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The company Rainforest Ecuador rejects the accusations of dispossession of land from peasants

The company Rainforest Ecuador rejects the accusations of dispossession of land from peasants

The company Rainforest Environmental Services Ecuador (RFEE) rejected the accusations of an alleged threat of dispossession of land to farmers of the communes of Selva Alegre and Quichinche, located respectively in the municipalities of Otavalo, province of Imbabura; and San José de Minas, province of Pichincha.

Last Saturday, based on a statement from the VILLAGE FOUNDATIONthe company described as wrong and defamatory the accusations of dispossession of lands, hacking of carbon markets and criminalization of the inhabitants.

The conflict dates back to 2005, when the UCPEIN company acquired an 80-hectare property in the Selva Alegre parish and, according to ALDEA, registered “an ‘extensive and clarifying’ fraudulent writing” that supposedly “It greatly modifies the extension of a property, going from approximately 100 hectares to 9,190 hectares.”

“With this fraudulent deed, the company intended to dispossess local owners (at least 162 properties), most of whom have legalized and registered deeds”indicated the Foundation in its statement.

Contrasting versions

According to ALDEA, RFEE “bought” in 2020 the property despite having been warned of these problems, something denied by the company’s executive president, Lilian Jara, and its general manager, Víctor Hugo Macías, who clarified that the sale was made in 2021 without their knowledge of the social problem.

“The vendors omitted all the social problem that I had”, indicated Jara, who considers herself cheated by UCPEIN, against which they reserve the possibility of taking legal action, something that she acknowledges that they have not yet done.

They did take legal action against the municipality that withdrew the cadastre code and which they also point to as responsible for the conflict for having collected the sales tax, which according to the RFEE they should not have done if there were irregularities.

“We are just as victims as they are in this problem, and what we want is to provide a solution. We promise to divide the lot with the people who have possession papers”said Jara, whose company acquired the plot of land to carry out forest conservation, reforestation and bioeconomy projects.

“We are going to divide the entire intervened area, so that people can be in peace and calm, in order to conserve the forest, which is really threatened by the change in land use (for agricultural activities of planting sugar cane) ”, added.

Reforestation and bioeconomy

Likewise, he denied that the company has taken the communities to court to usurp their lands, accusing them of invaders and kidnappers, beyond filing a complaint as a result of three people from the company being temporarily detained by members of the community during an inspection of land.

Jara assured that this complaint has been left in “’stand-by’” (detained) with the intention of redirecting the relationship, but admitted that they have not been working in the area for about a year, for which reason “surprised” that the community now make a “smear campaign”

His intention in the area is to carry out projects for the conservation of the spectacled beara species in danger of extinction due to the loss of forests, so his idea is to protect the existing forest and reforest more than 2,500 hectares that had been cleared to plant sugarcane crops, which degrade the soil.

At the same time, they plan to implement sustainable development and bioeconomy projects, such as a vanilla and mushroom project to supply supermarkets, as well as a scientific research center in the Pichincha area to rescue endemic orchids.

Fountain; EFE

Source: Gestion

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