Conservation Zones the New Corporate Asset: How Ecuador’s Recently Passed Protected Areas Law has Given a New Asset to Corporations By: Kristine Trail

Conservation Zones the New Corporate Asset: How Ecuador’s Recently Passed Protected Areas Law has Given a New Asset to Corporations

Conservation zones encompass approximately a fifth of Ecuador’s land.[1] Ecuador’s 2008 Constitution implemented strong protections for the environment and the Indigenous community in Ecuador.[2] This shift led to Ecuadorian voters becoming more protective of their environment so much that voters chose to end oil production in part of the Amazon rainforest and end mining in a cloud forest.[3] In the last couple of months Ecuador’s President Daniel Noboa has attempted to change the protections in place for Ecuador’s ecosystem to promote business development.[4]

In early July of 2025, Ecuador’s parliament approved a law pertaining to the management of conservation zones.[5] This law has broadened who is able to participate in the managing of these zones.[6] Foreign companies and private entities now can have a say in how Ecuador’s conservation zones should be managed.[7] When the law was proposed by President Noboa to the National Assembly in June of 2025, the main objectives of the law presented were to sustainably utilize and recover the areas, assist in promoting economy, and structure state security and development in strategic areas.[8]

The law raises concerns about violations of ancestral territorial property rights to privatize investment and management of the conservation zones.[9] The language of the law has failed to define collective territories thus ignoring ancestral ownership.[10] As well the language of the law promotes the use of discretionary contracts for privileges to be bestowed on private corporations who wish to invest and manage the areas.[11] 

Many of Ecuador’s Indigenous communities have portions of their territories that overlap with the protected areas but these communities were not consulted about the law.[12] Rather, the bill was originally introduced as an “urgent economic project” and as such was placed with the economic development commission rather than the biodiversity commission.[13] The labeling of the law as an urgent economic project, allowed the legislature to bypass the Constitutional requirement that the Indigenous communities be provided prior notice and consultation about legislation pertaining to their territories.[14] The law includes several key components phrased as conservation and participation purposes, including the establishment of a technical and financial framework for national environmental management.[15] However, the practical implementation of the law and subsequent political activity drives several concerns for the protection of conservation zones.[16]

Ecuador’s land is rich in natural resources and has been subjected to illegal mining operations.[17] Shortly after the passing of the law, President Daniel Noboa implemented an executive order that dissolved the Ministry of the Environment, Water, and Ecological Transition.[18] The Ministry of the Environment, Water, and Ecological Transition was responsible for providing independent environmental oversight, now that authority has been transferred to the Ministry of Energy and Mines.[19] The Ministry of the Environment, Water, and Ecological Transition provided an oversight system whereas the Ministry of Energy and Mines is responsible for the promotion of oil and mining.[20]

President Noboa articulated a need for the executive order; he expressed the executive order was necessary to assist in reducing costs and bureaucracy.[21] The dissolvement of  one ministry and the reassignment of those responsibilities to another would make decision-making more efficient and cost effective.[22] The passing of the executive order has moved the oversight of the environment to an agency who is business focused on nature and has historically been responsible for courting mining investments and promotion of such acts.[23] In fact, in August of 2025, the Ministry of Energy and Mines set an auction for the rights of forty-nine oil and gas projects estimated to be worth over $47 billion.[24] When addressed with concern from Indigenous groups that the plan threatened their ancestral land, the government pointed to the July 2025 law that allows private and foreign-entities to co-manage the conservation zones. [25]

President Noboa further attempted to change the protections and rights of nature by rewriting the 2008 Constitution essentially removing all the environmental protections added in 2008.[26] His primary goal is to promote business development and accelerate mining and oil extraction by using security and economic concerns.[27] However, the Ecuadorian voters denied his attempt at rewriting the constitution with nearly sixty-two percent of voters opposing.[28]

Ecuador’s Minister of Environment and Energy, Ines Manzano, has also been pushing for fossil fuels to be utilized opposed to clean energy alternatives and drilling to continue in the Amazon.[29] Ecuador’s officials have pushed for a hydrocarbon roadmap.[30] This strategy is promoted as a way to modernize Ecuador’s oil industry by attracting foreign capital and boost production thought the use of contract renegotiations and licensing.[31] However, this strategy includes proposed oil blocks that overlap in the territories of Indigenous groups roughly the size of Belgium.[32] Ecuador’s new law and political climate has created a once protected area of land to become another product that companies and private entities can barter, negotiate, and own.

[1] Maxwell Radwin, Ecuador’s New Protected Areas Law Sparks Debate Over Security Development, Mongabay (July 23, 2025), https://news.mongabay.com/2025/07/ecuadors-new-protected-areas-law-sparks-debate-over-security-development/

[2] Katie Surma, Ecuadorians to Vote on Constitutional Rewrite, Possibly Gutting Rights of Nature, Inside Climate News (Oct. 23, 2025), https://insideclimatenews.org/news/23102025/ecuador-votes-on-possibly-gutting-rights-of-nature/

[3] Id.

[4] Id.

[5] Steven Grattan, Ecuador Approves Controversial Law on Protected Areas, Sparking Backlash, Associated Press (July 10, 2025), https://apnews.com/article/ecuador-amazon-indigenous-mining-noboa-deforestation-d160b144549998aa8cd485db931bfd70

[6] Id.

[7] Id.

[8] Radwin, supra note 1.  

[9] Analysis of the Report on the Second Debate of Ecuador’s Protected Areas Bill, Amazon Frontlines (July 2025), https://amazonfrontlines.org/chronicles/analysis-of-the-report-on-the-second-debate-of-ecuadors-protected-areas-bill/#:~:text=THE%20BILL%2C%20IN%20FIVE%20KEY,%2C%20binding%20participation%2C%20or%20transparency.

[10] Id.

[11] Id.

[12] Radwin, supra note 1.

[13] Id.

[14] Id.

[15] With a New Law Ecuador Advances a Groundbreaking Model in Latin America to Strengthen Its Protected Areas System, EIN Presswire (July 14, 2025), https://www.wric.com/business/press-releases/ein-presswire/830526611/with-a-new-law-ecuador-advances-a-groundbreaking-model-in-latin-america-to-strengthen-its-protected-areas-system/; see also Analysis of the Report on the Second Debate of Ecuador’s Protected Areas Bill, Amazon Frontlines (July 2025), https://amazonfrontlines.org/chronicles/analysis-of-the-report-on-the-second-debate-of-ecuadors-protected-areas-bill/#:~:text=THE%20BILL%2C%20IN%20FIVE%20KEY,%2C%20binding%20participation%2C%20or%20transparency.

[16] Analysis of the Report on the Second Debate of Ecuador’s Protected Areas Bill, Amazon Frontlines (July 2025), https://amazonfrontlines.org/chronicles/analysis-of-the-report-on-the-second-debate-of-ecuadors-protected-areas-bill/#:~:text=THE%20BILL%2C%20IN%20FIVE%20KEY,%2C%20binding%20participation%2C%20or%20transparency.

[17] Katie Surma, Ecuador’s Voters Protect Rights of Nature Reject Proposal to Rewrite Constitution, Inside Climate News (Nov. 17, 2025), https://insideclimatenews.org/news/17112025/ecuador-rights-of-nature-vote/

[18] How New Laws in the US, Brazil and Ecuador are Driving Forest Loss and Rights Violations, Rainforest Foundation (July 30, 2025), https://rainforestfoundation.org/laws-in-the-us-brazil-and-ecuador-violate-rights/#:~:text=In%20Ecuador%2C%20the%20situation%20is,with%20promoting%20oil%20and%20mining.

[19] Id.

[20] Ecuador Axes Its Environment Ministry, Paving Way for Unchecked Extraction on Indigenous Lands and in Biodiverse Forests, Amazon Frontlines (July 2025), https://amazonfrontlines.org/chronicles/ecuador-axes-its-environment-ministry-putting-biodiversity-indigenous-territories-and-the-climate-at-risk/

[21] Steven Grattan, In Ecuador Environmentalists Worry Noboa is Unwinding Nation’s Green Reputation, ICT News (Aug. 9, 2025), https://ictnews.org/news/in-ecuador-environmentalists-worry-noboa-is-unwinding-nations-green-reputation/#:~:text=Noboa's%20administration%20has%20moved%20to,make%20decision%E2%80%91making%20more%20efficient.

[22] See generally Id.

[23] See generally Surma, supra note 17.

[24] Ecuador: Indigenous Groups Denounce that Oil Expansion Plan Overlaps with Their Territories and That They Were Not Consulted, Business & Human Rights Resource Centre https://www.business-humanrights.org/en/latest-news/ecuador-indigenous-groups-denounce-that-oil-expansion-plan-overlaps-with-their-territories-and-that-they-were-not-consulted/

[25] Id.

[26] Surma, supra note 2.

[27] Id.

[28] Surma, supra note 17.

[29] While Ecuador Touts Its Oil Plan at Cop30, Indigenous Leaders and Celebrities Repeat: Noboa, The Amazon is Not for Sale, Amazon Frontlines (Nov. 2025), https://amazonfrontlines.org/chronicles/while-ecuador-touts-its-oil-plan-at-cop30-indigenous-leaders-and-celebrities-repeat-noboa-the-amazon-is-not-for-sale/

[30] Steven Grattan, Indigenous Groups Criticize Ecuador’s $47 Billion Oil Expansion Plan in Amazon, Amazon Watch (Sept. 24, 2025), https://amazonwatch.org/news/2025/0924-indigenous-groups-criticize-ecuadors-47-billion-oil-expansion-plan-in-amazon

[31] Id.

[32] Id.