Members of Acción Ecológica, a close partner organization of Amazon Watch, were notified yesterday by Ecuador’s Ministry of Health that the suspension of their legal status to operate in the country was provisionally put on hold. The Ecuadorian government will reach a final decision on this matter within two months.
Acción Ecológica is hopeful that their legal status will be definitively reinstated especially given that Ecuador’s President Raúl Correa confirmed on March 14th that the organization has met all legal conditions required of it. The President’s affirmation should clear the way to the signing of inter-ministerial agreement between the Ministries of Health and Environment and allow the organization to move beyond its recent legal impasse.
While Acción Ecológica recognizes the roles of distinct government ministries in assuring the transparence of legal regulations, the organization says it expects that the recent action taken in favor of their legal status will lead to better protection of civil rights in the country and allow them to continue their work to defend the health and well-being of Ecuadorian communities and ecosystems.
Ivonne Ramos, the President of the Acción Ecológica collective, issued a statement expressing gratitude for the solidarity of the hundreds of individuals, communities, organizations, academics, and journalists around the world who came forward to support the organization, guided by their deep concern for the environmental situation on the planet and for the rights of organizations striving to defend nature and life.
“With your words and support we feel like a part of a great wave, which grows ever more universal, of all those defenders of life and nature, breaking on the beach of our collective struggles,” affirmed Ramos.
