The author beings by saying how Latin American countries began shifting toward leftward officials and favoring bigger governments. By shifting to bigger governments, countries are more able to supply goods and services that uplift the people, such as free education, health programs, subsidized food, and land grants to indigenous people. Under neoliberalism, these things could not be provided, unless you had money, and lots of it. Once president, Correa redistributed the wealth, or as the author puts it, stopped allowed the aggregation of wealth from occurring. For example, he doubled cash payments and even subsidized electricity, all of these and more provide him a high favorability rating amongst the people.
Correa wanted to get Ecuador away from neoliberalism as far as possible, this even meant distancing Ecuador from the US and US policies. While the currency was still dollarized, and Ecuador still had debt, it shifted its debt towards China. Additionally, to strain US relations, Ecuador did not allow the US to keep an air force base in Ecuador; temporarily banished the US ambassador to the Shadow Realm; and even invited Edward Snowden into the country. There is just one major issue with all of this, if you try to anger the US, you tend to stop getting money from the US and its allies. This resulted in ecoimperialist and, more importantly, ecodependents to slow down and even stop activities. It was especially brutal fro ecodependents, since they relied on foreign investment in order to work, as detailed previously. Even FN, suffered from this these decisions, 1) they weren't getting the same amount of funding as they were before, and 2) their employees were getting poached and being brought into government jobs. Eventually, some international organizations came back to Ecuador, however, this time they partnered with the state, rather then with the traditional NGOs.
The Constitution change in 2008 allowed nature to have rights, it also demanded that the government play a role in upholding nature's rights, protects water rights, and promotes buen vivir. Giving nature rights reminds me of this VERY recent article where streams and lakes started to have rights in Florida, and a lawsuit is already taking place. I know this isn't the first time this has happened, but the article was far too recent to forget.
As stated before, Correa wanted to pass the Yasuni-ITT imitative that would basically ask international donors to provide Ecuador with capital, such that it wouldn't need to extract the oil, effectively saving the local environment. However, this failed - it didn't reach its specific monetary goal. And while he might have platformed for environmental protection, he wasn't going to get hit people starve, so he started drilling. His favorability is high due to the social programs implemented during his time as president, but early supporters are upset since, as stated above, environmental protection was one of his major platforms - honestly reminds me of the meme of James Franco in the gallows with the words "First time?" with the context being politicians are corrupt and don't fulfill everything they say they will. Correa even started name-calling activists and environmentalists (maybe Trump was taking notes?), and stifling protests and made it harder for new civil societies to form. Its like the scene in Star Wars, "You were the Chosen One! It was said that you would destroy the Sith, not join them." I guess you live long enough to die a hero or become the villain, because Correa seemed to have been any old politician - someone who does or says the best thing now, but ignores the other 80% of the things they promised.