In Ecuador’s battle of toad vs. road, toad wins

An Ecuadorian court invoked Ecuador’s rights of nature laws in halting a highway project to protect the Jambato harlequin toad, requiring the government to prove construction won’t drive the species to extinction.

The Jambato harlequin toad

The court blocked construction of a Cotopaxi Province highway after ruling the work will pose an “imminent and irreversible threat” to the rights of a critically endangered toad, a decision that recognizes the country’s unique constitutional protections for nature.

The opinion, issued Monday by Judge Milton Gustavo Hernández Andino of a provincial court in Pujilí, suspended all work on the planned highway, citing the risk it poses to the Jambato harlequin toad — a species found nowhere else on earth but in the parish of Angamarca, in Cotopaxi Province.

Ecuador is the only country in the world whose constitution recognizes nature’s rights to exist, regenerate and be restored, though hundreds of court rulings, local laws, nonbinding declarations and other initiatives worldwide recognize nature’s rights in some form.

The Jambato harlequin toad is recognizable by its bright orange belly and glossy black and white back. Water is essential to its survival. During the breeding season, females lay their eggs in clear streams and rivers, the tadpoles developing beneath riverbed stones. Protecting the toad’s interconnected terrestrial and aquatic habitats is critical to its survival.”