6th August 2021
The indigenous women of the Sapara Nation in Ecuador have nothing to lose but stand, fight back for their land, their forests and their people. The Sapara are one of several indigenous groups living in Ecuadorian Amazon, but having once been the largest indigenous populations in the region, colonization and continuous forced movement off their homeland have reduced the population to less than 600. Having been recognized as heritage of humanity by UNESCO, the Sapara continue to practice ancestral connections of living with nature and maintaining its balance for future sustainability.
Sapara women have faced oppression and violence within their communities and from those in the cities. In response to this, the Association of Sapara Women in Equador, ASHINWAKA, was created in 2009. Led by formidable activist Gloria Hilda Ushigua Santi women have stood up to protect their fundamental rights of defending themselves from violence and intimidation and their forests against encroachment by government, loggers, and oil exploration.
In 2013 the Ecuadorian government signed contracts with oil companies giving concessions to open oil blocks in Ecuador’s Southern Amazon, lying within Sapara nation territory, without their consent. Exploitation of oil resources would threaten indigenous cultures, their biodiverse forest ecosystem, and sequestration of CO2 by the trees and soil, the forest lungs.
ASHINWAKA provided Sapara women with tools to organize and have a voice and participated in various UN and COP climate change negotiations affecting indigenous rights. Since that moment Sapara women led their community. By 2019 the Sapara were successful in applying pressure on the Ministry of Energy and Non-Renewable Natural Resources, stopping further oil exploration and shutting down the project.
Credit One Tree Planted
In restoring the Southern Amazon forest cover, ASHINWAKA partnered with One Tree Planted. Together with staff and volunteers of indigenous women and their families, this partnership planted 150,000 native and medicinal plants covering 100 hectares in separate areas. The project not only restored part of the Amazon rainforest but also empowered women leaders in their communities, providing an income. Ecological benefits have meant reforestation of degraded areas, prevention of soil erosion, enriching soil fertility and keeping the river systems clean from industrial waste. Over time the balance of habitat, food sources, and rich biodiversity of wildlife will be restored.
Sapara Women and ASHINWAKA continue to build skills and resilience. They provide training and communication technologies in order to share their stories, report cases of violence, and strengthen their resistance in defense of their forests, land and Sapara Nation.
Find out more here:
https://ashinwaka.wordpress.com/about/about-us/
https://onetreeplanted.org/blogs/stories/reforestation-sapara-amazon