Summary
In 2018, the Ecuadorian Coordinator of Organizations for the Defense of Nature and Environment, the Asociación Animalista Libera Ecuador and Acción Ecológica present a public action of unconstitutionality against several norms in the Organic Environmental Code related to mangroves, monocultures, the rights of nature, the right to prior consultation, and environmental consultation. The State advocated for the ratification of the mangroves provision. One of the norms allowed productive activities on mangrove areas, such as shrimp farming. In 2021, the Constitutional Court of Ecuador declared the partial unconstitutionality of several articles of the Organic Environmental Code on the grounds that they could endanger the vital cycles of mangroves, as well as their existence and maintenance, regeneration, structure, functions, and evolutionary processes. Mangroves are recognized as holders of the rights of nature. It also establishes constitutional jurisprudence on the matter by establishing that public infrastructure may only be carried out if it is demonstrated that it does not interrupt the vital cycles, structure, functions and evolutionary processes of the ecosystems, as well as the importance of the concepts of prior consultation and environmental consultation.