QUITO, ECUADOR – Raul*, a biologist from Quito, has been leading conservation projects in the Chocó rainforest in north-east Ecuador for more than 20 years. It has not been easy, he says, recalling the threats he has received over the years for reporting illegal hunters and loggers in reserves, but he never considered giving up.ContinueContinue reading “‘Biologists were not part of the crime food chain’: why Ecuador’s scientists are facing violence, threats and kidnapping (The Guardian)”
Tag Archives: Ecuador
‘I’m switched off’: frustration and fatigue as power cuts keep Ecuador in the dark (The Guardian)
QUITO, ECUADOR – It’s 6.30pm in Quito, and Anamary Mazorra Vázquez’sflat has fallen into darkness after weeks of government-mandated power cuts to manage Ecuador’s electricity crisis. She puts clothes away by the light of her phone while her husband, Roberto Vaca,seated on the bed by the window, uses the streetlights to help feed their two-year-oldContinueContinue reading “‘I’m switched off’: frustration and fatigue as power cuts keep Ecuador in the dark (The Guardian)”
Trapped in the Tide of Organized Crime (Hakai Magazine)
NARANJAL, ECUADOR – Marcos Ruiz is lying face down in the mud, legs splayed and one arm sunk up to his shoulder in a narrow hole. When he finally grabs the crab burrowing in the hole, he pushes himself out with his other arm and sits back on his heels to examine his prize. TheContinueContinue reading “Trapped in the Tide of Organized Crime (Hakai Magazine)”
From pristine forest to prison fortress: why Ecuador is sacrificing fragile ecosystems to build jails (The Guardian)
JUNTAS DEL PACIFICO, ECUADOR – Walking along a path his grandfather once used, Donald Cabrera, a villager from Bajada de Chanduy, on the coast of Ecuador, points out different trees and their uses. Talking about the imposing ceibo trees, he praises the fluffy white kapok fibre that falls from their branches, which his ancestors usedContinueContinue reading “From pristine forest to prison fortress: why Ecuador is sacrificing fragile ecosystems to build jails (The Guardian)”
‘This is something that divides us’: Ecuador’s turbulent transition from oil dependence (The Guardian)
QUITO, ECUADOR – In a small corner of Ecuador’s Yasuní national park is the village of Llanchama. This Indigenous Quichua community is carved out of the dense Amazonian rainforest along the Tiputini River. But for nearly 10 years an entirely different development has been attempting to establish itself on the village’s borders: the Ishpingo-Tambococha-Tiputini (ITT)ContinueContinue reading “‘This is something that divides us’: Ecuador’s turbulent transition from oil dependence (The Guardian)”
Crude Awakening: Why Ecuador voted to stop drilling in the Amazon (Climate One, podcast)
YASUNI, ECUADOR – Was happy to work on this podcast about the Yasuni referendum in Ecuador, where the country voted to stop oil drilling in one area of the national park. I traveled to the Amazon, where locals actually voted to continue oil drilling here to find what was up with that. The situation isContinueContinue reading “Crude Awakening: Why Ecuador voted to stop drilling in the Amazon (Climate One, podcast)”
‘Just by breathing we are contaminated’: schoolgirls fight to extinguish Ecuador’s gas flares (The Guardian)
LAGO AGRIO, ECUADOR – Fourteen-year-old Leonela Moncayo gets angry when she talks about the gas flares burning near her home. She grew up on the outskirts of Lago Agrio, a city on the edge of Ecuador’s Amazon rainforest, at the heart of its oil industry, where patches of tropical forest canopy are interspersed with oilContinueContinue reading “‘Just by breathing we are contaminated’: schoolgirls fight to extinguish Ecuador’s gas flares (The Guardian)”
Plastic-choked rivers in Ecuador are being cleared with conveyor belts (BBC Future Planet)
QUITO, ECUADOR – Plastic bottles, sports balls, and what look like the wheels from a toy pram float down the San Pedro River that runs through Quito, Ecuador. They are on their way towards the Pacific Ocean, on a downstream journey repeated all over the world as plastic waste is flushed through rivers into theContinueContinue reading “Plastic-choked rivers in Ecuador are being cleared with conveyor belts (BBC Future Planet)”
Ecuador’s justice system awash with corruption and death threats (Courthouse News)
QUITO, ECUADOR – It’s been nearly three months since Ecuador President Daniel Noboa declared an internal war against armed groups operating in the country in an attempt to quell the recent escalation of violence. But a series of investigations has revealed how deeply entrenched organized crime has become in Ecuador’s highest levels of government, including its justiceContinueContinue reading “Ecuador’s justice system awash with corruption and death threats (Courthouse News)”
CITES Warns Ecuador: Crack Down on Illegal Shark Fishing, Now (Hakai Magazine)
QUITO, ECUADOR – Ecuador is, once again, in the hot seat. Late in 2023, officials from the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora, more commonly known as CITES, gave Ecuador an ultimatum: if the government doesn’t clamp down on illegal shark fishing and the sale of illicit shark fins,ContinueContinue reading “CITES Warns Ecuador: Crack Down on Illegal Shark Fishing, Now (Hakai Magazine)”
Kimberley Michelle Brown 