Alexandra Guevara, Carolina Sampedro, Carlos Mena

The Ecuadorian Amazon region has long been the scenario of conflicts pertaining the extraction of natural resources, especially oil. In general, the main or most visible source of the conflicts seems to be the perceived pollution in different environmental compartments (air, water, soil, air) due to the exploration, extraction and transport of the resource. This paper emphasizes on the importance and challenges of community participation in environmental monitoring programs which aim at individuals and communities being aware of environmental quality through the enhancement of education. This community based environmental monitoring initiative was developed by the Universidad San Francisco de Quito and the Frente de Defensa de la Amazonia and was envisioned as an educational and training component within a larger research project that analyses social and environmental conflicts that arise when natural resources are extracted, especially in areas home to fragile ecosystems and fragile indigenous and other resident communities. This program is focused on training community members on how to notice subtle changes in water quality parameters using a variety of water quality measuring apparatus. We assembled a kit containing several simple instruments and is used by members of the community to approximate water quality. Monitoring sites were selected from a total of 146 which were tested and evaluated for physical, chemical, biological and ecological indicators. 30 water and sediment samples were selected randomly and analyzed for polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons PAHs and heavy metals. Traces of these components were found in all samples. The above processes were thought as a tool for empowering communities.

Carolina Sampedro , Patricia Martínez V., Homero Paltán L., Carlos F. Mena.

In approximately 40 years (1970 – 2012) a number of 1100 oil spills were registered in the Ecuadorian Amazon region by the Ecuadorian government through a database compiled by the Ecuadorian Environmental and Social Reparation Programme (PRAS). Nevertheless, no monitoring methods have been used to identify and quantify the number of spills in a periodical manner. This article compares three remote sensing standard methodologies using Landsat and Radarsat images to establish an effective method to identify the oil spills. 47 points within the northern Ecuadorian amazon were selected with three criteria: a minimum area of 900m2, images dating from 1990 until 2009, and which were cloud-free. 55 Landsat 5 TM and Landsat 7 ETM+ images were chosen and used to compare pre and post-spill information. In order to avoid significant seasonal and landscape changes, we used images ranging from 2 years prior to the spill and 3 months post spill. Sub-pixel and fractional coverage methods were applied to a 10 km radius from the selected points and a comparison with the spill area was made so the results of both methods could be evaluated.

Francisco Laso, Patricia Martínez, Alexandra Guevara, Carlos Mena.

Deforestation is one of the main sources of atmospheric carbon emissions. We used land-use change simulations (IDRISI Selva) and existing carbon maps in order to estimate the amount of carbon that will be released into the atmosphere in the coming decades due to deforestation throughout the Ecuadorian Amazon. We took into account land cover from three time periods (1990, 2000, 2008), hydrology, geographical slope, road network, and newly leased oil block locations to predict where deforestation was likely to occur. Then, we overlaid this information with current (2014) carbon maps of Ecuador to estimate the carbon contained in deforested areas. Preliminary results show that most forest loss was due to agricultural expansion from 1990 to 2000. By using these data to calibrate our model, simulations suggest that by the year 2038 there will be a 10% reduction of forest cover. This represents an average of 126.05 Tons of C/Ha, which adds up to over 2 million Tons of Carbon released into the atmosphere due to deforestation in the Ecuadorian Amazon. Validation data comparing projected vs. observed land cover for 2008 had a 97% agreement rate, and suggested that our results are conservative. This is a pilot project for a more exhaustive effort to estimate carbon emissions from deforestation in the Amazon region.

Quiroga, D., and Mena C.F.

This article explores the way in which the communities living in the Ecuadorian Amazon Forest (Oriente) have developed different responses to the incursion of the oil companies. We also seek to explain why the diverse communities have responded in different ways. There are a series of factors that account for the differences which include the different degree of organization of the indigenous communities, the different legal framework but at the national and international level, the different environmental and social practices of the oil companies and the changing role of NGOs and other external organizations. This article explores the reasons that explain why communities living in the Oriente have developed different responses to the incursion of the oil companies. A series of factors account for the different responses, including the degree of organization of the indigenous communities, when and how they got access to their land titles, changes in the legal framework both at the national and international level, the different environmental and social practices of the oil companies and the changing role of NGOs and other external organizations. We argue that these factors have determined the way in which the communities feel and perceive their sense of entitlement and their acceptance or rejection of the oil companies In general, communities in general reacted more passively to the invasion of an oil company when initial contact was made by the oil company itself and by missionaries. However, communities with more organizational and cultural capacities showed a more organized reaction to the same incursion of an oil company.

Consuelo Fernández, Duygu Avci

In Ecuador, promotion of large-scale mining as a main pillar of the development project of the Correa government has triggered conflicts at the local level, as well as intense public debate concerning the relationship between resource extraction and development. While in public debate the positions are usually more polarized, at the actual areas of large-scale mining projects there is much more diversity and ambiguity in the positions of the social actors regarding mining, and in the ways they engage with the state institutions and the extractive industry. In this paper, we critically compare the contexts of two different mining sites in Ecuador, the Project of Mirador in the province of Zamora Chinchipe and Intag, located in the province of Imbabura. Here, we analyze how territorial dynamics play out in these conflicts and their relation to heterogeneous local responses, political positions and claims, more specifically to explain why and how in Intag a strong opposition was constructed, while in Mirador the resistance to mining remained rather weak and divided.