Ecuador’s Indigenous Protest Mining in the Amazon Rainforest

Indigenous women perform a ritual during a march in Ecuador to protest against the policies of President Rafael Correa which they say will result in more mining in the Amazon region and threaten the environment and their way of life.

Protests in Ecuador yesterday shut down the capital city of Quito while indigenous protested the governments signing of new mining contracts.  The Amazon Rainforest is one of the most bio-diverse areas in the world.  As the largest tract of tropical rainforest in the Americas, one in 10 species in the world can be found within the Amazon Basin.

This area is also home to a number of indigenous groups, including groups within the Brazilian Amazon which have remained without contact from the outside world.  For decades the Amazon Region has also been exploited for its wealth of natural resources including deforestation, oil production, and mining operations.

Environmentalists are concerned about loss of biodiversity that will result from destruction of the forest, and also about the release of the carbon contained within the vegetation, which could accelerate  global warming.  As regions within the Amazon Basin continue to succumb to eco-side the many of the indigenous groups from the area have become the voice for the Amazon through community based conservation efforts.