Napo, Ecuador – As a child, Leo Cerda would spend his mornings helping his family cultivate cassava, plantains and other fruits and vegetables in their chakra, a traditional garden in Kichwa communities.
In the Ecuadorian village of Napo, traditions form a large part of family and spiritual life. At around 3am each morning, before heading to their chakras, many families take part in a traditional tea ceremony. Once freed from his farming duties at around midday, Cerda recalled running to the river to swim and fish with friends. Fish would later be grilled on an open fire and eaten with large amounts of fruit.
“As a kid, I got to enjoy nature,” Cerda told Al Jazeera.
These days, however, the 34-year-old spends his days chasing gold miners from his community and campaigning against those who threaten to destroy his ancestral lands. He can no longer swim or fish in the rivers, he says, because they are contaminated.
“Within three years, everything changed,” Cerda said. “The land has been poisoned. There are no more fish, except ones that are contaminated. People eat them, and they get sicker and sicker.”
A recent study carried out in mining areas of the northeastern Andean foothills of the Ecuadorian Amazon, close to where Cerda lives, revealed high concentrations of toxic metals. They are up to 352 times above permissible limits established by environmental guidelines. For communities along the Anzu, Jatunyacu and Napo rivers, their cancer risk is up to three times greater than the acceptable threshold.
Mariana Capparelli, a researcher who contributed to the study, told Al Jazeera it was “very sad to see the conditions these communities are exposed to as well as the total degradation of an ecosystem that is so important for the entire planet”.
“The effects on human health are devastating,” she said.
