Ecuador’s Environmental Revolutions
Citizens’ Revolution, 2006 to 2015: The Rise of the Paradoxical State
The Citizens’ Revolution which began in 2006 was marked by the election of leftist President Rafael Correa. When President Correa came into office, he changed the way Ecuador’s relationships with transnational funders would look, and the way Ecuador would work with other countries, specifically the United States. He transformed a weak and powerless state into one that was strong, independent, and more greatly socialist and populist in its endeavors. The limited funding from INGOs that was seen in the Organizational Bust era was multiplied in this new era, as even USAID saw an end to their funding and work with Ecuador, as President Correa rejected their presence in the country.
President Rafael Correa was adored by the citizens of Ecuador and the environmentalists within for many years. However, there is reason for skepticism in some of the things he has supported. He was a great president in that he turned Ecuador around economically and socially. He made promises to the environment and nature. Specifically, in the 2008 rewrite of the Constitution, where rights for nature were granted. On nature, the Constitution said, “Nature, or Pacha Mama (Mother Earth), where life is reproduced and occurs, has the right to integral respect for its existence and for the maintenance and regeneration of its life cycles, structures, functions, and evolutionary processes.” This was the first time, in any place, that nature would be given constitutional rights, as such (Lewis, 2016. Pg. 176). Not only this, but the 2008 Constitution also noted rights to buen vivir/sumak kawsay, a right to living well, and rights for indigenous peoples. In short, this new constitution would view humans as a part of nature and the Earth, where nature always has intrinsic rights that must be abided by. Environmentalists and indigenous groups saw a lot of hope for the future under President Correa. Aside from the new Constitution, Correa also presented the Yasuni-ITT Initiative, another factor giving the state, under Correa, legitimacy. He attempted to “leave the oil in the soil” with this initiative, seemingly influenced by sumak kawsay, and brought this proposal to the United Nations in hopes that the world would provide Ecuador with the amount of money they would have received from a 10 year period of extraction of the oil that is within Yasuni National Park’s borders. The initiative was accepted, although Ecuador was not ever able to receive the full amount of funding. Therefore, Plan B was upheld; Ecuador had to drill (Pg. 181). President Correa signed the papers in agreement to extractive development in this area, and life in Ecuador proceeded, but with much more speculation and uproar from ecoresisters and indigenous groups.
Another key characteristic of the new democratic, strong, and independent state under President Rafael Correa was that he strengthened the state in terms of resources and political power, single-handedly under extractive development clauses, and used the monetary funds received from extraction and exports of resources to provide better living conditions and social and health related institutions and activities to the people. This is where the idea of a “paradoxical state” comes in. Correa was seemingly a large supporter of the ideas of buen vivir/sumak kawsay and sustainable development, so how could he agree to/allow such extractive development to persist? It is quite interesting to look at from an outsider’s perspective, because the people of Ecuador, under this new type of rule, where they had complete autonomy and would decide their own fate, and make the decisions that would affect their governance and state, would choose to support Correa over and over again, even when fears of environmental destruction were there. I believe it is largely due to the fact that The Correa Administration promotes resource extraction for the benefit of the people, not for the multinational corporations (Pg.193). In the beginning, the people believed they were headed towards ecological synthesis under Correa, and although it turned out to be more of a state of managed scarcity, it is still better off this way than under an economic synthesis, where environmental factors are completely disregarded in order to make the most amount of profit, and not even providing that profit to the people of the state.
I applaud Correa for the work he did regarding economic gains for the citizens of his country. Yes, he used extractive methods to achieve this, for the most part, but he was able to truly show increased funding for social welfare programs, which inevitably would bring Ecuador from 44 percent of the population being economically poor in 2002, to almost half of that, at 23 percent in 2010. They also reordered rising overall GDP in Ecuador, while they received less official development assistance from abroad. In this era, the benefits of extraction are going to the greatest number of citizens and resources rather than just the top percentile of people involved, because the revenues that the state would collect from extractors would go directly back into the social welfare programs. The citizens of Ecuador are doing quite well during this era, but ecoresisters are still fighting hard, and I stand behind them here, even with support of President Correa. “Ecuador’s transformation during the presidency of Rafael Correa (2007-2017) and the Citizens’ Revolution stands as a significant step forward for the worldwide struggle against the world’s 1%” (Coha, 2017).
In my opinion, to be able to achieve the ecological synthesis of a state, and start focusing solely on sustainable development as a priority, first a state must achieve independent security, financial security, fairness and access to proper resources for their own people, universal suffrage, and a good measure of “civil society”. President Correa worked greatly to achieve this and was overall quite successful. To keep on this track, Ecuador must continue to elect presidents that will uphold the rights listed in the 2008 Constitution and keep fighting for the democratic civil society that Ecuador has been achieving, and for rights for nature, indigenous peoples, and the quality of their homeland environment and natural resources.
References
Coha. (2017, April 28). Ecuador's Accomplishments under the 10 Years of Rafael Correa's Citizen's Revolution. Retrieved from http://www.coha.org/ecuadors-accomplishments- under-the-10-years-of-rafael-correas-citizens-revolution/.
Lewis, T. L. (2016). Ecuador's Environmental Revolutions: Ecoimperialists, Ecodependents, and Ecoresisters. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press.
Citizens’ Revolution, 2006 to 2015: The Rise of the Paradoxical State
The Citizens’ Revolution which began in 2006 was marked by the election of leftist President Rafael Correa. When President Correa came into office, he changed the way Ecuador’s relationships with transnational funders would look, and the way Ecuador would work with other countries, specifically the United States. He transformed a weak and powerless state into one that was strong, independent, and more greatly socialist and populist in its endeavors. The limited funding from INGOs that was seen in the Organizational Bust era was multiplied in this new era, as even USAID saw an end to their funding and work with Ecuador, as President Correa rejected their presence in the country.
President Rafael Correa was adored by the citizens of Ecuador and the environmentalists within for many years. However, there is reason for skepticism in some of the things he has supported. He was a great president in that he turned Ecuador around economically and socially. He made promises to the environment and nature. Specifically, in the 2008 rewrite of the Constitution, where rights for nature were granted. On nature, the Constitution said, “Nature, or Pacha Mama (Mother Earth), where life is reproduced and occurs, has the right to integral respect for its existence and for the maintenance and regeneration of its life cycles, structures, functions, and evolutionary processes.” This was the first time, in any place, that nature would be given constitutional rights, as such (Lewis, 2016. Pg. 176). Not only this, but the 2008 Constitution also noted rights to buen vivir/sumak kawsay, a right to living well, and rights for indigenous peoples. In short, this new constitution would view humans as a part of nature and the Earth, where nature always has intrinsic rights that must be abided by. Environmentalists and indigenous groups saw a lot of hope for the future under President Correa. Aside from the new Constitution, Correa also presented the Yasuni-ITT Initiative, another factor giving the state, under Correa, legitimacy. He attempted to “leave the oil in the soil” with this initiative, seemingly influenced by sumak kawsay, and brought this proposal to the United Nations in hopes that the world would provide Ecuador with the amount of money they would have received from a 10 year period of extraction of the oil that is within Yasuni National Park’s borders. The initiative was accepted, although Ecuador was not ever able to receive the full amount of funding. Therefore, Plan B was upheld; Ecuador had to drill (Pg. 181). President Correa signed the papers in agreement to extractive development in this area, and life in Ecuador proceeded, but with much more speculation and uproar from ecoresisters and indigenous groups.
Another key characteristic of the new democratic, strong, and independent state under President Rafael Correa was that he strengthened the state in terms of resources and political power, single-handedly under extractive development clauses, and used the monetary funds received from extraction and exports of resources to provide better living conditions and social and health related institutions and activities to the people. This is where the idea of a “paradoxical state” comes in. Correa was seemingly a large supporter of the ideas of buen vivir/sumak kawsay and sustainable development, so how could he agree to/allow such extractive development to persist? It is quite interesting to look at from an outsider’s perspective, because the people of Ecuador, under this new type of rule, where they had complete autonomy and would decide their own fate, and make the decisions that would affect their governance and state, would choose to support Correa over and over again, even when fears of environmental destruction were there. I believe it is largely due to the fact that The Correa Administration promotes resource extraction for the benefit of the people, not for the multinational corporations (Pg.193). In the beginning, the people believed they were headed towards ecological synthesis under Correa, and although it turned out to be more of a state of managed scarcity, it is still better off this way than under an economic synthesis, where environmental factors are completely disregarded in order to make the most amount of profit, and not even providing that profit to the people of the state.
I applaud Correa for the work he did regarding economic gains for the citizens of his country. Yes, he used extractive methods to achieve this, for the most part, but he was able to truly show increased funding for social welfare programs, which inevitably would bring Ecuador from 44 percent of the population being economically poor in 2002, to almost half of that, at 23 percent in 2010. They also reordered rising overall GDP in Ecuador, while they received less official development assistance from abroad. In this era, the benefits of extraction are going to the greatest number of citizens and resources rather than just the top percentile of people involved, because the revenues that the state would collect from extractors would go directly back into the social welfare programs. The citizens of Ecuador are doing quite well during this era, but ecoresisters are still fighting hard, and I stand behind them here, even with support of President Correa. “Ecuador’s transformation during the presidency of Rafael Correa (2007-2017) and the Citizens’ Revolution stands as a significant step forward for the worldwide struggle against the world’s 1%” (Coha, 2017).
In my opinion, to be able to achieve the ecological synthesis of a state, and start focusing solely on sustainable development as a priority, first a state must achieve independent security, financial security, fairness and access to proper resources for their own people, universal suffrage, and a good measure of “civil society”. President Correa worked greatly to achieve this and was overall quite successful. To keep on this track, Ecuador must continue to elect presidents that will uphold the rights listed in the 2008 Constitution and keep fighting for the democratic civil society that Ecuador has been achieving, and for rights for nature, indigenous peoples, and the quality of their homeland environment and natural resources.
References
Coha. (2017, April 28). Ecuador's Accomplishments under the 10 Years of Rafael Correa's Citizen's Revolution. Retrieved from http://www.coha.org/ecuadors-accomplishments- under-the-10-years-of-rafael-correas-citizens-revolution/.
Lewis, T. L. (2016). Ecuador's Environmental Revolutions: Ecoimperialists, Ecodependents, and Ecoresisters. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press.