This story excerpt was translated from Spanish. To read the original story in full, visit La Barra Espaciadora. You may also view the original story on the Rainforest Journalism Fund website here. The RJF website is available in English, Spanish, bahasa Indonesia, French, and Portuguese.
The province of Pastaza, in the south-central Ecuadorian Amazon, has historically resisted extractive industries. However, oil, mining and agribusiness companies are trying to take over their territories with the support of the State. Amazonian women are the most affected, as gender violence is higher in areas of extractive influence. The struggle for the defense of Amazonian territories has a woman's face.
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Marching to live together
In 1992, bilingual leader and educator Tito Merino Gayas proclaimed the reasons that led more than 2,000 people to march from the Amazonian city of Puyo to Quito, the Ecuadorian capital, to demand from the State the collective land titles they had long been demanding. "We come in the name of life, we come in the name of all the beings that inhabit our territories, of the trees, of the butterflies, of the rivers, of the spirits that help us live together."
The Organization of Indigenous Peoples of Pastaza (OPIP) led this historic march to claim their territorial rights under the slogan Allpamanta, kawsaymanta, jatarishun ("For the land, for life, let us rise up").
According to the cosmovision of the Amazonian-Andean Indigenous peoples, sumak kawsay, or "good living," is the path that guides life in plenitude with all the beings of Mother Earth.
The Kichwa People of Pastaza contemplate three fundamental principles: sacha runa yachay ("ancestral knowledge"), sumak kawsay ("life in harmony"), and sumak allpa ("land without evil"). The land without evil is the right to territories free of extractivism.