COP15 ON LOCATION | Carolina Zambrano-Barragán | Ecuador | Part 5

Climate Change Leaders at COP15.

Raw & unedited. Filmed on location inside Bella Centre during Cop15. Carolina Zambrano Barragán - Undersecretary of Climate Change at Ministry of Environment, Ecuador. Interviewed by Joan Russow - Global Compliance Research Project. Filmed by Cory Morningstar - Canadians for Action on Climate Change.

Highlights: Includes thoughts and comments regarding the Ecuadorian Assembly Approving Constitutional Rights for Nature.

The mainstream media barely even covered it ... this amazing feat was considered #18 of the top 25 censored stories of 2008.

The Ecuadorian Constitutional Assembly has changed the world. Ecuador has become the first country in the world to codify a new system of environmental protection based on rights.

They have approved legislation that has transformed nature and ecosystems in Ecuador from mere things into entities with legal rights to exist and flourish.

It's the leadership we so desperately need in the face of accelerating climate change. Other countries should follow such strong leadership.

To take the idea of individual human rights and give them to entities and systems that are hard to define either as individual or human is revolutionary. An idea whose time has come.

On July 7, 2008 the 130-member Ecuador Constitutional Assembly, elected countrywide to rewrite the country's Constitution, voted to approve articles that recognize rights for nature and ecosystems.

On September 28, 2008, the people of Ecuador voted by an overwhelming majority (64%) to approve the new constitution.

http://www.celdf.org/Default.aspx?tabid=538

Ecuador: A member of ALBA | Bolivarian Alternative for the Americas

Latin America was the first place where the US imposed the most callous economic system ever seen: neo-liberal capitalism. Starting in Chile in 1973, the US used its power, along with its control over the IMF and the World Bank, to force governments across Latin America to adopt neo-liberal economic policies. This has seen Latin American countries embrace trade liberalization, financial liberalization, privatization, and labor market flexibility. Of course, US multinationals benefited from this. They have snapped up ex-state owned assets throughout Latin America at bargain basement prices. With the reduction of tariffs and the advent of "free" trade, US multinationals have also flooded Latin America with cheap exports. This has seen US multinationals making massive profits. The people of Latin America have paid for this. Since the advent of neo-liberalism, inequality in Latin America has grown, and millions of people have lost their jobs along with their access to healthcare and education.

Recently, however, a wind of change has been blowing across Latin America. Starting with anti-IMF riots in Caracas in 1989, and the rise of the Zapatistas in the early 1990s, people in Latin America have started resisting neo-liberalism and US domination. Within the last few years, a number of progressive leaders -- for example, Chavez in Venezuela, Morales in Bolivia, and Correa in Ecuador -- have come to power on the back of this resistance. For these governments, breaking with neo-liberalism has been a priority.2 Perhaps the most important initiative for that has been the creation of the Bolivarian Alternative for the Americas (ALBA). Indeed, ALBA is aimed at striking a major blow against US hegemony, the IMF, the World Bank, "free" trade, and neo-liberalism in general.

Read more about ALBA:
http://www.venezuelanalysis.com/analysis/3154

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News & Politics

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• Visionary
• Ethics
• System Change
• Bella Centre
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