miércoles, 27 de diciembre de 2006






Towards the end of September a community leader from a Shuar village in the province of Morona Santiago came into our offices in Quito looking for help with a problem faced by his community. This story is typical of the sorts of events that are taking place all over Ecuador. It highlights the disadvantages faced by indigenous peoples as they struggle to come to terms with the forces of globalization and the new economic system that it imposes upon them, and demonstrates the impunity with which outside forces can destroy their environment and threaten their culture.
A stranger appeared in their village one day offering to sell them a second-hand generator for $2000 to provide light for their village. The community was keen to purchase the generator, but only had $800 in cash to offer. The stranger said that would do, and that he would take the rest in trees that he and his crew would fell and extract.
Over the next months the man moved in with an expanding crew of loggers and began extracting the biggest and the best specimens from the forests to which the community holds legal title.
The villagers have become increasingly distressed to see their forests being destroyed but are powerless to stop the illegal loggers from felling and extracting their trees. The police have shown little serious interest in helping the indigenous population probably receiving regular bribes from the loggers to look the other way.
Now the villagers are asking themselves how they will live once all the trees are gone, and came to us For help in trying to do something before the worst happens.

Ecuador is losing its forests at the rate of nearly 400 hectares per day (550 soccer pitches every day), through illegal logging that is carelessly done and benefits a relatively few dishonest people. Aside from the human catastrophes that result, like the story above, the environmental and ecological impacts are equally grave. These forests are home to many unique species of flaura and fauna. Once they have been cut down these species lose their ecological niches and die out.

To find out more about what Ecotrackers is doing to end illegal logging in Ecuador, and to learn about the various ways that you can help, please click on our home page, or: http://www.ecotrackers.com/content/view/30/1/lang,/

Biodiversty and destruction in Ecuador

Ecuador is a rich country when it comes to biodiversity. Even though Ecuador is only the size of the state of Nevada, its biodiversity exceeds the one from the United States in total. According to the World Resource Institute Ecuador is one of the few countries on earth categorized as “megadiverse,” owing to the variety of its ecosystems and species. Within three hours, you can drive in Ecuador from arctic tundra to sweltering beaches, from a temperate pine forest to a tropical wet forest, from a desert landscape to wetlands filled with mangroves. Ecuador is also the most ethnically diversified country in Latin America, a home to large Arab, Asian, Caucasian, African, and Jewish populations. In the Native Indian population, one can find tribes living in very primitive conditions, from those who were recently head shrinkers to the most entrepreneurial otavalenos, known around the globe for the quality of their textiles. According to the Natura Foundation, an environmental non governmental organization (NGO), approximately 50 percent of Ecuador is suffering from various degrees of soil erosion, and deforestation is 45 percent in the lowlands, 48 percent in the highlands, and 8 percent in the Amazon basin. Thousands of acres of forest disappear daily, despite laws that prohibit the cutting down of trees and the exportation of wood. It has been calculated that deforestation amounts to 680,000 acres per year (approximately 2,000 per day), and in less that forty years not a single forest will remain. We can certainly say that biodiversity in Ecuador is decreasing rapidly. Several aspects of the society are to blame. Mainly the lack of enforcement of laws and the corruption by the government seem to have a great affect on the preservation of the countries most valuable treasure. The lack of insight in small communities who own large parts of natural habitat of animals is also a threat. Preservation of the biological diversity can be achieved by educating these communities and stimulating ecotourism, or sustainable development.

Continuación de la información de /www.ecotrackers.blogspot.com/


Este es un blog para continuar lo iniciado en http://www.ecotrackers.blogspot.com/