Michele Bertelli

A decade after Indigenous leader Alicia Cahuiya made a speech in Ecuador's parliament to protest against oil exploration in the Amazon basin, she finally has something to celebrate.

In a first-of-its-kind national referendum last month, Ecuadorians voted to halt oil operations in Ishpingo-Tambococha-Tiputini (43-ITT) block in the Yasuni Amazon reserve, where production by state oil company Petroecuador started in 2016.

There is only a feeble trickle in the irrigation canal feeding farmer Alessandro Salmoiraghi's field of kiwi fruit in northern Italy.
"The constant problem is the lack of water," he said. "Even if you diversify, when there is no water, there is simply no water, there is no life, no production."

Salmoiraghi, 49, is the fourth generation of his family to farm Cascina San Donato, a 24-hectare plot of mainly grain, vegetables and fruit - primarily kiwi - on a normally lush plain just an hour's drive west of Milan.