Several years ago, Ecuador announced to the world that it had recognized the rights of nature in its new Constitution, declaring Mother Nature as a subject of law, which would serve to protect the environment. In practice, this has remained a proclamation, and from the outset, the effective application of this law has been very challenging. Likewise, the effective application of the Rights of Indigenous Peoples and the right to health have been difficult to apply; now painfully evident in the current global health emergency.
Human well-being – especially for vulnerable groups, such as Indigenous Peoples – and the well-being of nature are synonymous with health. The integral health of indigenous groups, a complete state of physical, mental and social well-being, is a fundamental necessity for Indigenous Peoples to be able to achieve equality with other human societies.
In the same context, for the environment to be in good health, it will require conservation protocols, proper management, and rational allocation of natural resources. A healthy environment is the sustainable foundation of many ecosystem services and products, key to the survival of humanity, including: water, air, climate regulation, food, and medicine, among others.
However, the health of Indigenous Peoples and the environment is constantly under attack. In the case of the Indigenous Peoples of the Amazon Basin, medical care is very limited, something that has been starkly highlighted during the COVID-19 pandemic. We are witnessing rates of infection among Indigenous Peoples increasing, and there have already been hundreds of deaths. This is very alarming because if the disease progresses, and attacks the elderly, we are at risk of losing thousands of years of traditional knowledge and wisdom and with it, the hundreds of cultures that live in these rainforests. The same is happening with nature: we exploit it until it is diminished to near destruction. We are reaching the point of no return, which would be the end of the planet as we know it today.
In times of crisis, such as the era we are currently living in, it is common to hear about the vulnerability of people and the environment. It seems that we always need a shock to understand the importance of preserving the environment. We must also invest in the right to adequate food, the right to quality intercultural education, and the right to live in a healthy environment.
Trying to implement effective measures for the protection of Indigenous Peoples once the virus progresses through marginalized territories is an almost impossible task. Proposing quarantine measures for communities to stay in their territories is a strategy that can work as long as food security is guaranteed, something that has been difficult to ensure due to geography and lack of supplies. On the other hand, encouraging Indigenous Peoples to search for food in the jungle is also a challenge since many of their native lands have been altered by a series of industrial and economic activities, which have exhausted their resources.
From a general perspective, the health of Indigenous Peoples will be guaranteed only when real work is done to conserve their lands. Modern societies have forgotten the importance of the relationship between humans and nature.
Some 40 years ago, the Ecuadorian Amazon rainforest was an area relatively untouched, where the different indigenous cultures met all their needs with the resources that the forest provided: food, medicine, construction materials, etc. Indigenous Peoples carried out effective resource management activities, which allowed them to live and prosper in these areas for millennia.
This pandemic has reminded us how intertwined and dependent we are on the natural world. Rebalancing our relationship with nature will require learning from traditional communities and respecting the environment, but first, we must ensure their survival.
Written by: Pablo Yépez – Director of Socio – environmental affairs.