Jurist Ecuador failing protect Indigenous groups from oil drilling pollution, rights group says

[Dadparvar]

Ecuador has failed to comply with key provisions of an Inter-American Court of Human Rights (IACHR) order to protect the Tagaeri and Taromenane Indigenous peoples from oil facilities in Yasuní National Park, Human Rights Watch (HRW) said Monday.

José Rodríguez Orúe, Kenneth Roth practitioner-in-residence at HRW, called for the immediate halt to drilling activities in the area, stating:

Ecuador continues to allow extraction from Block 43, putting oil production above the rights of Indigenous communities. Ecuador should take immediate steps to suspend oil extraction in Block 43 and fully comply with the court’s ruling to respect the rights of Indigenous peoples in the national park.

In March 2025, IACHR delivered a landmark ruling that ordered Ecuador to take measures to protect Indigenous groups’ rights, including the immediate halt of oil operations in an area of Yasuní National Park called Block 43. The court found that oil extraction from facilities near Indigenous territory generated large quantities of environmental pollution, increasing risks of exposure to harmful disease, displacement, food shortages, and conflicts over resources.

The court held that Ecuador violated rights to collective property, self-determination, dignified life, health, food, cultural identity, healthy environment, housing, life, judicial guarantees, and judicial protection of the Tagaeri and Taromenane–groups that have long lived in voluntary isolation from the rest of the population.

Before the 2025 ruling, Ecuador’s government had been bound by a 2023 national referendum to stop oil production in Block 43. On August 20, 2023, the public voted to ban oil extraction and halt all drilling in the Ishpingo, Tambococha, and Tiputini block of Yasuni National Park, one of the most lush sections remaining in the Amazon River Basin. The referendum followed decades of hard work from a coalition of Indigenous peoples, youth, and activists that fought to stop fossil fuel production in the area.

Despite the vote, only four of 247 wells had been shut down by the time of the IACHR ruling.

Richard Pearshouse, environment and human rights director at HRW, spoke of the negative effects of Ecuador’s non-compliance with the referendum results and court order, saying:

The Ecuadorian government’s decision to maintain oil production for the next five years in Yasuni National Park ignores the 2023 referendum result, which directly impacts the rights of the peoples who live in the park and all Ecuadorians… The government should respect the will of the Ecuadorian people and immediately end oil extraction in the area protected by the referendum.

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