The Daule Peripa dam was one of the main components of the Jaime Rolds Aguilera multi-purpose project, the largest and most complex infrastructure project built in Ecuador in the last forty years. It was located on the Daule river, a sub-basin of the Guayas river basin in the Ecuadorian Coast. It started functioning in 1988 and caused huge environmental and social impacts both upstream and downstream. The reservoir flooded one of the country's most fertile areas, which used to be almost entirely devoted to agricultural production for local markets. As a consequence of that, many communities were displaced and some 50,000 were isolated inside dozens of water fringes of the reservoir. These latter communities still live there in conditions of extreme poverty. They started a process of organization in 2004 to demand from the Ecuadorian government redress for the damages suffered.