When Ecuador in 2008 approved the world’s first constitutional codification of the rights of nature, the country and its president, Rafael Correa, attracted international attention. Also stirring interest was a provision in the country’s rewritten constitution establishing a “right to resistance.” Nine years later, Ecuador and Correa have captured the spotlight for what would seem diametrically opposite reasons. Gaining notice now are a bitter, at times deadly conflict over San Carlos-Panantza, an open-pit copper mining project in the Amazon that the president fervently supports, and an effort by his government to shut down Acción Ecológica, one of Ecuador’s leading environmental groups. Fueling the mining dispute are strong environmental and social concerns of the Shuar indigenous people, whose communities are concentrated in the Ecuadorian... [Log in to read more]