Mapping to Protect Indigenous Peoples in Voluntary Isolation: Lessons from Geographical Disputes in Yasuní

Written on 02 January 2026. Posted in News

BY MANUEL BAYÓN JIMÉNEZ AND AMANDA YÉPEZ SALAZAR FOR INDIGENOUS DEBATES

In 2008, the government introduced the Yasuní-ITT Initiative, which proposed leaving the oil reserves of Block 43 underground in exchange for international financial contributions that would acknowledge the ecological debt of the Global North. However, the initiative was not successful and, in 2013, the government wrote off the proposal and authorised oil exploitation. Society quickly organised: it denounced such destruction and demonstrated, through maps, the extent of encroachment onto the territory and lives of the Indigenous Peoples living in isolation. Finally, with the geographical evidence gathered, a favourable ruling was obtained from the Inter-American Court of Human Rights in defence of Yasuní.

Throughout their history, Amazonian peoples have relied on mobility for two main reasons. First, the nature of the soil, which becomes impoverished quickly under cultivation, has given rise to shifting systems of land clearance. Second, social relations have been organised around exchange and conflict, in duality between rivers and the hinterland. This constant movement meant that the borders between Portuguese and Spanish territorial domains were only vaguely established during the colonial period, and later during the rubber boom of the late 19^th and early 20^th centuries.

Ideas of ownership, boundaries and exclusivity over space became more entrenched during the republican era, particularly following the agrarian reforms of the 20^th century. All these colonisation processes brought violent encounters and the genocide of many Amazonian peoples. In this context, a technique emerged that endures to this day: the setting of boundaries. This geometric method imposed limits between agrarian–extractive colonisation and the Indigenous territories. The Amazonian Indigenous Peoples were compelled to set boundaries against the parcelling out of their living spaces by declaring their own territories.

Those Indigenous Peoples who remained in voluntary isolation, however, continued their nomadic lifestyle. Not as if “nothing had happened” but by pushing against the borders and areas in which they had never been included, and where their presence was acknowledged only through the violence of colonial occupation. For this reason, territories created with Geographic Information Systems (GIS) to protect Indigenous Peoples in voluntary isolation are continually challenged by their lived, shifting dynamics.

The Tagaeri and Taromenane in Ecuador

Recognition of Ecuador’s Indigenous Peoples in Voluntary Isolation was a gradual process, beginning with the establishment of the Tagaeri-Taromenane Intangible Zone (ZITT) in 1999. The ZITT was created on the basis of the areas into which these peoples had been gradually forced during the 20^th and 21^st centuries. However, the zone excluded areas occupied by roads and oil wells—the very causes of their ongoing confinement—already exposing a limitation in its definition: their territory was made up of zones of exclusion, ranked clearly beneath extractive interests.

Alongside the ZITT, a 10-kilometre buffer zone was introduced as a transitional belt surrounding the protected area. Within this buffer, oil operations were allowed to continue where they had already begun but further expansion was restricted. The Ecuadorian state enshrined the intangibility of the ZITT in the 2008 Constitution and has since delineated the areas of influence of different Indigenous groups in voluntary isolation through the use of zones.

In 2008, the Yasuní-ITT Initiative became pivotal. It proposed keeping the oil reserves of Block 43 (including the Ishpingo, Tiputini and Tambococha fields) underground in exchange for international financial contributions that would acknowledge the ecological debt of the Global North. In this way, the country was moving towards climate justice by safeguarding one of the most biodiverse places on Earth and the home of Indigenous Peoples in Voluntary Isolation. As a result, in 2012 the Ministry of the Environment defined four zones of influence—three of them lying outside of the ZITT zone—thus recognising life and territoriality beyond the boundaries of the designated conservation area.

In its efforts to trace the presence of Indigenous Peoples in Voluntary Isolation, the Ecuadorian state has relied on methods such as identifying visual signs, gathering accounts from neighbouring communities, and carrying out drone flights to determine where these peoples live. Such areas are inferred through sightings of people, dwellings, crops, or objects, as well as through records of violent encounters. The state has traditionally justified their zones by linking these points together and delineating areas of presumed greater presence. Whether from a conservationist or extractivist standpoint, this methodology has remained narrow, grounded in a binary presence/absence approach and in the points-to-polygons logic typical of Geographic Information Systems (GIS).

The Struggle Against Oil Exploitation in Yasuní

In 2013, the Ecuadorian government cancelled the Yasuní-ITT Initiative to make way for oil extraction in Block 43. The Ministry of Justice effectively redrew the map, reducing the number of zones from four to three and removing the locations of oil operations in Block 43—contrary to the state’s previous stance. Following the cancellation, the YASunidos movement emerged, initially organising protests and later activating the constitutional mechanism to collect signatures for a popular referendum aimed at halting oil exploitation in Block 43.

Oil extraction was justified under the promise of minimal environmental impact, claiming that only 1 in 1,000^th (one-tenth of 1 %) of the block would be exploited, and that impact would be measured solely in terms of deforestation. This disregarded Environmental Impact Assessments of the oil activities, which documented deforestation as well as areas affected directly and indirectly by noise pollution, air emissions, water discharges, and seismic activity—ultimately impacting over 19 % of the oil block, 190 times the promised figure. In response, a geographical struggle unfolded over the following years, with two major milestones: monitoring of oil activities and challenging Decree 251.

Field inspections sought to demonstrate that the true impact would far exceed the limits approved by the National Assembly. The movement brought together civil society, scientific institutions such as the Colectivo de Geografía Crítica del Ecuador, GeoYasuní, and the MAAP, which, in collaboration with YASunidos and the Human Rights Alliance, exposed the opacity of oil operations and their severe consequences. Satellite imagery revealed extensive clearings and gas flares associated with oil extraction, while mapping from Environmental Impact Assessments highlighted incursions into the Buffer Zone, direct environmental impacts, and skewed oil wells.

The State’s geographical Inaccuracy

At the same time, the actions of this coalition, together with the Ombudsman’s Office, enabled a field inspection in 2019 that revealed the use of outdated technology and the disproportionate impact of oil activities: road construction altering the topography, the presence of gas flares and decompression facilities, as well as land clearings and noise levels exceeding those typical of industrial areas. These findings led to a series of legal actions that slowed the advance of the oil exploitation. Faced with the abundance of evidence presented by civil society in these proceedings, the Ecuadorian state resorted to showing only videos featuring grotesquely inaccurate maps and 3D animations depicting idealised scenarios that did not exist in reality.

Decree 251, issued in 2019, sought to expand the ZITT while permitting new areas of oil exploitation within the Buffer Zone, effectively leaving eight times as much territory unprotected. In response, the coalition opposing oil extraction used legislative and judicial channels to nullify this reduced protection. A significant victory was achieved when the Ministers of the Environment and Energy were sanctioned by the National Assembly. In 2022, the Constitutional Court annulled the decree’s articles that allowed new exploitation, including the 320 oil wells planned for the Ishpingo area within Block 43. Throughout these processes, mapping produced by civil society proved crucial in demonstrating to the Constitutional Court the reality of oil operations, their standards, and their spatial extent.

Finally, the popular referendum promoted by the YASunidos collective took place in 2023, after 10 years of fraud and delays, resulting in 59 % of voters in favour of leaving the oil in Block 43 underground, despite Ecuador’s severe economic and social crisis in recent years. During the referendum campaign and official debate, the geographical dimension of the oil exploitation narrative played a crucial role. Demonstrating the results of geographical inspections in Yasuní and explaining why the Constitutional Court had considered Decree 251 an infringement on the rights of Indigenous Peoples in Voluntary Isolation were key factors in raising public awareness among Ecuadorian voters.

The ruling of the Inter-American Court of Human Rights

In 2025, the Inter-American Court of Human Rights (IACHR), whose rulings are binding on all OAS member states, issued the first judgement in the Americas recognising the rights of Indigenous Peoples in Voluntary Isolation. After 15 years of presenting evidence to the Ecuadorian state, the social coalition of Indigenous movements and environmental organisations had achieved an historic verdict: the Court found the State responsible for violating the rights of the Tagaeri and Taromenane Indigenous Peoples in Voluntary Isolation and ordered a series of reparative measures.

The IACtHR recognised the geographical evidence presented regarding oil exploitation, particularly oil spills and directional drilling operations. This was reflected in the arguments put forward by the Colectivo de Geografía Crítica del Ecuador in the Court’s ruling, such as petroleum contamination (see map of oil spills) and the encroachment of oil wells into areas legally reserved for the Indigenous Peoples in Voluntary Isolation in Yasuní (see map of areas proposed for expanded oil activity). The ruling mandates strict limitations on oil activities and prohibits the construction of new infrastructure. It also instructs the government to expand the protected areas to more accurately reflect the territories actually occupied and contested by the Indigenous Peoples in Voluntary Isolation.

However, an additional challenge remains—one that falls to the social and geographical sciences in dialogue with the various Indigenous Peoples (Waorani, Kichwa, Shuar) and the peasant communities with whom the Indigenous Peoples in Voluntary Isolation coexist in Yasuní: the need to move beyond a binary logic of protection. While the zones of the ZITT and the circles of presence have proved invaluable as visual and judicial tools to illustrate State and oil-related aggressions against Indigenous Peoples in Voluntary Isolation, the multiplicity of territorial logics among different communities demands approaches that go beyond rigid boundaries, borders, and prohibitions on activities.

The struggle of Ecuador’s Indigenous Peoples and civil society demonstrates the need for more nuanced ways of representing space, alongside fostering intercultural dialogue that can ensure the IACtHR ruling is implemented on the ground in meaningful and substantive terms. Only through agreement and the inclusion of the proposals and needs of the communities that share Yasuní can long-term protective measures be effectively achieved.

Manuel Bayón Jiménez holds a degree in Geography (University of Valladolid) and a Master’s in Urban Studies (FLACSO Ecuador). He is currently a researcher at the Colegio de México, holds a PhD in Territorial Studies from the Karlsruher Institut für Technologie (KIT), and is a member of the Ecuadorian Critical Geography Collective and YASunidos.

Amanda Yépez Salazar holds a degree in Geography from PUCE-Ecuador and a Master’s in Territorial Development from FLACSO-Ecuador. She is part of the Colectivo de Geografía Crítica del Ecuador, where she serves as Co-Director of the School for the Defence of Territory.

Cover photo: Waorani Indigenous person in Yasuní National Park. Photo: Colectivo de Geografía Crítica del Ecuador

Tags: Indigenous Debates