Santa Ana Church, Santa Ana hill, Guayaquil, Ecuador: Santa Ana Hill is a tourist attraction in Guayaquil, Ecuador. The horizon line when viewed from the Guayas River is punctuated by two hills on its right margin. The Santa Ana and El Carmen Hills are icons of visual reference to locate any of the principal sectors of the city. Wikipedia

(Nov. 29) Indigenous Group Wins Fight to Reclaim Ancestral Land After Being Forced Out 8 Decades Ago

In a major victory for Indigenous rights, an Ecuadorian appeals court has sided with the Siekopai Nation to regain ownership of their ancestral homeland in the Amazon rainforest. The Siekopai people were forced out of their territory, called Pë’këya, over 80 years ago during the Peru-Ecuador War in the 1940s. This ruling will mark the first time the Ecuadorian government grants a land title to an Indigenous community whose ancestral land is now a protected area. The Siekopai are on the brink of extinction with a population of only 800 people in Ecuador and 1,200 in Peru. In a statement, Siekopai Nation President Elias Piyahuaje said, “We are fighting for the preservation of our culture on this planet. Without this territory, we cannot exist as Siekopai people. Today is a great day for our nation. Until the end of time, this land will be ours.”

reblog for more people to see! :D

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In the event that you need an emergency moth to improve your week and see you into the weekend... Please enjoy this incredibly fluffy and delightful beast, captured by the late great Andreas Kay in Ecuador

Mountain tapir Tapirus pinchaque

Observed by alexanderhagge, CC BY-NC

crazy stuff happening in ecuador right now. a state of emergency has been declared, not only because a narco boss escaped prison, but because the country is in total chaos. a few examples taken from twitter:

A armed group takes hostages live on a newscast

Armed people try to kidnap people in a university, everyone runs in panic

Group of students and a teacher making a barricade inside a classroom

Prisoners take hostages in a jail after riots

‼️🇲🇽🇪🇨 Mexico has suspended diplomatic ties with Ecuador after Ecuadorian police forcibly stormed Mexico’s embassy.

🔹 Translation correction: Right after Roberto Canseco says “There is no basis to do it”, a journalist asks “Were there any previous warnings? Was it known that this could happen?”, to which Canseco responds “No, this is totally… it’s outside every norm.”

🔸 Source: Al Jazeera

Mexican citizen here. I want to say that this was allowed to happened because Israel has set the antecedent that, if an embassy is attacked, international law won’t do anything.

🇮🇱🇵🇸

If it wasn’t obvious already that the Palestine genocide and all issues surrounding it are our problem as well, then I hope this clarifies that yes, what Israel does concerns us too. Israel marks hospitals as targets, so hospitals will be attacked in future conflicts. Israel marks embassies as targets, and so, our embassy was attacked.

And even if it didn’t affect us, and even if what Israel does had no effect at all outside of Palestinian territory, it is still our obligation as dignified people to support our palestinian brothers.

I stand with Palestine because I am Mexican. But above all, I stand with Palestine because I am HUMAN.

Ecuadorians voted overwhelmingly on Sunday to reject oil drilling in a section of Yasuní National Park, the most biodiverse area of the imperiled Amazon rainforest. Nearly 60% of Ecuadorian voters backed a binding referendum opposing oil exploration in Block 43 of the national park, which is home to uncontacted Indigenous tribes as well as hundreds of bird species and more than 1,000 tree species.

[...]

Sunday's vote makes Ecuador the first country to restrict fossil fuel extraction through the citizen referendum process, according to Nemonte Nenquimo, a Waorani leader. "Yasuní, an area of one million hectares, is one of the most biodiverse places on Earth," Nenquimo wrote in a recent op-ed for The Guardian. "There are more tree species in a single hectare of Yasuní than across Canada and the United States combined. Yasuní is also the home of the Tagaeri and Taromenane communities: the last two Indigenous peoples living in voluntary isolation in Ecuador." "Can you imagine the immense size of one million hectares?" Nenquimo added. "The recent fires in Quebec burned a million hectares of forest. And so the oil industry hopes to burn Yasuní. It has already begun in fact, with the Ishpingo-Tambococha-Tiputini (ITT) oil project on the eastern edge of the park."

Clouds of mist melt into the undulating canopy of a cloud forest at El Reventador, Ecuador.

Mindo glass frog

Only found in north-west Ecuador, in the Río Manduriacu reserve in the foothills of the Andes

Photo by Jaime Culebras

Wildlife Photographer of the Year

no soy persona con muchos mutuals, menos alguien con el ancho de banda para que lo que digo llegue a todo el mundo, pero si hay algún ecuatoriano que lea esto.. fuerzas. no quiero ni puedo decir que estaremos mejor, me muero del miedo y se me hace puñete el corazón de pensar en mí familia, en amigos y en todos los que son en este momento víctimas del narcoterrorismo.

y si este post llega a otras personas, por favor infórmense del estado de mi país, no tengo alientos ya para explicar la situación, pero al menos la visibilidad ayudará a saber que no estamos solos.

Más que el sol contemplamos lucir.

Booted racket-tail hummingbird (Ocreatus underwoodii) in Ecuador. Photo by Nicolas Reusens.

Moths of Ecuador by Alejo Lopez