The ruling highlights the need for the State to obtain the consent of the affected communities before undertaking oil, mining or other extractive plans or projects, based on Indigenous peoples’ right to self-determination. Today’s decision signals that the nation’s highest court backs the right of all Indigenous peoples to have the final say over extractive projects that may affect over 23 million acres of Indigenous lands and forests nationwide. Sinangoe hosted the Court’s first ever hearing in Indigenous territory in the heart of the Amazon on November 15th, 2021. The ruling stems from the A’i Kofán community of Sinangoe’s 2018 lawsuit that annulled 52 gold-mining concessions granted by the government along their most important river. Ecuador now has one of the most powerful legal precedents in the world on the internationally recognized right of Indigenous peoples to Free, Prior and Informed Consent, a powerful legal tool for Indigenous survival and the protection of huge swaths of forests and mega-biodiverse ecosystems. Quito, Ecuador, February 4, 2022 – Today, the Constitutional (Supreme) Court of Ecuador, the country’s most powerful judicial body, published a ruling recognizing, for the first time, the right of indigenous communities to have the final decision over oil, mining and other extractive projects that affect their lands.
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