Kyle A

The most environmentally imaginative country in the world is presently under assault from within. A few days ago—with my friend & @moth_rights colleague, the Colombian field-lawyer César Rodríguez-Garavito—I published a NY Times op-ed about what is currently unfolding in Ecuador: “Ecuador has played an outsize role in the global politics of nature. For almost two decades this small country has pioneered new ways of imagining & legislating the human relationship with other life on Earth—& inspired similar innovations around the world. Now, however, that ecological progress is under severe threat from a series of reforms steamrolled by Ecuador’s young populist president, Daniel Noboa. [...] Together these measures amount to the most serious assault on environmental protection and constitutional integrity in Ecuador’s recent history. […] The time has come for the world to reciprocate Ecuador’s visionary environmental leadership. Activists, legal experts and Indigenous nations who continue to defend land, water & life there are working under rapidly deteriorating conditions. If support is not offered to them to resist the worst excesses of Mr Noboa’s proposed reforms, the cost for life on Earth—from hummingbirds to humans—will be vast.” Those who’ve read Is a River Alive? have met both César & the astonishing Los Cedros cloudforest (@est.loscedros) around which our essay revolves & with the defence of which we both remain closely involved. Even while writing the essay, the situation deteriorated, with Noboa himself leading a march on the Constitutional Court & CC justices named as “enemies of the citizenry” for their attempts to resist the unconstitutionality of his reforms. The playbook is a familiar one; Noboa is operating in the political lee, as it were, of Trump. Please share/re-post this if so inclined; the more eyes on Ecuador right now the better. Those wishing to support financially could donate to the Los Cedros Fund non-profit, which works for the protection of the cloudforest & its many & various communities. Link also in bio.

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