Ecuador expands the Paute River protective forest by 6,201 hectares

The Ministry of Environment and Energy expanded the “15 Areas of the Paute River Basin Interior” Protective Forest and Vegetation by 6,201.17 hectares, increasing from 122,351.90 to 128,553.07 hectares. The decision is contained in Ministerial Agreement No. MAE-MAE-2026-0095-AM, signed in Quito on October 5, 2026, and published in the Official Registry, Third Supplement No. 396, on Friday, October 23, 2026, in the Executive Branch Agreements section. This instrument replaces Article 1 of Ministerial Agreement No. 292 of July 30, 1985, which had declared those areas with a surface area of 195,162 hectares.

The agreement is signed by Minister Juan Carlos Damián Blum Baquero, appointed by Executive Decree No. 376 on May 7, 2026, in exercise of the authority granted by numeral 1 of Article 154 of the Constitution. The ministry acts as the National Environmental Authority in accordance with Article 23 of the Organic Environmental Code and Article 286 of its Regulations, which empowers it to declare protective forests and vegetation through administrative acts, in coordination with the Single Water Authority.

A judicial ruling as the origin of the expansion

The expansion responds to compliance with the ruling issued on June 27, 2025, by Dr. Luis Guerrero, judge of the Judicial Unit for Family, Women, Children, and Adolescents based in Cuenca, within Protection Action No. 01204202406520. That resolution ordered the then-MAATE to adopt all necessary measures to preserve the rights of nature of the Irquis–Yanuncay protective forest area and the Irquis River.

On December 4, 2025, the Specialized Chamber for Criminal, Military Criminal, Police Criminal, and Traffic Matters of the Provincial Court of Justice of Azuay —with judges Jenny Monserrath Ochoa Chacón, Julia Elena Vázquez Moreno, and Tania Katerina Aguirre Bermeo as rapporteur— dismissed the ministry’s appeal and upheld the sentence, reforming the protection measures. It ordered the official expansion of the delimitation of the Yanuncay–Irquis forest, the incorporation of the Ughzhaloma zone, and the installation of mandatory ecological signage.

To this was added the request from the “San Sebastián de Sígsig” Indigenous Community, whose president, José Ángel Llanos Pacheco, requested on December 10, 2025, to initiate the expansion process in the micro-basins of the Santa Bárbara and Shío rivers, in the Sígsig canton. The technical support is report No. MAE-DB-2026-004-IT, from July 2026, approved by the acting Director of Forests, Pablo Alfredo Garcés López.

The three polygons being incorporated

The new polygon adds three expansion blocks:

• Area 2, East expansion polygon, micro-basins of the Yanuncay and Irquis rivers (Tarqui river sub-basin): 2,004.8 hectares.
• Area 3, North expansion polygon, micro-basins of the Shío and Santa Bárbara rivers (Gualaceo river sub-basin), block 1: 2,065.23 hectares.
• Area 3, South expansion polygon, block 2: 2,131.14 hectares.

The document also excludes two polygons from the micro-basins of the Shío and Santa Bárbara rivers: 2.57 and 5.79 hectares. The previous reduction of the original surface area is explained by the overlap absorbed following the declaration of the “Machángara-Tomebamba” and “Curiquingue-Gallocantana” protected areas, which were transferred to the National System of Protected Areas.

Use Prohibitions and Management Plan

Article 3 of the agreement prohibits all activities incompatible with its purposes within the declared area:

• Livestock activities and expansion of pastures.
• Extensive agriculture.
• Removal of vegetation cover.
• Opening of roads and use of machinery.
• Any other anthropic act that compromises soil stability or the integrity of the forest and the river.

The Management Plan is the responsibility of the Undersecretariat of Natural Heritage, through the Forestry Directorate, and the zonal directorates of Azuay, Cañar, Chimborazo, and Morona Santiago, in coordination with the municipal, provincial, cantonal, and parish decentralized autonomous governments.

Procedures, Validity, and Technical Support

Zonal Directorate 6 must notarize the agreement at a public notary and register it in the Property Registry of the Cuenca and Sígsig cantons. Subsequently, a copy will be sent to the Forestry Directorate for the forestry cadastre, and a certified copy will be sent to the Ministry of Economic and Productive Development and the GADs of the area so that they may incorporate it into their territorial planning plans, in accordance with Article 105 of the Organic Environmental Code. The agreement is effective from its publication in the Official Registry.

The technical report supporting the measure indicates that 96.83% of the proposed area corresponds to Zones of Very High Water Importance and that 31 authorizations for water use and exploitation depend on the ecological functionality of the territory. In the Santa Bárbara sector, 112 endemic species of vascular plants are recorded and 553.29 hectares have high and medium priority for ecological restoration; in Yanuncay–Irquis, 12.92 deforested hectares were detected between 2020 and 2022.

The expansion consolidates the polygon that supplies water to Cuenca and the rural parishes of the south, while restricting the agricultural frontier in the incorporated zones. The report itself recommends coordinating with the Single Water Authority, the GADs, the company ETAPA E.P., and the drinking water administration boards to maintain surveillance of the redelimited area.

Source: Official Registry, Third Supplement No. 396, Friday, October 23, 2026, Executive Branch – Agreements, p. 2 (official reference: Ministerial Agreement No. MAE-MAE-2026-0095-AM).