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)”
Tag Archives: environment
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)”
Crabbers face danger and poverty to save Ecuador’s mangroves (Reuters)
MACHALA, Ecuador – The small motorboat left the dock at the end of Neiva Carrascal’s street and hummed out into the ocean off the southern coast of Ecuador, keeping close to the shore lined with tangled branches of mangroves. Every day, Carrascal and 80 others from her port community in the city of Machala go out to collectContinueContinue reading “Crabbers face danger and poverty to save Ecuador’s mangroves (Reuters)”
La última línea de resistencia cofán (GK, Ecuador)
SINANGOE, ECUADOR – Era un día soleado de febrero de 2020, cuando 12 hombres indígenas Cofán decidieron realizar un control de rutina en su territorio en el norte de la Amazonía ecuatoriana. Estaban caminando por la selva por los senderos que alguna vez sus ancestros atravesaron, sospechando que podrían encontrar mineros operando ilegalmente en suContinueContinue reading “La última línea de resistencia cofán (GK, Ecuador)”
‘Trapped again’: Quarantined Ecuador indigenous groups fight Amazon oil spill (Reuters)
QUITO, ECUADOR – When the Kichwa community closed off their village near the Coca River in Ecuador’s northern Amazon rainforest in March to protect themselves from the coronavirus pandemic, they planned to live off fishing and whatever food they could grow. But about two weeks into their quarantine, two damaged oil pipelines leaked thousands ofContinueContinue reading “‘Trapped again’: Quarantined Ecuador indigenous groups fight Amazon oil spill (Reuters)”
Kimberley Michelle Brown 