Intense protests flared up last December in communities opposed to Ecuadorian President Daniel Noboa’s plans to build two maximum-security prisons in sensitive ecosystems and Indigenous territories without consulting local populations.

In the canton of Archidona, in the Amazonian province of Napo, Indigenous communities blocked major roads and held almost daily marches for more than two weeks. The target of their protests is a planned facility slated to be built near an existing prison on the outskirts of Archidona. 

On Dec. 16, the government called off the project. While the protesters celebrated, the Amazonian Indigenous movement CONFENAIE took a more cautious stance, releasing a statement saying it would continue its resistance until the cancelation of the project was confirmed in public records. Currently, the plans appear as “suspended.”

The government’s decision to roll back its plans is a clear “political triumph of the mobilized people,” says Andres Tapia Arias, director of Lanceros Digitales, a publication affiliated with the national Indigenous movement CONAIE, and former communications director of CONFENAIE. 

“It’s evident that the government has a vision far removed from the needs of local communities, especially those in the Amazon,” Tapia Arias tells Mongabay by phone from Archidona. 

But the prison plans are far from scrapped. Rather, they’ve been moved to the coastal province of Santa Elena — already the site of another controversial prison that’s already under construction. 

On Dec. 6, the commune of Bajada de Chanduy in Santa Elena filed a lawsuit against the state, demanding it halt the construction of the maximum-security prison on their territory. Since June 2024, more than 30 hectares (74 acres) of tropical dry forest have already been cleared for the building’s foundation.    

“I have a feeling of great indignation, of great anger for all this that is being done against the primary forest,” says Donald Cabrera, a Bajada de Chanduy resident.

There are dozens of communes, or ancestral community organizations, along the coast of Ecuador, and more than 60 in the province of Santa Elena alone, all with roots in precolonial Indigenous populations. Under Ecuador’s Constitution, these collective lands may not be seized, divided or sold. 

“If our rivers are polluted, if our forests are destroyed, if our cultural heritage is destroyed, they are condemning us to extinction,” Cabrera says. 

Ecuador’s growing violence

Both maximum-security prisons were among the many election promises made in 2023 by President Noboa as an answer to Ecuador’s growing security crisis, which has seen murder rates skyrocket in recent years. More than 700 inmates have also been killed since 2018 in brutal riots inside the country’s gang-controlled, overcrowded prisons. 

Fernando Bastias Robayo, a lawyer with the Permanent Committee for the Defense of Human Rights, a human rights organization based in the city of Guayaquil, has been supporting the Bajada de Chanduy commune and says there’s no evidence that more prisons will help the security situation in the country, or give the state back control of the country’s prisons. In fact, evidence from both the United Nations and the Inter-American Court of Human Rights shows that the priority should be reducing the prison population, reforming and providing prison rehabilitation systems, and reducing pretrial detentions, he says.

“[Noboa’s] whole plan is isolated and not very technical, which will simply widen the context of violence. Of course, this is worrying,” Bastias Robayo tells Mongabay. 

Ecuador’s national prison authority, the SNAI, refused an interview request from Mongabay, saying that all information regarding the new facilities is confidential. The maximum-security prisons will cost some $52 million each, with construction to be carried out by the Spanish company Puentes y Calzadas Infraestructuras S.L.

Neither the Ministry of Environment and Water, in charge of undertaking environmental impact assessments and approving large-scale infrastructure projects, nor the Ministry of the Interior, which oversees the prison system, had confirmed an interview by the time of publication. 

Mobilizations in the Amazon

In Archidona, protests began last August, when the community learned it was the selected site for President Noboa’s second maximum-security project. 

In the following months, mobilizations increased, and by the beginning of December thousands had joined the fight, including taxi drivers, tour guides, environmentalists and nearby Indigenous communities, says Tapia Arias. 

Protesters rejected the project for various reasons, including for its proximity to two elementary schools and its potential impact on tourism, after Noboa announced that the new prisons were designed to “isolate the most highly dangerous offenders.” The mostly Indigenous population also says it was never consulted about the project before contracts were signed. 

Others said they were concerned about the trickle-down effects the prison would have on security and the environment in the region. The province of Napo is already experiencing a spike in illegal mining, with miners tearing up riverbeds and rerouting entire rivers in their search for gold. The activity has been associated with corruption and organized crime, with protesters saying a maximum-security prison nearby could intensify this illegal activity.

“The fact that a prison is also being built is perceived by the population as even more insecurity,” Tapia Arias says.

Patricio Meza, a biologist and technical adviser to the Federation of Indigenous Organizations of Napo (FOIN), says the new prison would have been unlikely to drive large-scale deforestation, given that it had been planned for an urban area, next to an existing minimum-security prison. But having to expand the recycling, garbage and sewer systems to support a population of 800 new inmates could have had a big impact on nearby forests and rivers, as well as on dozens of communities downstream, if not planned and implemented properly, he says. 

Meza says the community did “not have access to these studies, as they have been handled with total secrecy.” 

After two weeks of protests, the Ministry of the Interior released a statement saying it had accepted an invitation from the municipality of Salinas, capital of the small province of Santa Elena, to build the maximum-security prison there. Yet CONFENIAE, the Amazonian Indigenous  association, remains on guard, warning that the government’s public purchases portal lists the project as being “suspended” rather than “cancelled.”

It’s unclear if the quick transition to Salinas allowed for an environmental impact assessment or a consultation with local communities there to be undertaken. 

The city is also less than 100 kilometers (60 miles) from the site of a controversial maximum-security prison already under construction. 

Resistance on the coast

In Santa Elena, the Bajada de Chanduy commune learned in March 2024 about the maximum-security prison planned just 10 km (6 mi) north of their community, in an area long disputed with the neighboring Juntas del Pacifico commune, which also claims ancestral connections to the land. 

The state has its own claims to the land, saying it acquired it when a Juntas del Pacifico resident put it up as collateral for a loan back in the 1990s — an act that today would be considered illegal. 

Though the president of Juntas del Pacifico signed an agreement to allow the prison in the territory, and some residents have benefited from jobs on the construction site, many locals told Mongabay last September that they were never consulted and never agreed to the project. They expressed concerns about their security and what impact it would have on their community crops.  

Bajada de Chanduy residents have been protesting the construction since March, holding press conferences and denouncing the construction plans. They’ve filed requests for access to information about the project, and asked a judge to issue an injunction to halt the works, but were denied without explanation. 

In December, they filed a lawsuit against prison authority SNAI and the Ministry of Environment and Water, demanding an immediate halt to construction, saying it violates the commune’s right to free, prior and informed consent, and their right to their cultural heritage. They say the project also violates the Constitution, which declares the tropical dry forest a “fragile and threatened ecosystem” that must be protected, says Bastias, the commune’s lawyer.  

Experts are also concerned the prison will have irreversible effects on the dry forest, one of the country’s most threatened habitats.

Today, nearly 30 hectares of the dry forest — an area the size of nearly 56 football fields — have been cleared. Commune resident Cabrera says drainage pipes are now being laid down from the construction site to the nearby river, which serves as a source of drinking water for many nearby communes. 

Jaime Camacho, a Guayaquil-based biologist and consultant, says that despite its name, the dry forest is rich with wildlife; more than 75 bird species and 19% of its vegetation are endemic to the area. Dry forests are also important for maintaining moisture in the soil, he adds; without them, the land, which many communes depend on for their small crops, would deteriorate. 

The new prison would also require the expansion of highways for access, the creation of sewage and waste disposal systems, and possibly building housing and other infrastructure for the workers — all of which will put even more pressure on the forest, Camacho says. It would also open up the area to outsiders, facilitating agriculture expansion and illegal hunting, he adds. 

“The rule of law, and the Indigenous communities, are at risk,” Cabrera says, “not only for us, the commune of Bajada de Chanduy, but also Juntas del Pacifico, Sacachum, and all the communes of Santa Elena.” 

Banner image: Women get together in Archidona to create protest signs to accompany their peaceful protest against the construction of a maximum security prison in the region. Courtesy of the group Mujeres contra la cárcel.

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