HOW CONSERVATION BECAME COLONIALISM
In February, a group of Cofán men dressed in dark tunics and bandoliers studded with forest seeds gathered around a fire pit in northeastern Ecuador. In the thin light of dawn, they prepared to set out on a patrol of the Cayambe Coca National Park, a protected area that covers more than 1,500 square miles of rainforests, wetlands, glacial lagoons, and snowcapped cordillera, the tallest peak of which belongs to the massive Cayambe volcano. The men were all members of la guardia, a unit established by the Cofán in 2017 to push back against trespassers’ growing encroachment onto their ancestral lands.
“The state claimed this land in 1970 and told us how to live in our own territory,” said Alex Lucitante, a 25-year-old guard, “but it does nothing to protect it or enforce park rules.” He accused wildcat miners of using pollutants, including mercury, that deplete and contaminate local fish stocks. When the Cofán sought to protect their food chain by building an inland fishpond a few years back, Lucitante said, Ecuador’s Environment Ministry attempted to shut it down before they could complete it, citing park rules. The Cofán community of Sinangue informed officials that it did not recognize the ministry’s authority on matters relating to its traditions or survival. The fishpond remains.
The episode illustrates a tension that threatens to undermine conservation efforts in Cayambe Coca and thousands of other protected areas around the world. Like many other indigenous communities whose ancestral homes sit inside state-sanctioned conservation zones, the Cofán are victims of a
