Morona-Santiago
Shuar 230,000-hectare territory hosts contested mining (Warintza, Mirador); 2024 saw internal Shuar governance crisis over company agreements. Illegal gold mining merged with organized crime. By 2026, mining both enriches and divides indigenous communities.
The Shuar people's 230,000-hectare ancestral territory in Morona Santiago became Ecuador's most contested mining frontier. Canadian company Solaris Resources' Warintza copper-gold project and Chinese-owned San Carlos Panantza and Mirador projects sit within the Cordillera del Cóndor—an ecologically sensitive zone where mineral wealth and indigenous resistance collide.
The 2024 conflict exposed fractures within Shuar governance. FICSH (143,000 Shuar across 500 communities) signed a cooperation agreement with Solaris in March 2024; PSHA (Shuar Arutam People) rejected it, filing complaints with the BC Securities Commission alleging the company obscured opposition. In July 2024, police entered FICSH headquarters without court order, evicting President Domingo Ankuash—who had been dismissed for making the mining agreement.
Meanwhile, illegal gold mining spread through Bomboiza, Gualaquiza, San Carlos de Limón. The Southern Amazon Corridor became organized crime territory: governmental abandonment, border proximity, and pandemic-worsened poverty created recruitment opportunities for criminal networks.
2026 trajectory: Warintza project advances through community agreements (renewed April 2024) while legal challenges continue internationally. The province tests whether indigenous communities can negotiate meaningful benefit-sharing or whether mining divides them against themselves. Formal and informal extraction proceed simultaneously.