The beginning of the 2000’s saw the collapse of international funding and interest in the Ecuadorian environmentalism movement. The collapse in funding was caused by a combination of events that drew the world’s attention towards new pursuits. Internationally, the United States experienced one of the most devastating terrorist attacks in its history and would quickly begin to channel previously available funding into national security projects and its military. Within Ecuador itself, the political and economic instability of the late 1990’s saw trust in the country wain and would reduce its image as a safe investment opportunity. Additionally, many of the large-scale projects that were funded by organizations like USAID were drawing to their inevitable completion. As a result, the money that had flooded the country to fund these projects dried up as new projects failed to arise. The sudden lack of readily available funding saw many of the NGOs operating within Ecuador close their doors for good. With their closings, they often took the services they had previously provided to the government and local communities with them. Those organizations that did not close were forced to compete for an ever-shrinking pool of funding. The smaller pool resulted in many NGOs losing their initial specializations and instead pursuing a wide variety of projects in order to obtain as much funding as possible. This was clearly demonstrated as the NGOs swiftly turned from promoting conservation to pushing sustainable development projects and policies based on the changing desires of their funders. A subset of these competing NGOs went a step farther and adopted the strategy of proyectism, where they would compete for project contracts from groups in the Global North. When these projects were finished, the NGO would often quickly move on to the next project and abandon the long-term investment that was common of NGOs in previous eras. NGOs that engaged in this type of behavior often were criticized for appearing to be more motivated by profits than by protecting the environment. The ever-increasing influence of and reliance on Eco-Imperialists funders severely diminished the public opinion of Eco-Dependent NGOs. The final nail in the coffin for these groups would come with their failure to mount any meaningful protest to creation of the major OCP oil pipeline through many protected environments. The failure of the NGOs cemented the image of internationally funded NGOs being weak and more concerned with maintaining the good image of foreign companies though greenwashing. In response to the decline of the Eco-Dependent NGOs, local governments and Eco-Resisters stepped in and became the face of environmentalism in Ecuador. The decentralization that resulted from the adoption of neoliberal policies allowed local governments to exercise more power, leading to the implementation of new laws designed for their specific environmental issues. One of the prominent examples of this was the city of Mindo, which promoted the growth of its ecotourism industry in order to spur sustainable development within the local area. They were further bolstered by former employees of the closed NGOs coming to work within the local administrations, bringing their experience with them. At the same time, Eco-Resisters continued to organize their communities and oppose any attempts to expand resource extraction operations in environmentally sensitive areas. One of the most prominent movements during this time period was the rallying of local communities against expanding mining operations. DECOIN was the most publicly visible organization that was created during this time and they helped facilitate land transfers to locals and created alternative employment options for those who would have otherwise worked in the mines. Another grassroots organization, C-CONDEM, was created during the same time in order to protest the destruction of mangrove forests along the coast by the shrimping industry. Both of these organizations were instrumental in showing their local communities the direct benefits that accompanied environmental protections. In addition to the growing prominence of the Eco-Resisters, a new group of Eco-Entrepreneurs were emerging for the first time Ecuador. This category of organizations consisted of a small number of NGOs that chose to distance themselves from international funding and instead charge fees for the services they provided. The majority of the provided services that dealt with utilities and infrastructure development. Entrepreneurs and Resisters shared a desire to improve the quality of life for the communities they were active in, but there was a key differences that separate the two. In contrast to the revolutionary attitudes of the Resisters, Entrepreneurs did not attempt to change to the political systems of Ecuador, instead choosing to work inside it and pursue improvement where they could. The momentum of Eco-Resisters reached its climax in 2005, when the current president stepped down and was replaced by the politically weaker vice-president. This resulting weakness allowed a coalition of groups to form the National Environmental Assembly and make demands for movement away from Ecuador’s current model of economic synthesis. In its place, the country would be moved towards ecological synthesis through the strengthening of its Ministry of the Environment, increased protection of the environment, and rejection of resource privatization. Many of these demands would be included in Ecuador’s new constitution in 2008 under Ecuador’s newly elected leftist president Rafael Correa. While some may argue that the Neoliberal era was the peak of Ecuador’s environmental movement due to the world-wide interest in the work of the NGOs, I personally view this time period as the true high point of the movement. As the collapse of international funding and rise in NGO bureaucracy showed, the Global North has its own interests and cannot be trusted to champion a movement in the Global South. The strength of the environmental movement within Ecuador has always relied on the actions of its concerned but motivated citizens. The decline in prominence of the NGOs allowed Eco-Resisters groups like AE and DECOIN to rise into the spotlight and draw focus to the needs and desires of local communities, not biased foreign interests and their financial dependents. Their grassroots activism and education campaigns are instrumental to fostering a sense of responsibility among the general populace and generate positive political will. This sets up the framework for these smaller groups to advance their interests to the national level where real overarching change can be made. Eco-Dependents would never have been able to accomplish this due to their disconnect with the average citizen and the overbearing influence of the Eco-Imperialists (Pant, July 7, 2017).
Pant, S. B. (2017, July 7). Why grassroots activists should resist being professionalised into an NGO | Sunil Babu Pant. Retrieved from https://www.theguardian.com/global-development-professionals-network/2017/jul/07/why-grassroots-activists-should-resist-being-professionalised-into-an-ngo