Photo: Mandy Choi | Unsplash
Ecuador's Constitutional Court has ruled that an Indigenous community's right to free, prior, and informed consultation was violated by oil projects, and called for stronger protections to guarantee Indigenous communities' rights to decide over extractive projects in their territories. As part of the ruling, the judges said Indigenous communities must not only be consulted about extractive projects on or near their territory, but they must also give consent to such projects. The ruling will immediately affect oil and mining projects across the country, as they must now seek the consent of Indigenous communities who might be affected by their activities. The Constitutional Court ratified that the state has to listen to us, so this sets a very important precedent for us, and for the whole Indigenous world, because our voices are not always listened to, said Nixon Andy from the Indigenous Kofan community of Sinangoe in Ecuador's northern Amazon rainforest.
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