[{"bbox": [158, 154, 1073, 207], "category": "Text", "text": "conservation through protected area management, forest fire prevention and ecosystem restoration based on traditional knowledge."}, {"bbox": [158, 217, 1073, 379], "category": "Text", "text": "The new European Consensus for Development⁴ states that the EU and its Member States will implement a rights-based approach to development cooperation, encompassing all human rights. They will promote inclusion and participation, non-discrimination, equality and equity, transparency and accountability⁵. Thus, the action will rely on methodologically sound and policy-relevant empirical research and develop the evidence base for its projects that ensures mainstreaming of key topics such as gender and human rights."}, {"bbox": [158, 390, 1073, 547], "category": "Text", "text": "The Action will be in line with the EU Gender Action Plan - GAP III and its thematic areas of engagement “Addressing the challenges and harnessing the opportunities offered by the green transition and the digital transformation”, as well as the new EU Consensus on Development, the Human rights and democracy Action plan and the Human Rights Based Approach Toolbox⁶, the EU Strategy on the rights of the child⁷, and the EU Guidance Note Disability inclusion in EU external action⁸."}, {"bbox": [147, 609, 336, 634], "category": "Section-header", "text": "## 2 RATIONALE"}, {"bbox": [147, 650, 288, 675], "category": "Section-header", "text": "### 2.1 Context"}, {"bbox": [158, 692, 1073, 799], "category": "Text", "text": "**Ecuador's 2008 Constitution was the world's first to recognise the Rights of Nature**, which translates into recognising nature as a subject of law, providing a serious of legal guarantees for its conservation. Nevertheless, extractive activities are expanding at an accelerated pace, and both nature and its defenders are under systematic pressure from economic and political elites."}, {"bbox": [158, 810, 1073, 967], "category": "Text", "text": "**On 24 May 2021, a right-leaning government took office,** following 14 years of left-leaning administrations. The current Administration follows a pragmatic approach to national development promoting private sector-led growth through the Ecuadorian National Development Plan (ENDP) 2021-2025, by encouraging Foreign Direct Investment and the signing and deepening of trade agreements, whilst rebalancing the weight of the public sector via a USD 6 billion programme with the IMF."}, {"bbox": [158, 982, 1073, 1354], "category": "Text", "text": "**The administration seems serious about the Green Agenda,** as demonstrated by its various announcements in the COP27. The ENDP's fourth axis consists of the “Ecological Transition”, a Green Agenda focusing on smart and green investments and promoting sustainable development models. Following, the formerly named Ministry of the Environment and Water has now adopted the name Ministry of the Environment, Water, and Ecological Transition (MAATE). Hence, the new government has placed the Ecological Transition as one of the key pillars of the development plan, through executive decree No. 59 of 5 June 2021 (12 days after taking office) proposing the set-up of a legal and institutional framework that seeks to enshrine an integral and coordinated ecological transition⁹. In this context, Ecuador announced the extension of the protected marine reserve in Galápagos, from 133 thousand, to 193 thousand square kilometres. Nevertheless, there are still environmental political contradictions, since the government continues to grant mining and oil concessions in sensitive environmental areas, even within internationally renowned protected areas such as the Yasuní Biosphere Reserve. Additionally, the Ecuadorian State, does not strictly comply with environmental protection and remediation processes."}, {"bbox": [158, 1365, 1073, 1446], "category": "Text", "text": "**Paradoxically, extractive industries like oil and most recently industrial and artisanal mining development have developed a grown concern in society** due to the pollution and related health problems caused by it. Indigenous communities have raised their voices because of water pollution"}, {"bbox": [147, 1483, 540, 1505], "category": "Footnote", "text": "⁴ 2017 new European Consensus on Development"}, {"bbox": [147, 1505, 496, 1527], "category": "Footnote", "text": "⁵ Working better together as a Team Europe"}, {"bbox": [147, 1527, 297, 1547], "category": "Footnote", "text": "⁶ HRBA Toolbox"}, {"bbox": [147, 1549, 341, 1569], "category": "Footnote", "text": "⁷ COM(2021)142 final."}, {"bbox": [147, 1570, 634, 1591], "category": "Footnote", "text": "⁸ EU Guidance Note Disability inclusion in EU external action"}, {"bbox": [147, 1592, 876, 1614], "category": "Footnote", "text": "⁹ It has also announced a doubling of the petrol production, which critics see as a contradiction."}, {"bbox": [976, 1667, 1081, 1692], "category": "Page-footer", "text": "Page 6 of 28"}]