Eco-colonialism and the Shuar’s Fight to Protect Their Land

By: Hamdi Elmi
Hamdi Elmi is a student passionate about learning different environmental justice issues and advocating Indigenous rights. 

In southeastern Amazon, Ecuador, the Shuar Nation has lived on the land they call home for countless generations. The people of the Shuar nation have always existed in relation to the rivers, mountains and plants that share one of the most biodiverse ecosystems on the planet. Everything that makes up their homeland sustains and supports them and it also includes the cultural and spiritual practice of place-based existence learned from their ancestors.

Sadly, the Shuar Nation is facing extreme danger. In recent years the Ecuadorian government has attempted to advance large-scale mining on Shuar territory. These investments are typically proposed by foreign companies and marketed as the country’s “green development” objectives, when in fact extraction of metals is required for technologies associated with green initiatives like electric cars or solar panels. For the Shuar, these projects lead to destruction of their land. They have been removed from their lands, their communities have been disrupted and their forests have been depleted without appropriate consultation or consent. This is an instance of eco-colonialism, where environmental practices are a rationalization for the imposition of control over Indigenous lands.Governments and corporations may say they are promoting sustainability, but they don't recognize the rights and voices of the people who tended these forests before there were programs for "conservation." Some communities from the Shuar have even been violently evicted in a militarized way (see the Unrepresented Nations and Peoples Organization).

In response, many members of the Shuar are organized and resisting.Cultural Survival, an organization of Indigenous peoples, describes how the Shuar are utilizing legal recourse, international advocacy, and community organizing to protect their land. The Shuar is demanding compliance with international law related to Indigenous rights, namely the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, which maintains Indigenous peoples' rights to consenting freely to all decisions about development on their land prior to actually developing it.
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What is happening in Shuar territory challenges standard definitions of "green." A project cannot be sustainable if it violates the dignity of those who have cared for the land. Indigenous communities like the Shuar offer real models of environmental stewardship, models based on balance, respect, and responsibility.​

External Sources:

•  “A Canadian Mining Giant vs. the Guardians of the Amazon.” Culturalsurvival.org, 18 Mar. 2025, www.culturalsurvival.org/publications/cultural-survival-quarterly/canadian-mining-giant-vs-guardians-amazonLinks to an external site.. 
• Abulu, Latoya. “Indigenous Shuar Community in Ecuador Wins Decades-Long Battle to Protect Land.” 28 July 2022, https://news.mongabay.com/2022/07/indigenous-shuar-community-in-ecuador-wins-decades-long-battle-to-protect-land/Links to an external site. 
•  “The Shuar, a Forgotten Indigenous Community in Ecuador -.” UNPO, 13 July 2017, https://unpo.org/the-shuar-a-forgotten-indigenous-community-in-ecuador/Links to an external site.