Jaguar Mortar
Chorrera, 1500-300 BC (Late Formative)
Works such as this one are thought to have served as ritual mortars for the preparation of hallucinogenic snuffs, to be inhaled by shamans to facilitate their interaction with the spirit realm. Although this vessel exhibits some fine scratches within the bowl, it does not seem to have received extensive use. It is possible that this particularly elegant version was created specifically for mortuary internment- it may have thus been used a single time, containing freshly prepared snuff for a deceased shaman to take with him into the spirit realm.
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(Nov. 29) Indigenous Group Wins Fight to Reclaim Ancestral Land After Being Forced Out 8 Decades Ago
In a major victory for Indigenous rights, an Ecuadorian appeals court has sided with the Siekopai Nation to regain ownership of their ancestral homeland in the Amazon rainforest. The Siekopai people were forced out of their territory, called Pë’këya, over 80 years ago during the Peru-Ecuador War in the 1940s. This ruling will mark the first time the Ecuadorian government grants a land title to an Indigenous community whose ancestral land is now a protected area.
The Siekopai are on the brink of extinction with a population of only 800 people in Ecuador and 1,200 in Peru. In a statement, Siekopai Nation President Elias Piyahuaje said, “We are fighting for the preservation of our culture on this planet. Without this territory, we cannot exist as Siekopai people. Today is a great day for our nation. Until the end of time, this land will be ours.”
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Source
EDIT:
Source
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In the event that you need an emergency moth to improve your week and see you into the weekend... Please enjoy this incredibly fluffy and delightful beast, captured by the late great Andreas Kay in Ecuador
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Mountain tapir Tapirus pinchaque
Observed by alexanderhagge, CC BY-NC
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crazy stuff happening in ecuador right now. a state of emergency has been declared, not only because a narco boss escaped prison, but because the country is in total chaos. a few examples taken from twitter:
A armed group takes hostages live on a newscast
Armed people try to kidnap people in a university, everyone runs in panic
Group of students and a teacher making a barricade inside a classroom
Prisoners take hostages in a jail after riots
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Ecuadorians voted overwhelmingly on Sunday to reject oil drilling in a section of Yasuní National Park, the most biodiverse area of the imperiled Amazon rainforest.
Nearly 60% of Ecuadorian voters backed a binding referendum opposing oil exploration in Block 43 of the national park, which is home to uncontacted Indigenous tribes as well as hundreds of bird species and more than 1,000 tree species.
[...]
Sunday's vote makes Ecuador the first country to restrict fossil fuel extraction through the citizen referendum process, according to Nemonte Nenquimo, a Waorani leader.
"Yasuní, an area of one million hectares, is one of the most biodiverse places on Earth," Nenquimo wrote in a recent op-ed for The Guardian. "There are more tree species in a single hectare of Yasuní than across Canada and the United States combined. Yasuní is also the home of the Tagaeri and Taromenane communities: the last two Indigenous peoples living in voluntary isolation in Ecuador."
"Can you imagine the immense size of one million hectares?" Nenquimo added. "The recent fires in Quebec burned a million hectares of forest. And so the oil industry hopes to burn Yasuní. It has already begun in fact, with the Ishpingo-Tambococha-Tiputini (ITT) oil project on the eastern edge of the park."
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Clouds of mist melt into the undulating canopy of a cloud forest at El Reventador, Ecuador.
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Mindo glass frog
Only found in north-west Ecuador, in the Río Manduriacu reserve in the foothills of the Andes
Photo by Jaime Culebras
Wildlife Photographer of the Year
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no soy persona con muchos mutuals, menos alguien con el ancho de banda para que lo que digo llegue a todo el mundo, pero si hay algún ecuatoriano que lea esto.. fuerzas. no quiero ni puedo decir que estaremos mejor, me muero del miedo y se me hace puñete el corazón de pensar en mí familia, en amigos y en todos los que son en este momento víctimas del narcoterrorismo.
y si este post llega a otras personas, por favor infórmense del estado de mi país, no tengo alientos ya para explicar la situación, pero al menos la visibilidad ayudará a saber que no estamos solos.
Más que el sol contemplamos lucir.
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Booted racket-tail hummingbird (Ocreatus underwoodii) in Ecuador. Photo by Nicolas Reusens.
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Ecuadorian woman, Ecuador, by John and Lisa Merrill
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"A coral reef with flourishing marine life has been discovered off Ecuador's Galapagos Islands.
A scientific expedition traced the 1.2-mile-long (2km) reef to the top of an underwater mountain formed by volcanic activity - 400m (1,300ft) deep.
Ecuador's environment minister, Jose Davalos, said the exploration team "found the first totally pristine coral reef... on the summit of a submarine mountain".
The previously unknown underwater colony comes as a surprise to scientists, who believed only one reef existed in the volcanic archipelago - Wellington - along the coast of the tiny Darwin Island.
Reefs in the area were severely degraded during El Niño weather in 1982-83 when the ocean surface warmed to devastating levels.
However, the newly discovered reef survived the event and has more than 50% living coral.
Mr. Davalos tweeted: "Galapagos surprises us again."
Senior marine researcher at the Charles Darwin Foundation and expedition participant, Stuart Banks, said: "This is very important at a global level because many deepwater systems are degraded."
He added the coral dated back several thousand years.
Ecuador expanded the Galapagos marine reserve by more than 20,000 square miles last year to protect endangered migratory species between the archipelago and Cocos Island in Costa Rica.
Many endangered animals live on the islands including giant tortoises, albatrosses and cormorants."
-via Sky News UK, 4/18/23
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