A report reveals the deforestation of the Ecuadorian Amazon

More than 30% of Ecuador's current total surface area has been impacted by human activity, and much of this loss has come at the expense of the Amazon rainforest, this is the summary of a long relationship produced by the Ecuadorian environmental NGOs EcoCiencia and MapBiomas Ecuador together with other independent researchers.The research also records the reduction of glaciers and changes in land cover triggered by the expansion of capitalist activities such as agriculture, forestry, mining and oil extraction that have affected the country from the coast to the Andes.The researchers analyzed and compared satellite images taken between 1985 and 2022, finding that Ecuador lost 1.16 million hectares of natural land cover during this period.To understand the order of magnitude, it is an area slightly larger than the entire Abruzzo region, a very large surface area for a country like Ecuador, which is smaller than Italy.

In the Ecuadorian Amazon, themining activity – especially the extraction ofgold – has expanded at an alarming rate in recent years, but it is theagriculture which actually drove the deforestation of the rainforest.Intensive plantations and monocultures have in fact invaded important slices of forest, but they are also the colonos, those who come from the cities for work to settle in the Amazon areas to contribute to deforestation.

The report analyzed five biomes – the Galápagos Islands, Amazon, Andes, coastal Pacific tropical rainforest and equatorial dry forests – to see where natural plant cover has changed and why.According to the researchers' conclusions, changes in the Amazon are taking place faster in recent years compared to the rest of the country.The most striking aspect is the rapid growth of mining, both legal and illegal, which – as we had already documented on The Independent (in an article titled “In Ecuador the gold rush threatens the existence of 1,500 indigenous communities“), it puts the survival of many living communities at risk Of forest, as well as thousands of species of plants and animals in one of the richest areas of biodiversity on the planet.

Part of the industry's expansion is due to the creation of two large-scale mines, El Mirador And Northern Fruit, both officially opened in 2019 in the southern Amazonian provinces of Zamora Chinchipe and Morona Santiago, causing devastating consequences for the entire surrounding area.But they are not the only ones:In 2021 alone, the country's total mining area expanded by 1,405 hectares , equal to more than 2,600 football pitches.The last ones three governments of Ecuador have in fact promoted the expansion of the relatively young mining sector, while the oil economy is in crisis.The mining sector currently represents approx 1% of GDP and the president Daniel Noboa, who took office last November, has continued to promote its expansion, promising to create jobs by encouraging national and international investments.

Andres Tapia, communications director of Confederation of indigenous nationalities of the Ecuadorian Amazon (CONFENIAE), he declared that the intensification of mining activity in the rainforest in recent years has put strong pressure on the indigenous populations living in these areas.In recent decades, Ecuadorian indigenous communities have already had to learn to protect themselves from oil extraction that has devastated entire areas and continues to pollute the water, air and land of the eastern Amazon.Tapia said several communities have already been displaced due to mining activities, both legal and illegal.For example, the community of San Marcos in the province of Zamora Chinchipe was evicted in 2015 to make way for the El Mirador copper mine.In the central Amazon province of Napo, illegal miners have destroyed the beds of the Jatunyacu and Napo rivers, drying up waterways and pouring contaminants into the waters in search of gold.This has forced communities to move further away to fish or even relocate to nearby towns. «Mining, in particular, becomes a completely irreversible problem for communities», a few drops of mercury - for example - used to capture and divide gold from river sands pollute entire waterways, depriving the surrounding communities of the possibility of supporting themselves and surviving independently.

Even theagriculture it has taken over large areas of the rainforest, causing deforestation.According to data from EcoCiencia and MapBiomas, the total area used for grazing and agriculture in the country has grown by 1 million hectares since 1985, and 46% of this expansion has occurred in the Amazon.In many cases, these are small-scale plots for subsistence farming, but also larger plantations of oil palm and balsa wood, particularly in the northern Amazonian provinces of Orellana and Sucumbíos.

According to research, however, the biggest threat to the Amazon is road construction, which allow farming and mining to expand deeper into the jungle.Ecuador has signed up to a number of international agreements to stop climate change and deforestation, including the New York Declaration on Forests and the Convention on Biological Diversity.Furthermore, as part of the commitments made under the 2015 Paris Agreement, Ecuador aims to reduce greenhouse gas emissions resulting from land use changes by 4%.But, ha said Borja, EcoCiencia analyst at Mongobay:“The map shows that these policies are not becoming reality.”According to researchers, the protection of the remaining 66% of the country's area still covered by vegetation natural it should be theto the priorities of politicians, in collaboration with local communities.

Politics to date favored the exploitation of the forest.Furthermore, despite Ecuador being a “plurinational state”, indigenous nationalities have no real right to their land;the subsoil for example - where the oil is found - always belongs to the State.That same State which, under the governments that have alternated from 1985 to today, has systematically aided the process of privatisation, deforestation and exploitation of the Amazon in the name of economic progress. A progress that however does not take social consequences into consideration, environmental and ecological aspects of the loss of the planet's green lung.«When you look at the data, compare them over the years, and see the speed with which the changes and the acceleration of deforestation have occurred – said Tobes – you realize that, if this continues, in a few years there will be very little left of the Amazon in Ecuador".

[by Monica Cillerai]