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In a victory for Indigenous communities in Ecuador, the country’s highest court ruled on Friday that they must have a much stronger say over the oil, mining and other mineral extraction projects affecting their lands.

The decision was a blow to the ambitions of Ecuadorian president Guillermo Lasso, who plans to double oil production and expand mining in the coming years.

“We’re a small community, but we’ve accomplished something so big, so historic that it will serve other communities in their region who are experiencing the same problems with mining, oil and other extraction activities,” said Wider Guaramag, a member of the group. The A’i Kofán community in Sinangoe, in the north of the country, brought the case with legal representation from Amazon Frontlines, a nonprofit group.

According to the ruling, if an Indigenous community rejects a project, the government can still move forward in “exceptional circumstances”. But at the same time, he says, “a project that makes excessive sacrifices to the common rights of communities and nature cannot be undertaken under any circumstances.”

Brian Parker, an Amazon Frontlines attorney working on the case, said the decision represented a “major power shift” in the country. The government did what it wanted,” he said. “Now they have to get consent.”

A growing body of research is showing that nature is healthier in more than a quarter of the world’s lands ruled or owned by Indigenous people. Two major oil spills have contaminated the Ecuadorian Amazon since 2020, the most recent one just last week.

Mr Guaramag said indigenous communities in the region are against oil extraction.

The A’i Kofán community in Sinangoe is home to hundreds of people who live along the Aguarico River in northern Ecuador, where the foothills of the Andes meet the Amazon. Their cases have their origins in gold mining. Amazon has devastated regions As global prices have risen in recent years. When miners began illegally searching their land for gold, they organized community patrols and detained some of them. Then, in early 2018, they found heavy equipment on the riverbank across from their land. When they found out that the government had allowed it, they sued in a lower court and won. Gold mining concessions were revoked.

But their case did not end there. Ecuador’s highest court has chosen to weigh in, and its decision applies to all 14 of the country’s recognized Indigenous groups. Its territory includes 70 percent of the oil and mineral-rich Ecuadorian Amazon, according to Amazon Frontlines.

Lawyers said the case will resonate globally.

“This is by far one of the strongest decisions to date in support of free, prior and informed consent to Indigenous peoples,” said Oscar Soria, campaign director for Avaaz, a human rights group. “This is going to have huge implications.”