Centro para las Artes, Sostenibilidad y Acción
Center for the Arts, Sustainability, and Action
Promoting conservation, social justice, and better living alternatives in the Tropical Andes
APT-NORTE
APT-NORTE is an Environmental Corporation founded with help from CASA in 2018 and recognized by Ecuador's Environmental Ministry.
In 2016 Ecuador's government announced a radical extractive model based on the establishment of industrial mining as a long term economic strategy.
Suddenly, the Intag Valley --one of the most biodiverse places on Earth-- was covered by 24 mining concessions, covering 85% of its territory.
Human rights and environmental regulatory violations quickly followed suit as complicit transnational and government interests began the unsavory work of buying off local governments and promoting illegal exploration of concessioned areas.
APT-NORTE was founded by members throughout the Intag River Valley to serve as a collective legal voice in defence of property rights, water security, and nature.
APT-Norte provides free legal counsel to members who are defending their constitutional rights in the face of transnational mining interests. APT-NORTE also manages a legal fund to subsidize the cost of legal actions on behalf of members.
These are the constitutional rights that APT-NORTE defends:
Article 32
Health is a right guaranteed by the State, whose realization is linked to the exercise of other rights, among them the right to water, food, education, physical culture, work, social security, healthy environments and others that they support good living.
Article 41
All inhabitants enjoy the right to a healthy, balanced and suitable environment for human development and for productive activities to meet present needs without compromising those of future generations; and they have a duty to preserve it.
Article 57.7
Free, prior and informed consultation, within a reasonable time, on plans and programs for prospecting, exploitation and commercialization of non-renewable resources found on their lands that may affect them environmentally or culturally; participate in the benefits that these projects report and receive compensation for the social, cultural and environmental damages that they cause. The consultation that the competent authorities must carry out will be obligatory and timely.
If the consent of the consulted community is not obtained, it will proceed in accordance with the Constitution and the law.