The Shuar Arutam People Have Decided: No to Mining, We Do Not Want to Be Consulted
Through several meetings in different communities, we have met in order to analyze a response to the systematic violation of our collective rights by the State and the mining companies that have been operating in our ancestral territory. Faced with this situation, we exercise of our right to self-determination, which recognizes our power to determine our present and future. Since the entry of mining companies in our ancestral territory without our consent has generated great impacts on our way of life, we have decided the following:
1. To exercise our right to self-determination; conserve the forest, guarantee cultural potential, ecotourism, agriculture, livestock, education and health framed in our life plan, we consider that consultation processes aimed at enabling mining, energy and other projects that generate great environmental and social impacts in our territory.
2. Faced with the breach of the State of our rights established in the Constitution and in international instruments, we have decided to exercise the constitutional right to resistance against mining projects in our territory.
3. We demand that all large-scale mining concessions developing in our territory be withdrawn immediately because they have been made without consulting us, so that we must compensate for the damages caused.
4. Prior consultation in our territory oriented to large-scale mining will not be allowed, because the State has violated our collective rights by having concessioned our ancestral territory without consulting us.
5. We demand that our life plan and organizational structure be respected.
6. In compliance with our collective rights, enshrined in the Constitution and in international human rights instruments such as ILO Convention 169, we require the State to guarantee our rights through the delivery of public health, education, food security services , infrastructure works, etc., framed in our life plan.
San Carlos de Limón, August 23, 2019
Prof. Josefina Tunki
President of the Shuar Arutam People
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NOTE: Solaris Copper's Warintza Project falls within Shuar Arutam territory.