Attorney Mario Melo Cevallos of Ecuador has spent 20 years advocating for Ecuador’s indigenous people. He helped the Quichua people of Sarayaku, in northeast Ecuador, obtain a 2012 Inter-American Court of Human Rights (IACHR) ruling against Ecuador in connection with exploration of an oilfield overlapping their territory. He also advocates on behalf of the region’s Tagaeri and Taromenane, nomadic indigenous people living in voluntary isolation in and near Yasuní National Park, a highly biodiverse expanse of Amazon rainforest where oil drilling has nevertheless been allowed. In 2003, some 30 Taromenane were killed by indigenous Waorani, who do not live in isolation and were apparently incited by illegal loggers. In 2013, over 20 Taromenane died in another such attack, a reprisal for the earlier murder of two elderly Waorani by Taromenane. IACHR hearings on a complaint against Ecuador in connection with these and a third case of such killings in 2006 ended last month. Melo, head of the Human Rights Center of Pontifical Catholic University of Ecuador, spoke with EcoAméricas’ Mercedes Alvaro.

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