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Documenting and reflecting on these struggles and acts of resistance is a vital task in these times. This article aims to capture the experience gained in the defence of water and life in southern Ecuador, drawing on reflections on the commons and cosmopolitics. To this end, it takes the constitutional recognition of the rights of nature in that country’s Constitution as its starting point.

We begin with a reflection on the current crisis facing humanity, before addressing the importance of the struggle for the commons today, framing the discussion within the context of Latin America. Finally, we present the Ecuadorian experience, drawing on the constitutional recognition of the rights of nature and the struggle to defend water and life against mining in the province of Azuay.

We are living through a civilizational crisis, in which the foundations of communal life and of what it means to be human are collapsing. A crisis that fills us with uncertainty, for although we can see the old order crumbling, we cannot know whether there will be anything to replace it, or whether what lies ahead will be better or worse than what we have already experienced. The horizon looks clouded. As Gramsci so aptly put it when describing such moments of crisis: “The old world is dying. The new one is slow to emerge. And in that twilight, monsters arise.” [1][1] Gramsci, A. [1930] (1981). Prison Notebooks, vloume 2, notebooks 3, 4, 5, Euskal Herriko Komunistak. P. 37.

Western capitalist modernity is hitting rock bottom. Several warning signs bear this out: the planet, our common home, is also on the brink of collapse. According to the World Meteorological Organisation’s report, in 2024 the world reached a global average temperature of 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels. [2][2] Word Metereological Organisation. (2025). State of the Global Climate 2024. Geneva, Word Metereological Organisation. Available here: https://library.wmo.int/viewer/69455/download?file=WMO-1368-2025_en.pdf&type=pdf&navigator=1 Global warming is not a future threat: we experience it day in, day out, with vastly unequal opportunities to tackle it between the Global North and South and between social classes within countries. According to OXFAM, the richest 10% of the world’s population generates 52% of cumulative carbon emissions, whilst the poorest and most vulnerable populations suffer the greatest impact of its effects. [3][3] OXFAM (2020). Confronting Carbon Inequality. September 2020. Available here: https://oxfamilibrary.openrepository.com/server/api/core/bitstreams/0cd412d3-e9e9-4298-b80d-e95514e6329d/content

The obscene levels of accumulated and concentrated wealth, which have led to enormous inequality gaps between and within countries, constitute further evidence of capitalism’s profound limitations in sustaining life. As far back as 2016, Oxfam warned that we were living in a “1% society” where wealth is concentrated to intolerable levels: the richest 1% of the global population held more wealth than the remaining 99%. [5][5] OXFAM (2016). An Economy For the 1%. Oxford: Oxfam House. Ten years on, Oxfam is sounding further alarms: this concentration has continued to rise, to the point where the 12 richest men on the planet now hold more wealth than half the world’s population. [6][6] OXFAM (2026). Resisting the Rule of the Rich: Defending Freedom Against Billionaire Power. Oxford: Oxfam House. Furthermore, the presence of billionaires in elected office today distorts the principles of liberal democracy, which are meant to ensure transparent political competition on a level playing field. According to Oxfam’s estimates, [7][7] Idem. billionaires are up to 4,000 times more likely to hold political office than ordinary citizens. The “government of the billionaires” has dealt a fatal blow to international law, the rules-based world order and multilateralism.

The geography of extractivism perpetuates inequalities between the North and the South. The mining sector has seen sustained growth in its share of the global economy, driven by rising demand from Northern countries for high-tech products and the need for metals to support the energy transition. However, extraction has declined in the Northern economies, whilst expanding extensively in the Global South, owing to the presence of large untapped reserves, weak national regulations and the neoliberal boom of the late 20th century, which led to deregulation and the liberalisation of foreign direct investment. [8][8] Clausen, R. (2022). “El contexto global de la minería” [The global context of mining]. Y Carpio, P. (2022). “Las experiencias de Río Blanco y Loma Larga en Azuay-Ecuador: impactos socioculturales del extractivismo en territorios y comunidades” [The experiences of Río Blanco and Loma Larga in Azuay-Ecuador: socio-cultural impacts of extractivism in territories and communities]. Both in: Patricio Carpio Benalcázar, (comp.), Resistencia: Minería, impactos y luchas [Resistance: mining, impacts and struggles]. Cuenca: Universidad de Cuenca, Fundación Rosa Luxemburgo.

Currently, Latin America plays a key role in global mineral extraction, cementing its position as a strategic global partner, particularly in the supply of resources necessary for the energy transition. [9][9] León, M. (2023). La minería en América Latina y El Caribe: Tendencias y perspectivas [Mining in Latin America and the Caribbean: tendencies and perspectives]. Intervention presented in the XIII Conference of Mining Ministries of the Americas, Santiago de Chile: CEPAL. Available here (Spanish): https://www.cepal.org/sites/default/fies/news/files/presentacioncepal_xiiicamma.pdf According to the World Bank, [10][10] Banco Mundial. (2017). The Growing Role of Minerals and Metals for a Low Carbon Future. World Bank. Available here: https://openknowledge.worldbank.org/handle/10986/28312 the world will need to increase mining output to drive the shift to clean, low-carbon energy. Solar panels, wind turbines and electric vehicles all require aluminium, copper, silver, cobalt and nickel. [11][11] Clausen, R. (2022). “El contexto global de la minería” [The global context of mining]. In: Patricio Carpio Benalcázar, (comp.), Resistencia: Minería, impactos y luchas [Resistance: mining, impacts and struggles]. Cuenca: Universidad de Cuenca, Fundación Rosa Luxemburgo. By 2026, the region is set to become the epicentre of mining investment, having attracted approximately 74% of the value of mining mergers and acquisitions in the first three quarters of 2025, [12][12] De Vicente, Agustín. (2026). Mining Report. Available here (Spanish): https://www.reporteminero.cl/noticia/noticias/2026/01/fusiones-adquisiciones-mineria-2025-latinoamerica-74-mckinsey-fmf thereby consolidating a process of re-primarisation of Latin American economies.

Current trends in mining expansion in Latin America run parallel to the long history of colonial exploitation in these lands, which enabled the original accumulation of capital and the region’s integration into the world system as a supplier of raw materials. Both during the colonial era and today, the process of mineral extraction in Latin America has been accompanied by coercion and violence to ensure the dispossession of local peoples and communities. [13][13] Clausen, R. (2022). “El contexto global de la minería” [The global context of mining]. Y Carpio, P. (2022). “Las experiencias de Río Blanco y Loma Larga en Azuay-Ecuador: impactos socioculturales del extractivismo en territorios y comunidades” [The experiences of Río Blanco and Loma Larga in Azuay-Ecuador: socio-cultural impacts of extractivism in territories and communities]. Both in: Patricio Carpio Benalcázar, (comp.), Resistencia: Minería, impactos y luchas [Resistance: mining, impacts and struggles]. Cuenca: Universidad de Cuenca, Fundación Rosa Luxemburgo.

Faced with these realities, voices are rising around the world calling for a post-imperial and post-extractive world.

The Struggle for the Commons in Latin America

“The challenge is to appreciate nature anew and to recognise ourselves as human beings who embody both culture and nature, so that we may thus move towards another plausible world”
(Dorronsoro Villanueva, 2009).

The fight for the commons is essential to saving humanity, the planet, and life itself. In Latin America, this struggle dates back to colonial times, when indigenous peoples sought to preserve their beliefs, their worldview and their communal cultural heritage in the face of the plundering, exploitation and discrimination perpetrated by the conquistadors.

In the late 20th and early 21st centuries, grassroots movements in Latin America played a significant role in defending the “commons”: the Water Wars in Cochabamba (Bolivia, 2000); the Zapatistas’ defence of maize in Mexico (since 1994); the recognition of the rights of nature in the Ecuadorian constitution (2008); the struggle for agricultural land by the Landless Movement in Brazil; resistance against extractivism in Peru, Colombia and Ecuador; and the fight against dams in Brazil, Chile, Mexico and Colombia… To name just a few of the most significant experiences on the continent.

Today, the concept of “the commons” is one of the cornerstones of ecological critique of capitalism. [14][14] García Linera, A. (2011). La potencia plebeya. La Habana: Casa de las Américas; y Linsalata, L. (2014). «Ni público, ni privado: común. Prácticas y sentidos de la gestión comunitaria del agua en la zona sur de Cochabamba en Bolivia». En Claudia Composto y Mina Lorena Navarro (Edit.). Territorios en disputa. Despojo capitalista, luchas en defensa de los bienes comunes naturales y alternativas emancipatorias para América Latina, México: Bajo Tierra Ediciones. 249-268. The neoliberal model of accumulation has privatised public or communal assets through dispossession and violence. Capitalism not only exploits the workforce, but also prevents the regeneration of nature, on which it depends. The “commons” challenges the logic of private accumulation and its dominance over nature, and argues that nature is the system on which we all depend: its destruction puts life on the planet itself at risk. Thus, it calls for a transformation of this accumulation pattern by placing the sustainability of life at the centre of theory and political action.

The newly established constitutionalism in Latin America, reflecting the long-standing demands of indigenous, environmentalist and feminist movements, incorporated—with varying degrees of emphasis—the notion of “the commons” into the constitutions of Colombia (1991), Venezuela (1999), Ecuador (2008) and Bolivia (2009). The Ecuadorian case is paradigmatic, as it was the first country in the world to recognise the rights of nature. Its constitution is structured around the notion of “Good Living” or “Sumak Kawsay”. [15][15] Larrea, A. (2018). “Los procesos constituyentes como iniciativas refundacionales: el caso ecuatoriano”. En Eduardo Rueda y Susana Villavicencio (Ed.), Modernidad, colonialismo y emancipación en América Latina, Buenos Aires: CLACSO. This recognition of the rights of nature represented a radical shift, as it conceives of the territory as “an Other”, [16][16] Stengers, I. (2010) Cosmopolitics I [Cosmopolítica I]. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. as a living cosmic space, and not merely as a repository of resources.

By contrast, the discourses of “Good Living” are “cosmopolitical” because they succeed in unifying nature and culture. Indigenous peoples conceive of human beings as embedded in a series of relationships with nature, the divine and their ancestors, in which exchange and reciprocity play a fundamental role. Nature and human action are interdependent. Culture is an articulated extension of nature. Their boundary-pushing practices and understandings sow a new ecology of knowledge that has bloomed into the recognition of rights for other living beings and for the earth itself. [18][18] Benciolini, M. (2017). “Territorialidades relacionales: Conflictos ambientales y cosmopolíticas en el occidente y norte de México” [Relational territorialities: environmental conflicts and cosmopolitics in Western and Northern Mexico], Frontera Norte magazine, 58, Vol. 29, pp. 5-23; y Larrea, A (2012). Modo de desarrollo, organización territorial y cambio constituyente en el Ecuador [Mode of development, territorial organising and constitutional change in Ecuador]. Quito: Senplades.

The Rights of Nature in the Ecuadorian Constitution

As mentioned above, Ecuador was the first country in the world to recognise nature as a legal entity with its own rights, in its 2008 Constitution. Article 71 of the Ecuadorian Constitution states: “Nature, or Pachamama, where life is reproduced and realised, has the right to full respect for its existence and to the maintenance and regeneration of its life cycles, structure, functions and evolutionary processes”. [19][19] National Constituent Assembly (2008). Constitution of the Ecuadorian Republic. Official registry 449, 20 October 2008.

In this way, nature is no longer regarded as a resource but as the space where life is produced and regenerated. This is crucial, as it implies that the rights of nature include respect for its life cycles and the preservation of its capacity to regenerate and renew itself. [20][20] [20] National Constituent Assembly (2008). Constitution of the Ecuadorian Republic. Official registry 449, 20 October 2008. Articles 72-74.

The recognition of the rights of nature in Ecuador was a historic milestone for humanity. Since then, more than 35 countries have granted some form of legal recognition to the Rights of Nature. [21][21] Borrás Pentinat, S. (2022). “Los derechos de la naturaleza: ¿el camino hacia la paz ecológica?” [The rigths of nature: the way to environmental peace]. Catalan Magazine of Environmental Law. Vol. XIII N. 1, pp.1-15. The United Nations, in the report “In Harmony with Nature” presented by the Secretary-General to the General Assembly in 2019, stated that “over the last decade, Earth Jurisprudence can be considered the fastest-growing legal movement of the 21st century”, [22][22] UN General Assembly. (2019). 74° Session. Sec. Gen. Report: In Harmony With Nature. constituting one of the keys to understanding the history of this era.

In Ecuador, the Legal Observatory for the Rights of Nature has documented 64 cases brought before the country’s courts, invoking the right enshrined in the Constitution. Some of these have already resulted in favourable rulings. [23][23] Ecuadorian Legal Observatory of the Rigths of Nature “Ecuador Cases”. Available here (Spanish): https://www.derechosdelanaturaleza.org.ec/casos-ecuador/

It should not be overlooked that the recognition of the rights of nature was the result of years of struggle by the main social movements in Ecuador: the Constituent Assembly incorporated this demand following several hearings with various social groups and national and international experts.

This change in public policy sparked protests from various environmental groups, who formed the Yasunidos collective. They proposed holding a national referendum to decide whether or not to extract oil from Ecuador’s Amazon rainforest. The collective launched a wide-ranging campaign to collect signatures to call for a referendum through a citizen initiative. In 2014, Yasunidos submitted around 750,000 signatures in support of the referendum. The National Electoral Council (CNE), however, invalidated around 66% of the submitted signatures and refused to allow the referendum to proceed, whilst the national government pressed ahead with the exploitation of the field. Yasunidos’s campaign continued for several years. In 2020, they secured a ruling from the Constitutional Court that the CNE had violated due process by invalidating the collective’s submitted signatures, and the court ordered the Electoral Court (TCE) to review the case. In compliance with this ruling, the TCE ruled in 2022 that Yasunidos’s submitted signatures were valid and gave the go-ahead for the referendum to proceed. This referendum was finally held in 2023, when 59 per cent of Ecuadorians voted in favour of suspending oil activities in Yasuní National Park. Nevertheless, to date, Daniel Noboa’s government has not complied with the people’s mandate: it has merely proposed a phased closure extending until 2034, a timeframe that the organisations consider excessively long.

This series of petitions before the Constitutional Court and the popular struggle for the Yasuní are examples of how the recognition of the rights of nature has strengthened environmentalist sentiment amongst the Ecuadorian population.

The Struggle for Water in Azuay

“(…) in the face of the centralized and neo-colonial threat to impose upon Cuenca a destiny foreign to its historical project of preserving its natural and cultural heritag—its moors, wetlands, lagoons, forests, springs, aquifers, ravines, streams and rivers, its landscape and the building of an organised, autonomous community that respects rights, where art, science, research, the development of clean energy, and the harmonious production of material and cultural goods flourish”
(Castro, 2025).

The city of Cuenca, capital of the province of Azuay, in southern Ecuador, was founded by Spanish colonists in 1557. It was originally named Santa Ana de los Cuatro Ríos de Cuenca, as it is crisscrossed by four beautiful rivers. This connection with nature has fostered a very strong sense of environmental preservation and protection amongst the city’s inhabitants, who regard their rivers as common goods that make up an integral part of city life. [24][24] Castro Riera, C. (2025). “El quinto rio y las nuevas amenazas” [The fifth river and the new threats], Rebelión. Available here (Spanish): https://rebelion.org/el-quinto-rio-y-las-nuevas-amenazas/

From the 1990s onwards, Ecuador adopted a policy of openness to mining capital, which has led to 14% of the national territory being used for large-scale mining today. [26][26] Carpio, P. (2022). “Las experiencias de Río Blanco y Loma Larga en Azuay-Ecuador: impactos socioculturales del extractivismo en territorios y comunidades” [The experiences of Río Blanco and Loma Larga in Azuay-Ecuador: socio-cultural impacts of extractivism in territories and communities]. In: Patricio Carpio Benalcázar, (comp.), Resistencia: Minería, impactos y luchas [Resistance: mining, impacts and struggles]. Cuenca: Universidad de Cuenca, Fundación Rosa Luxemburgo. Since then, communities in the province of Azuay have stepped up their struggle to defend water and life, supported at various times by their local authorities—mayors and prefects. Consequently, this struggle has become a rallying cry in defence of the territory, standing up to industrial mining backed by transnational corporations from the Global North. [27][27] Idem. Vásquez Moreno, 20251994 concession for the Río Blanco project in Molleturo.

In 2015, the Cabildo por el Agua—the Water Council—was established: a coordination forum for civil society and local governments to defend water. In Cuenca, they launched an informal education programme to help people in the city understand why water is more valuable than gold and why the territory must be protected from mining. [29][29] Ibidem.

In 2016, both the Azuay Provincial Council and the Cuenca Municipal Council declared their respective territories free from metal mining. In 2017, the community blocked access to the Río Blanco mining camp. In 2018, an agreement was reached allowing the company to continue its operations under community supervision, but within a few months, the community once again blocked access to the mining camp. Clashes broke out with the security forces, resulting in the burning of part of the mining company’s infrastructure and machinery. This triggered legal proceedings against 43 community members, five of whom were arrested. Protests took place in Cuenca against the disproportionate use of force by law enforcement officers, and a legal action seeking protection was brought against the mining company—on the grounds that it had failed to carry out prior, free and informed consultation before the mining project was established. The judge ruled in favour of the community, and the mining project is currently on hold, pending the consultation. The judge also ordered the immediate demilitarisation of the project area. [30][30] Ibidem.

The Río Blanco mining project was followed by processes of land reconcentration and property fragmentation, changes to the community’s productive structure, increased insecurity and violence, and a permanent presence of law enforcement in the area. According to testimonies gathered by Carpio [31],[31] Carpio, P. (2022). “Las experiencias de Río Blanco y Loma Larga en Azuay-Ecuador: impactos socioculturales del extractivismo en territorios y comunidades” [The experiences of Río Blanco and Loma Larga in Azuay-Ecuador: socio-cultural impacts of extractivism in territories and communities]. In: Patricio Carpio Benalcázar, (comp.), Resistencia: Minería, impactos y luchas [Resistance: mining, impacts and struggles]. Cuenca: Universidad de Cuenca, Fundación Rosa Luxemburgo. all of this instilled fear and distress among the population. However, this experience also strengthened anti-mining sentiment in the province, one that has been expressed on numerous occasions. The most striking example of this is probably the attempt to implement the Kimsakocha project—a Kichwa word meaning “three lagoons”.

The Kimsakocha or Loma Larga mining project is located some 30 kilometres outside the city of Cuenca. Covering an area of around 8,000 hectares of moorland, the concession spans three cantons: Cuenca, Girón and San Fernando. Cuenca has a population of around 600,000 people, whilst Girón and San Fernando are small cantons with populations of 12,000 and 4,000, respectively. [32][32] INEC. (2022). VIII population census and VII housing census. Available here (Spanish): https://www.censoecuador.gob.ec/resultados-censo/#tabulados According to the Canadian company seeking to develop the project, INV Metals Inc., the site contains proven and probable reserves of 2.2 million ounces of gold, 13.3 million ounces of silver and 88 million pounds of copper. [33][33] Clausen, R. (2022). “El contexto global de la minería” [The global context of mining]. In: Patricio Carpio Benalcázar, (comp.), Resistencia: Minería, impactos y luchas [Resistance: mining, impacts and struggles]. Cuenca: Universidad de Cuenca, Fundación Rosa Luxemburgo. P. 255. Meanwhile, the community organisations defending the area maintain that the project’s operations would leave 14 million tonnes of toxic sludge in the area, which would contaminate its water sources. [34][34] Vásquez Moreno, R. (2025). “David Fajardo: la vida de los que no pueden mirar para otro lado” [The life of those who can’t look away]. Monda y Lironda Digital, a year before the environmental license was granted, the Canadian company had publicly donated to the foundation of Lavinia Valvonessi—the Magazine, El quinto río: ¿Qué sería de la cultura sin el agua? [The fifth river: what would happen to culture without water] , Nº 29, Cuenca: septiembre 2025. CCE magazine, Azuay. Available here (Spanish): https://mondaylironda.cceazuay.gob.ec/2025/11/07/el-quinto-rio/

In response to this outcry, national authorities have argued that the results of the referendums are not retroactive, but take effect from the date of the citizens’ decision—and therefore do not entail the revocation of mining concessions already granted. However, in the case of Kimsakocha, the exploitation phase had not yet begun in 2021, when the referendum was held; therefore, in accordance with the law, the Ecuadorian State could not proceed. [36][36] Castro Riera, C. (2025). “El quinto rio y las nuevas amenazas” [The fifth river and the new threats], Rebelión. Available here (Spanish): https://rebelion.org/el-quinto-rio-y-las-nuevas-amenazas/

Nevertheless, on 23 June 2025, the Ministry of the Environment and Energy granted the environmental license for the mining exploitation phase of the Kimsakocha project to the Canadian company Dundee Precious Metals (DPM). This decision sparked widespread outrage amongst the people of Cuenca and the Azuay region: the measure was seen as a top-down, neo-colonial imposition that undermined the city’s autonomy by failing to respect the people’s will as expressed in the referendum.

The People Who Became a River

Civil society responded by convening the Cuenca Citizens’ Assembly, which organised demonstrations, community consultations and cantonal citizens’ assemblies to preserve the moorlands and defend the water recharge sources in Azuay. [37][37] Idem. Local authorities also played an important role through the statements issued by the Cuenca Cantonal Council and the Azuay Provincial Council opposing mining operations at Kimsakocha. Both statements included studies and technical reports demonstrating the serious environmental impacts the project would have, as well as the risks to the health of the populations of Cuenca and Azuay.

On 19 July 2025, residents of Cumbe, Tarqui, Girón, San Gerardo and Cuenca marched to Kimsakocha as part of a procession organised during the Assembly for Water and the Moors, to defend the groundwater recharge sources in the province threatened by the mining project. [38][38] Pañi Ochoa, L. (2025). “Todo lo vivo tiene sed” [Everything alive is thirsty], Monda y Lironda Digital Magazine, El quinto río: ¿Qué sería de la cultura sin el agua? [The fifth river: what would happen to culture without water], Nº 29, Cuenca: septiembre 2025. CCE magazine, Azuay. Available here (Spanish): https://mondaylironda.cceazuay.gob.ec/2025/11/07/el-quinto-rio/

On 16 September 2025, the so-called “March of the Fifth River” was held in Cuenca—organised by the Cuenca Citizens’ Assembly—with over 100,000 participants demanding the revocation of the environmental license granted to the Kimsakocha mining project, compliance with the will of the people as expressed at the ballot box in 2021, and the designation of Kimsakocha as a water recharge area. As the authorities and march attendees put it: “Cuenca rose up, and the fifth river overflowed.” The massive turnout took the whole country by surprise, as widespread apathy had prevailed in recent years.

The demonstration took place amidst a State of Emergency declared that very same week by President Noboa in seven provinces across the country. It is worth noting that, from November 2023 to January 2026, Ecuador has experienced 17 States of Emergency. During Daniel Noboa’s government, mechanisms of exceptionality have become the norm in Ecuador—and they do not live up to their name. When the exceptional becomes the rule, democracy turns into a sham.

Although the march was peaceful, the crackdown was swift and was carried out through the court system. Some leaders of the Cuenca Water Council, such as David Fajardo, had their bank accounts frozen and were charged with unaccounted private earnings by the Public Prosecutor’s Office. The criminalisation of social protest has been a constant feature under recent governments in Ecuador, with indigenous social organisations being labelled “terrorists” to justify the violence perpetrated against them by the state. [39][39] Ibídem Vásquez Moreno, 2025.

The march took place on 16 September; by the 19th, the accounts had already been frozen. A week later, the complaint had been filed. I was never notified; never given the right to a defence or a hearing. I found out about this from third parties. They say we are making money by stirring up conflict in indigenous communities, and that, with that money, we are paying people to take to the streets. What they are doing to me, they are doing to many others. There are 52 more people on the list. Most are members of social organisations working to defend human rights and nature (David Fajardo, in Vásquez Moreno, 2025).

For this reason, the civil society organisations grouped within the Cuenca Citizens’ Assembly intend to continue their struggle until all mining licences in the province are revoked and these territories are truly designated as protected areas. [41][41] Vásquez Moreno, R. (2025). “David Fajardo: la vida de los que no pueden mirar para otro lado” [The life of those who can’t look away]. Monda y Lironda Digital Magazine, El quinto río: ¿Qué sería de la cultura sin el agua? [The fifth river: what would happen to culture without water], Nº 29, Cuenca: septiembre 2025. CCE magazine, Azuay. Available here (Spanish): https://mondaylironda.cceazuay.gob.ec/2025/11/07/el-quinto-rio/

It is no coincidence that, one month after the “March of the Fifth River”, President Noboa issued the regulations for the Social Transparency Act: this legislation prohibits civil society organisations from carrying out activities that might “hinder or interfere” with mining projects; it also stipulates that any activities related to mining require authorisation and supervision by the relevant sectoral authority. [42][42] Presidency of the Republic of Ecuador. (2025). Executive Decree 191. General ordinance to the Organic Law of Social Transparency. Guayaquil, 27 October 2025.

The fact is that Cuenca’s “Fifth River” was an oasis of hope in the middle of a desert: In Ecuador, authoritarianism has become the norm, silence has become synonymous with fear, apathy goes hand in hand with individualism, the co-opting of the State’s functions and powers by the Executive has destroyed liberal democracy, while re-centralisation increasingly suffocates local governments. Amid this bleak landscape, Cuenca stands as a symbol of the defence of life and the struggle against centralism and tyranny.

Conclusions

The movement to defend water and life in Azuay arose in rural areas and has gradually drawn in the population of the city of Cuenca, as well as cantonal and provincial authorities. It has grown significantly over the years and has become increasingly widespread, illustrating the link between territorial identity, local autonomy and cultural transformation.

Southern Ecuador has historically fought for its autonomy, evolving into a region that has achieved endogenous territorial development, with a deeply rooted identity. In addition to its struggle against centralized government, this identity is characterised by the protection of nature, which in recent years has played an increasingly significant role. The preservation of nature has gradually shaped a vision for the city and the region in which the defence of the commons is paramount. As a result, Cuenca has become a model for wastewater management in Ecuador and is also renowned for the purity of its rivers and the quality of its drinking water.

All these features enable civil society and local governments to come together in defence of their territorial project. And this is extremely important in today’s Ecuador, currently experiencing a period of concentration of power and persecution of local governments. May the rivers multiply and succeed in channelling hope and change towards a more caring and environmentally just society.

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