The Kichwa People of Pastaza in the Ecuadorian Amazon have lived and thrived in the forest for centuries, but as society changes and newer generations disengage from the culture, it has become difficult to maintain and pass down their traditions. That is why, in 2022, a group of Kichwa women ceramicists founded the artisan collective called Sinchi Muskuyuk Warmi.
From 2022 to 2025, Rights and Resources Initiative, the Global Alliance of Territorial Communities, and Campaign for Nature funded 76 distinct projects at local, national, and regional levels in Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, and Bolivia, thanks to the generosity of the Bezos Earth Fund.
Building on the State of Funding report published in April 2024, this blog post shares important updates on finance for Indigenous Peoples', Afro-descendant Peoples', and local communities' tenure and forest guardianship and examples of how direct funding is already driving important progress in tropical forests and other key ecosystems.
How the carbon market is affecting the territories of more than 200 families in the Ecuadorian Andes
Eight local communities in northern Ecuador are victims of so-called "green grabbing" by a private environmental services company. To defend their customary rights in the absence of collective land titles, the communities have launched an advocacy campaign with RRI’s support.
Members of the new network agree to create more documentation on land rights and governance processes for Indigenous, Afro-descendant, and local community women; call for strengthening advocacy capacity.
Rights and Resources Initiative expresses its solidarity with the leaders of the Indigenous rights movement in Ecuador who are being criminalized for exercising their legitimate right to mobilize and defend their human rights.
Indigenous people in Ecuador say their territorial rights are being systematically violated, according to a top United Nations official. Victoria Tauli-Corpuz, the U.N.’s special rapporteur on the rights of indigenous peoples, is urging the Ecuadoran government to form a “truly plurinational and multicultural society” in accordance with its constitution and international law.
On September 28, 2008, the people of the Republic of Ecuador passed a new Constitution, seen as a historic document which recognizes both indigenous peoples’ land rights and livelihoods and the rights of nature.