On this Day of International Human Rights, Alex Lucitante, a young indigenous leader from the Kofan people, shares his experiences from the frontlines of a historic victory against gold mining in ancestral Kofan territory. From reviving ancient yagé ceremonies (also known as ayahuasca) to strengthen community resistance to using technology in the defense of their land, the small community of Sinangoe’s path to victory and their struggle ahead is one marked by a fusion of innovation and ancestry – and above all, unified determination to protect their rainforest home from extractivism.

When Sinangoe’s victory happened on October 22nd 2018, I cried and felt so much emotion. It took a lot of sacrifice to get to that victory, which nullified 52 mining concessions on our ancestral territory that had been granted by the government in violation of our right to consent.

The community’s dream was what sparked this fight. Our territory gives us everything we need: it is our pharmacy, our supermarket. There lies our history, our roots, and the life that enables us to live in harmony. That is why it is so important for us to protect it, it is our home.

Mining threatened our territory. It threatened the river and the spiritual places which give us life and which teach us respect for life. For the Kofan people, the river is not just water and stones. To see a fish is to see food, and to see water is to see life in the river. If the rivers are contaminated, what will happen? In the spiritual world, when the spirits of the jungle leave us, everything else we have also gets lost. The community will no longer bother taking care of the river, because it won’t make sense. They will start working and buying things that are not from the territory, they will begin to dream with money and they will begin to destroy the territory.

“Mining threatened our territory, our rivers and the spiritual places which give us life”

Our ancestors taught us to fight with truth and respect. That helped us so much on this path. Beyond our spears, our crafts, our way of life, our language – yagé, or ayahuasca, is a deep part of our identity as Kofan. Sinangoe still does not appropriate what is proper to us. We were divided by the Evangelism or “civilization” which the Kukamas [outsiders] imposed upon us. They convinced our people that drinking yagé was diabolical. Our wisest elders were deceived and finally stopped drinking yagé.

So the youth of Sinangoe grew up without the knowledge of yagé – until this struggle began. With the community guard, we went to my father’s territory to drink yagé. We went to Siona territory, where some of the people have maintained the practice despite evangelization, and there we also drank yagé. From then onwards, some young people learned to prepare it and they now are drinking with the elders, ancestral wisdom-keepers. Then began the construction of the ceremonial house in Sinangoe earlier this year, when the community began the struggle in defense of its territory. First the struggle emerged and then the cultural recovery – and now all of this continues.

“Drinking yagé allowed for  respect to grow amongst everyone, it strengthened our unity”

The main vehicle for this struggle was the unity of the community. That unity was built through hard work and difficult times because Sinangoe was previously divided by political issues, the personal interests of certain groups, and different ways of thinking. But it was not entirely divided: there was still this dream to remain united, to do something for the community and for the territory.

Drinking yagé made respect grow amongst everyone, it strengthened the unity. It made people understand that what is our is ours, and no one can take that away from us. Yagé helps you to understand your life but it is also makes you understand the life of the forest – when you hear its chants, its sounds, that is where there is life. You see mountains and you see that this is sacred land. It is where the spirit of the jaguar rests and wanders, and where the sound of the wind fuses to the forest, and this creates harmony so that everything can be well. We are not greater than the forest or our territories, we are equal, we are the same: this is the Kofan vision. And so through yagé, we become stronger on this path.

If we ask ourselves why Kofan territories or indigenous territories have been kept intact until today, and why they contain more land and biodiversity than anywhere else, it is because our ancestors cared for and defended our territories. The current community guard of Sinangoe is nothing new – it is something that has been a fact since the existence of the Kofan people; our ancestors were these guards.

But during this process of struggle, in exercise of our right to autonomy and self-governance, we saw the need to formalize this guard on paper and create a law prohibiting activities that certain groups, companies or people were doing in disrespect of the community. The community’s voice was not being heard and the State was not guaranteeing our rights. For example, there were people putting shotgun traps to hunt animals in order to sell them, throwing dynamite, poison and all kinds of chemical substances into the rivers, dredging the territory and destroying mountains… So our ancestors’ mandate applied, to defend our ancestral territory through the means of a guard, by means of our warriors.

“The State must guarantee our rights to our territories”

Technology, paired with the guard’s ancestral knowledge of our territory and how to navigate the river and adapt ourselves in the jungle, was very important in the Sinangoe case. The camera traps and drones served to document and monitor what was happening in the territory. At first, there were threats towards our leaders – “if we see you Kofan here, we will take out our machetes, we will cut off your head” – that is how the miners threatened us. But with all the photographic evidence which Sinangoe collected through camera traps and drones, we were able to file a demand for an action of protection. The denouncement was made public before the authorities, and through the media we alerted the world about the changes that were happening in our territory, about the illegal invasions but also about the mining concessions granted by the Ecuadorian government without our consent. When this happened, investigations were opened, and from then those who threatened us remained silent.

A few weeks ago, we met with the United Nations Special Rapporteur on Indigenous Rights during her visit to Ecuador. We explained how the State was not recognizing our rights to our territories as Kofan people, the State was violating our rights. We need the State to guarantee our rights through land titling. We also demanded that the State recognize the role of indigenous guards as guardians of ancestral territories and for the protection of the rainforest and biodiversity, because to this day, the State has been incapable of doing so. Instead, the State has accused us of being “paramilitaries”, “militia groups”, “accomplices of the miners”. But the Rapporteur met the guard to understand its structure and how it protects our territories: with respect, strength, and love in the heart.

Now the community is beginning a process to map out its territory, they will be walking long distances to gather evidence of sites of great importance in order to demand that the State recognize their territory through a property title. The State wants to have authority over these territories but they must respect our ancestry. With the case’s sentence and all the support and alliances that Sinangoe now has, we are confident that we will be able to secure this land title. And when we secure this land title, we will be stronger in our fight to guarantee our cultural and physical survival.

The struggle of Sinangoe doesn’t just represent the Ecuadorian Amazon. It also speaks to other countries – where indigenous peoples want to fight and confront these big issues but still feel lost because they do not really understand who they are as a people. In reality, we, indigenous peoples are subject to rights just like nature, so we must fight and defend who we are. When there is consciousness, as there is in the case of Sinangoe, people view who they are with pride and love. We raise our spears and say we are Kofan, and so what? It does not matter that we do not have the dream of the white man or of the extractivist to own a lot. We have the dream of our ancestors, which is the ancestral right to be who we are and live as we want to live. That is the message from Sinangoe to the world: get up, raise your voice, but always be united. Without unity, there will be no triumph.

List of chronicles in our series on Sinangoe:

Facing the mounting pressures of the global race for gold and other metals across the globe, it’s not everyday that a small indigenous community wins a lawsuit against the government that nullifies over 50 mining concessions threatening their health and land, and grants full restoration of the damages done. Last week’s landmark victory for the Kofan people of Sinangoe, at the headwaters of the Aguarico River in the Ecuadorian Amazon, is testament to the importance of indigenous-led resistance against extractivism in the world’s largest tropical rainforest.

This community’s path to victory involved a myriad of strategies ranging from environmental monitoring to innovative legal actions and alliance-building with civil society, provincial governments and international organizations. Its example should provide inspiration and tools to other indigenous peoples facing similar threats to their ancestral lands, cultures and rights. Here are 7 major reasons why Sinangoe’s case is so important.

Kofan culture is deeply connected to the land: their entire way of life depends upon the rivers and forest. When the Kofan discovered that their ancestral territory along the Cofanes and upper Aguarico rivers had been granted to mining companies without their permission, they immediately recognized the gravity of this threat to their way of life and autonomy, and to other communities downriver. Damage to these rivers means damage to the Kofan themselves. Their triumphant legal battle, which brought four Ecuadorian State authorities to court, not only denounced the lack of consultation, but also highlighted the violation of their rights to water, food security and a clean environment – fundamental rights imperative to the integrity and survival of Kofan culture.

The Kofan people of Sinangoe have won a landmark legal battle to protect the headwaters of the Aguarico River, strengthening collective rights to Free, Prior and Informed Consent over any extractive activity in indigenous lands.

It was Sinangoe’s community land patrol that sounded the alarm when they witnessed the first machines digging up the banks of the Aguarico River in early 2018. This land patrol, trained and formed one year before in partnership with Amazon Frontlines and our indigenous partners Ceibo Alliance, immediately documented and reported the invasion. Over the course of several field trips, the land patrol meticulously built up an extensive archive of images, drone footage and maps, which played a central role in their landmark victory, providing irrefutable evidence of the environmental damages of gold mining on their land to the judges and court. This victory should embolden any community using environmental monitoring techniques, whether it be camera traps, GPS, video recorders, drone, satellite imagery and/or land patrols.

Over the course of 2 years, Sinangoe’s land patrol have used a wide range of strategies and technologies to detect, document and stop gold mining inside and around their ancestral land.

The decision by the Provincial Court is without precedent in Ecuador, and takes huge steps towards the protection of indigenous and environmental rights. First, there is the concrete: 20 concessions improperly granted to mining companies canceled; 32 concessions under review for approval indefinitely suspended; and full remediation of damages already caused by the mining activity. But this sentence has deeper repercussions for a country with 14 indigenous nations and some of the world’s most important natural resources. The court’s recognition that the government must consult indigenous communities when the proposed activity affects their territory, even if it doesn’t occur directly on their legally recognized land, is a huge win for indigenous rights to Free, Prior and Informed Consent. Equally important is the recognition of the rights of nature, as well as the use of the precautionary principle, always applicable but seldom-applied in Ecuador, which vests the government with the responsibility to protect the public from harm (in this case to the environment and to the right to water and food security) BEFORE irreversible damage occurs unless scientific evidence can prove otherwise. The court’s decision advances the law in Ecuador, paving the way for other communities to exercise their rights and protect their territories.

By halting all mining operations along the headwaters of one of Ecuador’s most important rivers, the Kofan have saved 32,000 hectares (79 000 acres) of the most biodiverse rainforest in the country and amongst the most biologically rich places on Earth. The area, fed by the Cofanes and Chingual Rivers, is home to over 3,725 species of plants, 650 species of birds and 50 species of mammals, including various endemic and endangered species like the spectacled bear and the mountain tapir. This biological hotspot’s fragility and uniqueness mean even limited road building and small-scale deforestation could have disastrous impacts on the local flora and fauna. This legal victory affords respite for these wild places and highlights the incompatibility of mining in this pristine Amazon rainforest.

As deforestation continues to spread across the Amazon, and with the Ecuadorian Amazon having already lost 675,000 hectares of pristine rainforest since 1990, protecting intact refuges like Sinangoe’s ancestral land and its rich surroundings is key to combating climate change. Each hectare of forest in this area contains between 245 to 633 tons of carbon stored in its vegetation and soils, amongst the highest carbon densities in the Amazon¹. Avoiding deforestation over 32,000 hectares of this rainforest means avoiding the release of at least 7.8 million tons of carbon to the atmosphere, or the equivalent average yearly carbon emissions of more than 1.7 million cars².

Deforestation along the banks of the Aguarico River detected by Sinangoe’s land patrol in April 2018.

The Ecuadorian government granting of 52 mining concessions posed a significant threat to the Aguarico river, which crosses the entire Ecuadorian Amazon, providing water to dozens of indigenous communities and to some of the largest cities of the area. Gold mining operations in the Amazon are amongst the main causes of contamination from anthropogenic mercury, a highly toxic heavy metal contaminating water sources and causing serious health impacts for all beings. Moreover, Ecuador allows the use of cyanide for gold extraction, another toxin released into rivers that can pose a serious risk to water quality and health due to its high toxicity. Following Sinangoe’s urgent request during the lawsuit, the Aguarico, Cofanes and Chingual rivers were declared protected water resources by Ecuador’s national water authority (SENAGUA), blocking any mining and any future concessions directly on the banks of these vital rivers, a first in Ecuador.

The Kofan people of Sinangoe have succeeded in building strong ties with allies both nationally and internationally, helping them gain leverage in this fight against the Ecuadorian government.

This legal battle would never have been possible if the people of Sinangoe didn’t value their territory, put in long, hard hours patrolling their land, and sustain unity within the community. But that alone wouldn’t have won the battle. What Sinangoe also knew to do was connect with other communities and organizations and reach out for support where needed. Over the course of Sinangoe’s battle against gold mining, over 59 national and international organizations, 14 riparian communities of the Aguarico, the provincial and municipal governments and even the highly influential Catholic Church gave their support to the community, increasing Sinangoe’s leverage and visibility. This example shows that communities in resistance are stronger when they are united, and that cross-cultural alliances work when they are based on mutual respect and trust.

¹ Bertzky, M., Ravilious, C., Araujo Navas, A.L., Kapos, V., Carrión, D., Chíu, M., Dickson, B. (2011) Carbono, biodiversidad y servicios ecosistémicos: Explorando los beneficios múltiples. Ecuador. UNEPWCMC, Cambridge, Reino Unido. http://www.unredd.net/index.php?option=com_docman&task=doc_download&gid=6148&Itemid=53

² EPA. Greenhouse Gas Emissions from a Typical Passenger Vehicle. https://www.epa.gov/greenvehicles/greenhouse-gas-emissions-typical-passenger-vehicle

List of chronicles in our series on Sinangoe:

On October 22nd 2018, the Kofan people of Sinangoe in the Ecuadorian Amazon won a landmark legal battle to protect the headwaters of the Aguarico River, one of Ecuador’s largest and most important rivers, and nullify 52 mining concessions that had been granted by the government in violation of the Kofan’s right to consent, freeing up more than 32, 000 hectares of primary rainforest from the devastating environmental and cultural impact of gold mining. This precedent-setting decision will inspire indigenous nations across the Amazon and land defenders worldwide for years to come.

The Kofan people of Sinangoe, with the support of Amazon Frontlines and the Ceibo Alliance, have been successful in forcing the Ecuadorian government to cancel all mining concessions on and around their ancestral land, a groundbreaking victory for indigenous rights in Ecuador.

In a historic ruling, the Provincial Court accepted evidence of environmental impacts provided by the community of Sinangoe and the provincial ombudsman, charged the government with not having consulted the Kofan, denounced the mining operations for having violated indigenous rights to water, food and a healthy environment, and cancelled all mining activity in more than 52 concessions at the foothills of the Andes. The ruling, which cites the precautionary principle and uses Ecuador’s new law on the rights of nature, also forces authorities to set in place restoration measures in an area that had been already heavily impacted by the mining operations.

After only 4 months of mining operations, the environmental damages we have witnessed and documented for the court case provided a strong set of evidence on how granting mining concessions in such a fragile and rich environment is totally incompatible with the Kofan way of life and the conservation efforts needed in this biodiversity hotspot. The area now freed from mining activity is one of the most biodiverse areas on Earth. It is home not only to the Kofan people who depend on its fresh water for survival, but also to more than 3,725 species of plants, 650 species of birds and 50 species of mammals.

Mining operations threaten profound and irreversible environmental and cultural damage in this ecological hotspot as well as the health of the people of Sinangoe and thousands of people in dozens of indigenous communities downstream. Further exposing this highly diverse primary forest to uncontrolled deforestation would also accelerate the global climate crisis.

The headwaters of the Aguarico River, at the core of the Kofan ancestral land and one of the main artery of the Ecuadorian Amazon, were threatened by mercury and cyanide pollution commonly used in gold mining operations in the Amazon, until the Kofan successfully blocked it by suing the Ecuadorian government.

After months of ongoing land patrols, the use of camera traps, drones and satellite imagery, as well as indigenous-driven media campaigns to raise awareness of destructive mining practices, the Kofan people, with the support from Amazon Frontlines and our indigenous partners from the Ceibo Alliance, have succeeded in demonstrating the importance of indigenous-led environmental monitoring and sustained innovative legal strategies to protect their land and rights. Sinangoe now has the important task of ensuring the ruling is respected and the measures dictated by the Courts are enforced on the ground.

List of chronicles in our series on Sinangoe:

In January 2018 the Ecuadorian Government concessioned off over 30,000 hectares of some of the most bio-diverse rainforest in the Amazon to an array of mining interests, precipitating a gold-mining boom in the ancestral lands of the Kofan people. There were no prior meetings. No consultation. No information provided to the Kofan villagers of Sinangoe. No permission was asked. The arrival of big machinery, water pumps and dozens of miners was the only courtesy the government gave the ancestral guardians of this biodiversity hotspot.

After months of ongoing land patrols, the use of camera traps, drones and satellite imagery, as well as innovative legal strategies and indigenous-driven media campaigns to raise awareness about destructive mining practices, the Kofan people are on the verge of winning a landmark legal battle to protect the headwaters of the Aguarico River and contribute to the national movement to strengthen collective rights to Free, Prior and Informed Consent over any extractive activity in indigenous lands.

Over 30 000 hectares of mining concessions were granted by the Ecuadorian government in the headwaters of the Aguarico River, Ecuadorian Amazon, without any Free, prior and informed consent from the Kofan community of Sinangoe.

The Kofan peoples’ ancestral rainforest homeland is a miracle of biodiversity – a headwater region where Amazonian forest ascends steep mountainous cliffs into the Andean foothills, home to more species per hectare than anywhere else in Ecuador. The Kofan people, recently featured in a Foreign Policy story about the advantages of indigenous land stewardship, are achieving international recognition for their conservation efforts – which combine cutting-edge tech, weekly land patrols, and tenacious legal advocacy.

Yesterday, the Kofan people’s efforts received an additional boost with a strongly worded letter to Ecuador’s president, Lenin Moreno, signed by 55 national and international organizations, including Greenpeace, Hivos, Amazon Watch and Rainforest Fund. The support comes after the community won a first legal battle in court against four Ecuadorian ministries back in July 2018. In this ruling, a regional judge recognized that Sinangoe’s right to free, prior and informed consent had been violated, and suspended all mining operations in the Aguarico headwaters.

The decision in the lower courts was immediately appealed by all the authorities, and then by Sinangoe and their ally in the Defensoria del Pueblo, who seek an even tougher verdict recognizing that rights to health, water and a clean environment had also been violated and also that the concessions be revoked, not just suspended. The case will be brought in front of provincial judges tomorrow, September 5th 2018, where hundreds plan to gather at the Court of Appeals in the amazonian town of Lago Agrio, coming in support of the Kofan Nation and in defense of the Aguarico River, its pristine headwaters and the vital water it provides to thousands of amazonian people. Stay tuned for more on Sinangoe’s struggle.

List of chronicles in our series on Sinangoe:

In a lawsuit that will inspire and galvanize many other indigenous communities across the Amazon for years to come, the Kofan of Sinangoe have won a trial against four Ecuadorian ministries and agencies for having granted or attempted to grant more than 30,000 hectares of mining concessions in pristine Amazonian rainforest on the border of their ancestral land without their free, prior and informed consent. The destructive mining operations that were taking place within these concessions threatened not only the Kofan’s lives, culture and health, but also those of the countless communities located downriver.

In a historic decision on Friday July 27th 2018, a regional judge accepted the evidence provided by the community, charged the government with not having consulted the Kofan, and suspended all mining activity in more than 52 concessions in the headwaters of the Aguarico River. The decision was immediately appealed by all the authorities involved, and then by Sinangoe and their ally in the Defensoria del Pueblo, who seek an even tougher verdict recognizing that rights to health, water and a clean environment had also been violated. The case will be brought before a provincial judge in August, 2018.

The free, prior and informed consent loophole

Like in many places around the world, the Ecuadorian government has a mining claim system built to facilitate any interested party in purchasing cheap concessions— maximizing foreign interests and accelerating the approval process. Although both Ecuador’s Mining Act and the Constitution recognize the need for Free, Prior and Informed Consent from stakeholder communities for mining operations, it is still mostly a theoretical concept ignored by Ecuadorian agencies. Hence Sinangoe’s lawsuit. According to the experts heard over the course of the legal process, the Mining ministry leaves the “consultation” to the mining company or the concession owners themselves, which in turn have no legal obligation to consult with local people, and often will perform their “consultation” through a phone call or by handing out a simple information pamphlet. In the case of Sinangoe, it was when machines started tearing up the riverbed of the Aguarico looking for gold that the community learned about the new concessions.

The Environment ministry, on the other end, stipulated in the courtroom that it is not responsible for consulting with communities impacted by mining. Interestingly, according to the Mining Act, the Environment Ministry needs to grant environmental licenses before operations can begin, unless the granting process takes more than 6 months, in which case – as unbelievable as this is – the permits are automatically granted to the operators. So basically, via a very simple bureaucratic process involving nothing more than paperwork, a mining operator can very quickly obtain 20 to 25-year land claims within 6 months, while the impacted communities living downstream haven’t even heard about the concessions. This is a loophole the judge described as a violation of the right to free, prior and informed consent, a verdict that will help many other communities facing the same threats in a country where gold mining is booming.

When rigorous community monitoring pays off

Throughout the lawsuit, the ministries’ lawyers vigorously tried to destroy Sinangoe’s evidence, credibility, ownership of and ancestral claims to the land. They downplayed the environmental damage documented by Sinangoe, claiming that the Kofan aren’t impacted by the mining operations because their land is on the other side of the river and that legal mining has minimal footprint on the environment. However, Sinangoe had done what will likely inspire many other communities: they had documented every step made by the miners through rigorous and systematic monitoring using high tech mapping, filming, archiving all evidence, and then they used legal tactics to pressure every single level of government to act to stop the operations. Systematic recording of all the different types of evidence helped build a solid case against a negligent concession-granting system.

Once in the courtroom, Sinangoe had accrued such a massive body of evidence of environmental damage and inaction on the part of the government that the judge requested a field inspection, a key event that helped him understand the scale of the damage already done, showed the deep connection the Kofan have with the area transformed into mining concessions, discredited the ministries’ arguments, and also allowed him to witness the sheer beauty of the area at risk.

A first legal victory, but the battle for land and rights still rages

To the officials sitting in their offices in Quito, these concessions were nothing more than coordinates and squares on a map, but to the Kofan who live across the riverbank, the area is a place imbued with life, history, sustenance, stories and so much more. To grant concessions without experiencing the place in and of itself, either through field visits or proper consultation with the people who inhabit and use the territory, is a transgression of the inherent value of sites so rich in history and biodiversity.

Sinangoe’s strength has been put to trial, and the community’s perseverance and conviction have provided them a first legal victory and attracted support from various indigenous and human rights organization across the country. With all ministries involved appealing the judgment, the Kofan will need more strength and support to navigate the next wave of legal governmental intimidation.

Sign the pledge in support of Sinangoe and stay tuned for more on our work to defend rights, lands and life in the Amazon.

List of chronicles in our series on Sinangoe: