Ecuador's highest court has determined that mining copper and gold in a protected cloud forest is illegal and infringes on natural rights.

In a landmark decision, Ecuador's constitutional court decided that mining permits issued in Los Cedros, a protected area in the country's north-west, would harm the forest's biodiversity, which is home to spectacled bears, endangered frogs, dozens of rare orchid species, and the world's rarest primates, the brown-headed spider monkey.

Historic Court Ruling

Ecuador's national mining firm, Enami EP, possessed rights to mining concessions awarded in two-thirds of the reserve. After the court affirmed a complaint made by communities near Los Cedros that was successful in a lower court, mining concessions, environmental and water licenses in the forest must be canceled.

In a decision released on Wednesday, Ecuador's highest court maintained the country's constitution-enshrined natural rights, saying they apply across the country, not only in protected regions.

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Los Cedros is located in South America's Chocó area, covering portions of Colombia, Ecuador, and Peru. It is one of the earth's most biodiverse regions, with vegetation and wildlife found nowhere else on the planet.

"This is a historic triumph for the environment," said Natalia Greene of the Global Alliance for the Rights of Nature, a non-governmental organization that lobbied the court to prevent mining in Los Cedros.

Right of Nature

"No activity that undermines the rights of nature, including mining and other extractive activities, may be developed inside the ecosystem of Los Cedros protected forest, according to the constitutional court." Mining is now prohibited in this magnificent and one-of-a-kind protected forest. This establishes a solid legal precedent that other vulnerable protected forests will follow. Today, endangered frogs, spectacled bears, spider monkeys, birds, and wildlife as a whole have triumphed in a never-before-seen war."

Victory for Nature

The verdict, according to campaigners, is a watershed moment for Ecuador and the region, as numerous more mining and extraction projects are planned in environmentally sensitive areas. Ecuador's new constitution incorporated environmental rights between 2007 and 2008.

Dr. Mika Peck, an Ecuadorian senior lecturer in biology at the University of Sussex who first looked into the biological meaning of Los Cedros in the mid-1990s, links the ruling to Thomas Paine's Rights of Man, a crucial document in the American revolution.

"It is critical that the world thinks on nature's boundaries and critically evaluate the efficacy of present conservation policies and activities," he added. "Policy frameworks that place humans in context as a part of nature, integrated into a system that balances intrinsic rights between legitimate legal subjects, rather than placing humans above or apart from nature, will be a necessary part of addressing the serious environmental issues that our planet faces." This decision is just as significant for nature as Thomas Paine's Rights of Man were for our species."

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