Ecuador president’s wife planning to build luxury resort in a protected forest

The members of the commune of Oloncito lit a bonfire and cooked fish and green bananas to endure the night’s vigil on the shores of a mangrove area called Esterillo de Oloncito. Twenty-three years ago, they fought for the authorities to declare this place a protective forest and vegetation, a status that grants them constitutional rights. Oloncito is a small Ecuadorian commune in the province of Santa Elena where around 300 families live. The mangrove that they are monitoring to prevent its destruction contains 2.5 hectares of endemic trees, birds and five species of mangrove that reach all the way to the Pacific. The community is currently in a dispute with the presidential family, which spends part of its leisure time at their beach house just 500 meters from the commune.

In mid-2023, the residents saw unusual activity: technicians showed up to measure the land. They then learned that there was a luxury real estate project being planned, called Echo. Spanning 6,300 square meters, its promoters are planning to construct four buildings with 24 homes, green areas, parking spaces and a boardwalk. This is all the information they had until May 6, when heavy machinery arrived to cut down the forest and fill in the estuary. The community members opposed it, and the next day the area was surrounded by police and military tanks. Since then, the forest is being permanently monitored by the residents.

The project is being carried out by a company named Vinazin S.A, founded by the president of Ecuador, Daniel Noboa, in 2016. Five years later, Noboa sold it to Daniel Correia, administrative manager of the shipping company of the corporation owned by the president’s family, one of the richest in the country. In 2022, the president’s wife, Lavinia Valbonesi, bought the company’s shares, as evidenced by the records of the Superintendency of Companies. Today, she is the sole shareholder of the company that intends to cut down the forest in Oloncito.

The real estate project of the president’s wife obtained environmental permits from the Ministry of the Environment, led by Sade Fritschi, a 26-year-old minister who has been questioned over her lack of experience managing one of the most important and complex portfolios in Ecuador. At the time of her appointment, her resume showed experience as a cashier at her family’s restaurant, waiting tables, organizing tourist tours and working as a sales representative until she became director of Noboa’s election campaign in Galápagos. She did not hold any university degrees until last April, when two records showed up in the registry of the Ministry of Higher Education.

Despite the impact on a protective forest that is legally untouchable, the permit was granted to Valbonesi’s company two weeks after Noboa assumed power. “A simple permit was authorized that can be processed by anyone online, without considering the impact that a work of this magnitude can have on the population of Oloncito, which does not have a sewage system and is preserving a protective forest,” explains Andrea Fiallos, director of the Iguana Foundation, which works on environmental conservation.

The land where the sea-facing complex will be built has belonged to the Noboa family for many years, says Fiallos. With the passage of time and the impact of the El Niño phenomenon of 1983, there has been erosion of the mangrove, and the limits of the land have changed. Now the family intends to recover that lost land by filling in the estuary. Feasibility studies were carried out by Geosísmica, a company founded by Noboa’s super minister, Roberto Luque, who was assigned the portfolios of Transportation and Public Works. After the energy crisis, Noboa also entrusted him with the Ministry of Energy.

EL PAÍS has tried to contact Valbonesi and the Ministry of the Environment, but received no reply. This newspaper also reached out to the general manager of Vinazin S.A, María Beatriz Moreno, who also holds the position of national president of Noboa’s political party, ADN. After two days of silence, the president himself spoke out the way he usually does: on the social network X, where he implied that his opponents are trying to discredit him. “This Government does not wear itself out in the attempts of obvious politicians to start a campaign ahead of time,” the president wrote. Noboa broke his silence after the Prosecutor’s Office decided to initiate an investigation into the real estate project.

“There is no political flag here,” responded Jhon Reyes, president of the commune. What they oppose, he said, “is the cutting down of the protective forest.” The population of Oloncito relies on the revenue generated by tourism in the coastal area and is concerned that the work includes filling in part of the estuary, which is one of the tourist attractions that they have managed to recover since the declaration of a protective forest 23 years ago. The inhabitants are also concerned that filling the estuary will reduce the flow through which the rainwater drains, which in the winter creates a strong current throughout the Chongón-Colonche mountain range that ends in Oloncito. Without the estuary, the commune could flood and even disappear, as has happened in many other areas of the country.

After criticism about the felling of 21 carob trees and the presence of police and military tanks, operators withdrew from the site on Wednesday. Even so, the community members remain vigilant with the uncertainty of not knowing what step the first lady’s company will take next. Valbonesi is one of the most visible faces of the government due to her high popularity on social media, where she shares her family life and her social work at the presidential palace, Carondelet, even though she does not have an official position or a budget to execute projects within the government.

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