Ecuador : Indicators

The Organic Law on Transparency and Access to Public Information is the general law stipulating the obligations of all public authorities; however, it should be emphasised that it does not consider sector information parameters. As far as forest regulations are concerned, the Environmental Management Law and the Forest Law state that the Ministry of Environment (MAE) will compile information of an environmental nature, and that this information will be available to the public. One important step forward is the Forest Governance Model published in 2011, which recognises transparency as one of the key elements for implementing effective forest governance. Although these provisions exist, it is quite difficult to find out what progress has been made by the MAE in forest matters, because the dates on which the information is updated are not specified systematically on the website, except in the news section.

The MAE has created a Unified System of Environmental Information (SUIA) which seeks to integrate all the environmental information in a single location, to generate indicators and access diagnostics for the public as a whole. This system is made up of four modules: Geographical, Documentary, Statistical and Automation of institutional processes. The SUIA was implemented in February 2012.

In parallel, the MAE is implementing a new System of Forest Administration (SAF2) which will generate a national database of players linked with forest activity, and online reports of forest activities: this will include administrative processes, forest management and monitoring and commercialisation of timber and forest products in the country, including imports and exports of forest products. The MAE began implementation of the SAF2 between May and June 2012, with workshops on a local level designed to train and extend the benefits to the players involved in the wood production chain in the plantations module for 18 provinces nationwide. Apart from this, there was no new information available on the MAE website when this Bulletin was being prepared.