News stories by Gonzalo Ortiz* - Tierramérica

When the trunks of the trees move with every step you take, you know you are in a swamp. This is what happens when you walk over the seemingly firm and vegetation-covered ground over what was once a pit used to dump oil sludge in the Ecuadorian Amazon rainforest.

The historic reintroduction of giant tortoises is under way on Pinta Island, where not a single one of the famous animals that gave their name to the Ecuadorian archipelago of Galápagos remained.

The government of Ecuador has issued its third request in eight months to Colombia for complete and detailed information on alleged telephone espionage committed against Ecuador's President Rafael Correa.

The spectacular glacier Number 15 of Altisana, one of the Ecuadorean capitals' sources of potable water, lost at least 36 percent of its original mass in the last 50 years.

Indiscriminate hunting and ecological changes in the Andean highlands have dramatically reduced the condor population in Ecuador. Experts say there are likely no more than 50 of these large birds of prey in this country. A century ago their numbers were in the thousands.