Purchase of endangered 23-hectare area: Successful legalization behind us
The process of legalization was incredibly challenging and demanding from all sides. Many obstacles stood in our way, both from the authorities and mining companies. Agustin and his family had to work tirelessly day and night to overcome all the challenges this journey brought. However, the result is more than a reward for all our efforts.
In our previous article, we informed you that we had initiated the land measurement and prepared the documentation for registration in the land registry. At the beginning, everything seemed to be progressing without major complications, but soon, the real challenges emerged.
During the process of diligently securing all the documentation and certificates for the land purchase and registration, our neighbor, from whom we were buying the land, was visited several times by a mining company. They tried to convince him not to sell the land to us and gradually offered him higher and higher amounts. He faced strong pressure, and we believed in his steadfastness.
However, on the day we were supposed to officially sign the purchase agreement, a shock awaited us. Our neighbor didn’t show up at the office at the agreed time, and we were uncertain about what was happening. We quickly went to his home and found a representative of the mining company trying to manipulatively persuade our neighbor to sell the land to their company once again. Our neighbor appeared completely exhausted from this entire situation, but he assured us that, despite the pressure exerted on him by the miners, he still wanted to sell the land to us. Nevertheless, he had an unresolved dilemma regarding his cows, which were on the land and would no longer have pasture. To expedite the process of the land legalization, we decided to help him by purchasing the cows.
So now, in addition to the new land, we also have seven cows and a new responsibility for them. What we will do with them, we don’t know yet. 🙂
Another interesting challenge was the election of a new president in Ecuador. At the time when we had all the notarized documents ready for property registration, a new president was elected, which led to the reissuance of document identification numbers. This meant that all the certificates we had successfully obtained with great effort had to be renewed, and we had to take them back to the authorities for approval once again.
There were several more similar situations, and we’d be delighted to share those stories with you on another occasion.
When we finally had all the valid documents and the purchase agreement signed, we submitted the property registration application to the office. This was a crucial step that would determine whether our land would be officially approved.
Despite our previous experiences, we were pleasantly surprised by the fast and smooth approval process of our land registration application, which officially transferred the land into the care of our organization, Život Postaru – Ruku Samay in Ecuador.
Ahead of us lie many challenges related to the protection and preservation of the natural wealth of the rainforest and its inhabitants, threatened by the expanding gold rush across South America.
However, we are now really happy that at least this beautiful part of the Earth is now protected from the threat of mining destruction, and in the coming years, it will become an integral part of the natural reserve we intend to create.
