Ecuadorian Court Suspends Environmental Consultations on Mining

On Tuesday, the Constitutional Court of Ecuador decided to provisionally suspend the decree to carry out environmental consultations in areas of mining interest, after admitting the lawsuit of the Confederation of Indigenous Nationalities (Conaie) against the consultative process.

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Conaie celebrated the decision of the Constitutional Court and assured that this is a step to stop the penetration of mining companies in native peoples' territories.

Conaie filed a request for precautionary measures on June 13 against Decree 754, issued in May 2023 by President Guillermo Lasso.

That regulation regulates the environmental project regulates environmental queries and productive projects in communities in the project influence area.

The temporary suspension implies for companies, as the miners, delaying constructions and projects until the legal vacuum is resolved.

The Constitutional Court considered timid, imminent and potentially harmful application of the application of consultations, established in the contested decree impugned.

In its decision it underlined the seriousness of the damage that could be caused by carrying out consultation processes based on a norm that, according to Conaie, "would not have been consulted, that the Government would seek to impose by force and that does not observe constitutional standards and international instruments".

For the indigenous movement, the challenged decree violated the rights of the communities to prior consultation, to participation in decisions, to regulatory adequacy, to justice and to the rule of law.

The Government's environmental consultation had generated resistance in indigenous areas such as the Andean areas of Las Naves and Sigchos, where the Government intends to grant mining concessions.