Quito, Ecuador– In a typical ruling, a court of Ecuador He ruled out on Sunday that the pollution has violated the rights of a river that runs through the capital, Quito.
The city government appealed the ruling, which is based on an article in Ecuador’s Constitution that recognizes the rights of natural elements such as the Machángara River.
The activists who filed the complaint said Sunday that the decision is “historic.”
“This is historic because the river passes through Quito and because of its influence, people live very close to it,” said Darío Iza, whose group Kitu Kara filed the complaint on behalf of the river.
The court ruled that while appeals proceed, the government will have to come up with a plan to clean up the Machángara.
The city of 2.6 million inhabitants dumps all types of effluents and pollutants into the Machángara, which begins high in the Andes mountains. But when he passes through Quito, he encounters problems such as an almost total lack of treatment for the wastewater that is discharged into it.
“The river carries tons of garbage that comes down from ravines and slopes,” according to the Global Alliance for the Rights of Nature.
The river has average levels of 2% oxygen, which makes it difficult for aquatic life to develop.
In some parts of Latin America and North America, inhabitants have Constitutional rights to a clean environment, but Ecuador is one of the few countries that recognizes the right of natural elements not to be degraded or contaminated.
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