Mongabay Series: Forests of the World
This story is a journalistic collaboration between Mongabay Latam and GK of Ecuador.
The instability and currency crisis caused by COVID-19 have reached Ecuador’s national parks. On June 20, the Ecuadorian Ranger Association (AGE) sent a letter to the Minister of Environment and Water, Paulo Arturo Proao, asking him to return to 193 guards, specialists and district chiefs who had been dismissed the previous day. Workers, from the National System of Protected Areas (SNAP), are essential for the conservation of the country’s maximum biodiversely biodiversed terrestrial, marine and coastal ecosystems. Without them, national parks and marine reserves, adding iconic sites such as Yasun National Park or the Galapagos Marine Reserve, would run out of specialized custodians.
Ecuador has 56 areas, which make up 20% of its territory. The rangers are responsible, 365 days a year, for the conservation of the biological diversity of these populations and also for proposing opportunities for the sustainable progression of their herbal resources. Without them, the constitutional right to live in a healthy and ecologically balanced environment, nor the conservation of the country’s herbal and biodiversed resources, according to AGE, cannot be guaranteed. “This is not an opposed fight to labor law,” says Augusto Granda, president of AGE, “but a struggle for the right to nature.”
During the pandemic, they continued to paint normally. They won biosecurity materials (masks and antiseptic gels) to do this. This is because they remain in constant contact with communities. Some have even worried about responsibilities that go beyond their duties, adding assistance in distributing food kits to vulnerable populations in Napo, Carchi, Chimborazo and Guayas provinces, Granda says.
The park ranger contracts were terminated by a memorandum from the Ministry of Environment and Water dated 19 June. The explanation given to terminate them indicates that their provisional commitments had expired. In Ecuador, an interim appointment is a form of government procurement. There are no restrictions on its duration and the position will be held until someone else wins a merit-based public festival to fill it or until the Finance Department gets rid of the post. However, the rangers have not been called up to any merit-based festivals, so they are challenging their dismissal.
Three days after AGE sent its letter calling for the return of public officials, Minister Proao replied. On his Twitter account, he said the dismissal of officials was “fake news.” He said he would “never leave the spaces of the country without his guardians.” On the same day, he met with an EFA organization and, according to Granda, promised not to fire any of the rangers.
In a reaction letter won through the rangers on 23 June, no final dismissal is mentioned. However, the tables introduce a substitution of employment: from a provisional commitment to an occasional contract.
This replaces some small letters. Luis Suarez, executive director of Conservation International in Ecuador, says the new type of contract is unstable. “The race to bring order requires stability,” he says. Ecuador’s biological public service law stipulates that these contracts, by their legal nature, do not provide stability. Those hired in this way, unlike those named, are not entitled to severance pay or retirement bonuses.
In addition, the Executive Function Optimization Plan, ordered through President Len Moreno in August 2019 to reduce the participation of state-owned enterprises by 10%, also limits the duration of those contracts to one year. When this period expires, they are automatically terminated.
The letter, sent through the monetary coordinator of the Ministry of Environment and Water, also states that rangers must go through a “human capacity assessment” procedure until 30 June. If it is decided in this proceeding that your positions are not necessary, the roles will not be approved through the Labor Relations Department and the Department of Finance. In other words, those positions will cease to exist.
Tarcisio Hail, a modeler environment minister, believes that converting running arrangements is a smokescreen. “They give park rangers a false expectation that they won’t be fired for good, although in the long run the nature of informal contracts means that’s what’s going to happen,” he says. Hail adds that even the transitional appointment they had before was not satisfactory, as more rangers are needed safely in the tasks. Now the scenario will be worse because, he says, the new form of contract is absurd and destructive not only for park rangers but also for protected spaces in Ecuador.
The lack of creation of new appointments may simply be the objective of the measure. Gabriela Obando, an expert in administrative law, says she believes that new guards are likely to be hired the year, as this in some respects would be a saving for the state. However, in the long run, Obando says, “there would be no savings, but twice as expensive because the new guards would have to be trained for both a year and both.” This, in addition to not being a monetary waste, would also be a setback in terms of environmental conservation.
Conservation International’s Suarez said he was very involved with what the rangers are going through. He says that “without the rangers there is no conservation and no conservation there is no development”. In addition, it requires a change in the belief of maintaining spaces as an expense to that of an investment.
This is the first time that state cuts have affected environmental agencies in Ecuador. On March 4, President Moreno merged the Ministry of the Environment with the Ministry of Water (SENAGUA), which generated controversy as it may simply mean the relief of resources for the environment.
In 2019, the Environment Department’s budget exceeds $24 million, while SENAGUA’s budget exceeds $19 million. However, until 2020, the environmental budget cut about $2 million and the water budget in half. From now on, the newly merged branch will have to manage more projects with less money, jeopardizing conservation and environmental coverage in the country.
Consulted on the park ranger stage, the ministry responded with an official sent on 23 June via WhatsApp. In that document, Minister Proao reiterated his position that “at no time has the technical staff of workers who raise prices be fired, which maintains continuity.” He repeats what Proao said on social media: “Protected spaces are at the center of the country’s herbal heritage” and “the Ministry of Environment and Water would never leave them without their guardians.” However, contractual instability and evaluation processes could, in just one year, make this precisely what is happening.
Header image: Park rangers are the custodians of the herbal resources of the 56 areas of Ecuador. Image through Augusto Granda.
This story was first reported through Latam’s team on Mongabay and was posted here on our Latam online page on June 25, 2020.
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