Ecuadorian Authorities Target Climate Activists, Caravana Climatica

For Immediate Release busdetained

Rising Tide Press Contacts:

Scott Parkin, 415-235-0596 (U.S. mobile)

sparki@risingtidenorthamerica.org

Cristian Guerrero: +593 983004458

caravanaclimatica@gmail.com

Chris Eaton, +51 989025127

chris@chriseaton.net

Ecuadorian Authorities Target Climate Activists, Caravana Climatica

Rising Tide Mexico Member Facing Serious Charges

Lima, Peru– Last week, the Ecuadoran government harassed a group of climate activists with La Caravana Climatica and then confiscated their bus on their way to the United Nations climate talks in Lima, Peru. Later authorities charged the driver, Cristian Guerrero, for driving with the wrong permits which carries a penalty of three years in prison.

La Caravana Climatica is a group of Latin American climate justice activists that has traveled from Northern Mexico in a converted school bus to bring the demands of people around Latin America to the this week’s climate talks in Lima. Along the way, the group documented and supported dozens of communities of Indigenous people fighting fossil fuels and other carbon intensive extraction.

In Ecuador, the Caravan had joined with YASunidos, an environmental group working to stop petroleum extraction in Yasuni National Park in the Amazonian rainforest. Members of YASunidos and the Caravan have continued on to Lima, and are joining with other movements during the negotiations.  “Authorities in Ecuador don’t want their extraction plans to be exposed in the international spotlight of the COP20.” said Braulio Gutíerez, a Mexican climate activist currently in Lima.

The harassment of La Caravana Climatica comes at the same time as the news about the murder of Shuar Indigenous leader José Isidro Tendetza Antún. Tendetza had been opposed to a major extraction project sponsored by the Ecuadoran government.

Read the petition in support of La Caravana Climatica: http://bit.ly/1vDqV5N

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Rising Tide North America is an all volunteer climate justice network with over 50 chapters in Canada, Mexico and the United States that works to confront the root causes of climate change.