In 2022, Ecuador became the country with the most protected and heritage areas in South America, declaring 200,000 km² of its territorial sea in the Galápagos Islands as a protected area. This, added to the 90,000 km² of protected areas on the mainland, totals more than the country's continental landmass, which is approximately 284,000 km². Furthermore, since 2008, it has been the first country in the world to recognize the rights of nature in its constitution.
However, despite being an exporter of food, oil, and now gold, its population has lived in poverty for 500 years. This poverty and unequal distribution of wealth has led to childhood malnutrition and adult malnutrition characterized by obesity, especially on the coast and in cities. This is a product of the food revolution brought about by transnational food industries, such as Coca-Cola and others, and by the transportation revolution, which has turned sedentary lifestyles into a health and communications problem. For 70 years, the country has been fighting malnutrition, which initially began as a struggle against hypothyroidism due to iodine deficiency. This deficiency left serious consequences of endemic cretinism in the Andes of America. Now, Ecuador, Peru, and Bolivia are the countries with the largest populations of malnourished children, who have low birth weight, short stature, and, above all, intellectual disabilities or learning difficulties, primarily due to malnutrition during the first two years of life, when the brain experiences its greatest growth.
This problem, which the government of President Guillermo Lasso attempted to address through a health campaign following the one implemented for COVID-19, the plague that attacked the world starting in 2020, caused a collapse in Ecuador from March of that year due to the quarantine. This quarantine meant the closure of roads, airports, and ports, leaving streets deserted for two years, during which the population was confined to their homes. Students studied remotely from home, and private and public employees worked from home via the internet. Shopping was done online, which forever changed social relations in Ecuador. The use of face masks and poverty gave rise to thieves, drug dealers, and kidnappers who could hide their faces, resulting in the most brutal wave of violence this country has ever experienced.
This health and economic crisis allowed the wealthy of Guayaquil, linked for centuries to smuggling and banking, to finance their electoral campaigns with drug money. They effectively turned Ecuador's ports into their private property and simultaneously freed themselves from customs control, transforming Ecuador, and especially Guayaquil, into the main drug exporting port in South America. The coastal population became trapped by drug trafficking and money laundering, thanks to the country's dollarization since 1999 and the waves of migration that turned migrants into money launderers and illegal immigrants to the United States and Europe. This lifestyle of Ecuadorians, both inside and outside the country, operating outside the law, coupled with governments where IMF loans, tax evasion, public works projects, mining, drug trafficking, and politics translate into quick profits of millions of dollars, has led Ecuador to become the most violent country in Latin America after having been the most peaceful, and has caused tourism and foreign investment to flee the country.
Today, the information we receive indicates that everyone from presidents to police officers and soldiers is involved in drug trafficking, illegal mining, corruption, and murder. The justice system, something that was already a problem in the country from its inception, is now evident every day, as it has become a tool of politicians and a source of terror for its citizens.
Faced with this reality, the Ecotrackers Foundation, which promotes tourism in Ecuador, is struggling. However, now that it can register with the Ministry of Production and Foreign Trade, which has absorbed the defunct Ministry of Tourism, it believes its opportunity lies in exporting art, handicrafts, and eco-responsible natural products from protected and heritage areas. It also aims to promote domestic and international tourism focused on health, wellness, and sports in these regions, as tourism to the Galapagos Islands has become one of South America's main attractions.
Ecotrackers is compelled to create an online content production center that will position Ecuador as a hub for observing events in the Andes, the Amazon, and the Pacific, both within the continent and globally. It will also facilitate eco-responsible trade and promote health in the country's protected and heritage areas through an Ecuadorian-Ibero-American cultural center and a health center offering both in-person and online services.
