym OCP), ruptured, contaminating more than 20,000 square meters of the Cayambe Coca National Park, according to the Ministry of the Environment, Water and Ecological Transition (MAATE). MAATE found the spill threatened wildlife such as the mountain coati (Nasuella […]
Josefina Tunki is a mother, even though she doesn’t have any biological children. In 2019, she became the first president of the Shuar Arutam People (Pueblo Shuar Arutam, PSHA, in Spanish). The PSHA is an Indigenous organization that unites about 12,000 people living in the Condor mountain range in southeastern Ecuador. From the moment Tunki […]
This story is a reporting partnership between Mongabay Latam and La Barra Espaciadora. Balsa wood is a hot commodity in Ecuador, with the country exporting $402 million worth of the timber in 2020 alone, according to data from the central bank. But the lucrative trade has reportedly come at a cost to communities living in the country’s […]
Anti-rights Wiki: An investigation into the conservative lobby in Latin America
A guide to anti-rights actors and their connections
In recent years, social movements in Latin America have been strengthened by collaborative networks between countries, which created political and social changes to achieve or expand fundamental human rights. On the other hand, unfortunately, the conservative groups that oppose many of these changes have also grown and become more visible.
For example, in August 2020, during the COVID-19 pandemic in Brazil, the case of a 10-year-old girl who was 22 weeks pregnant was made public. The sex offender was her uncle, who had repeatedly raped her since she was six years old. The child decided to terminate the pregnancy, but the Espiritu Santo State Hospital refused to perform the procedure. The girl then had to leave her home and travel more than 1,800 km to the State of Pernambuco, where she had the intervention done according to the current Brazilian la