Ecuador is a beautiful Country with plenty of raw materials . The access to the Amazon allows Billions of dollars worth of land. One of the biggest materials is copper. Copper is one of the most useful and important materials we use everyday without even realising it. Copper is used in most electronics, so it’s in your phone, your car, and you tv. The public view around the Amazon in First world countries is that we should preserve it and not use its resources. As a Country that is located near the Amazon, like Ecuador, those resources are necessary in the short term for the country to profit. This is like the way the US exploits a lot of oil, and African nations with Diamonds. Ecuador is facing many problems between mining for business to profit, or being environmentally friendly.”Ecuadorian courts sided with rural and indigenous communities who argued the national government had failed to inform them it was setting aside parts of their territories for mineral exploitation.”(Fitch Solutions, 2018) Fitch solutions has also stating the rivalry between the mining companies runs several risks of not only destroying the forests even faster but death of workers due to violence. The dangers of mining are clearly present, and Ecuador is beging to take action. “A judge in the Sucumbios province, near Colombia, banned mining activity in 52 concessions, and banned another in the southern province Azuay; a gold- silver project called Rio Blanco, owned by China’s Junefield Resources.” These bans seem really good to a lot of people it means it will preserve our rainforests, but at the risk of high profit and important natural resources we use every day on top of the lost of probably hundreds of jobs. I’m personally conflicted because I think it’s great that Ecuador is making the Amazon’s preservation a possibility, but I also see the people that need those jobs not being able to provide for there families. Ecuador is definitely choosing the long term rather then the short term root with there domestic politics and was probably pressured by environmentalist groups to do so.
