Visiting Yawepare and Clean Water for the Amazon

April 25, 2013 | Alex Goff

It's a long trip from the Amazonian city of Coca to the Waorani community of Yawepare on the edge of Yasuní National Park in Ecuador, much longer than the actual distance would seem to indicate. After almost an hour at high speeds along a paved portion of the Via Auca, the first road in the region built by Texaco when the company initially began operating in the area, you turn off onto the Via Pindo. From there, it's another hour or more on a rocky, unpaved road that snakes through the jungle passing oil stations, platforms, gas flares, and mestizo, Kichwa, Shuar, and Waorani communities. Out here you're a long way from Coca. It was in this area, specifically in the mestizo community of Los Reyes, where, in 2009, a woman and her family were attacked and killed by the Tagaeri, one of the two Waorani subgroups living in voluntary isolation in the Ecuadorian Amazon. When you're out here it's almost unfathomable to look around and imagine these uncontacted indigenous groups, people of an ancient culture still living in the most traditional ways, in such close proximity to modernized communities and large-scale oil activity. That's the reality of uncontacted groups in Ecuador today. There is very little space left in the forest to roam, and every day it gets smaller.

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Ecuador Delays 11th Oil Round Deadline

April 22, 2013

In a bit of an Earth Day reprieve, Ecuador has extended the deadline for companies to offer bids for the 16 oil blocks up for sale in the country's southeastern Amazon rainforests. According to an article in the Wall Street Journal, the Ministry of Non Renewable Resources pushed the date for interested companies to submit bids from May 30 to July 16, stating that the extension would give companies more time to "review the geology of the oil blocks and to complete legal paperwork necessary."

Sounds to us like no one is interested in Ecuador's dirty oil!

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Idle No More Goes Up Against Ecuador's 11th Round

April 19, 2013 | Adam Zuckerman

Award-winning actress and aboriginal activist Michelle Thrush is no stranger to public speaking. But her latest brilliant performance was not on a set; it was in a recent meeting between the Ecuadorian government and Canadian oil investors conducted in Calgary as Ecuador peddles the 11th Oil Round around the globe.

Introducing herself by her native name of Goodfeathers Woman, Michelle demanded to know why the Ecuadorian government is "auctioning off over three million hectares of indigenous land in the Amazon without the consent of the people who live there." Striding to the front of the room, she presented the government with a declaration of opposition from five indigenous nationalities whose rainforest communities would be devastated by the oil round. Amazon Watch community liaison Mike Byerley and three other activists who strategically entered the meeting filmed the encounter, holding up a banner that read ¡Basta de Contaminación Petrolera! (Enough with Oil Contamination!)

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Indigenous Leaders meet in Puyo, Ecuador to Oppose the XI Oil Round

April 12, 2013 | Alex Goff

Last Tuesday leaders from representative organizations of five indigenous nationalities affected by the XI Oil Round – Achuar, Shuar, Zápara, Shiwiar, and Kichwa – as well as representatives from various affected communities, met in Puyo for a "meeting of leaders of the communities and nationalities of the Ecuadorian Amazon in defense of their territories in the face of the XI Oil Licitation Round." The meeting consisted of intense debates, analysis of the situation, an exchange of experiences, and strategy proposals, and resulted in a firm declaration by the nationalities to reject the XI Oil Round. A press conference followed in which each of the individual leaders expressed their opposition to the round in front of national and international media. A resolution was established for "joint strategy in the legal, organizational, and communicational fields, and among allies, to confront the threat of the extractivist policies of the national government that look to move forward with the XI Oil Round in the south-central Amazon despite the Amazonian Nationalities' opposition."

The XI Oil Round is the Ecuadorian government's auctioning of 16 oil blocks in the south-central Ecuadorian Amazon. The blocks cover over ten million acres of pristine rainforest. Studies show that 85% of the area included in the round is intact, primary forest, and the ancestral homeland of seven indigenous nationalities: Shuar, Achuar, Shiwiar, Andoa, Kichwa, Zápara, and Waorani. This is not the first time these oil blocks have been up for auction. Previous administrations attempted a licitation round of the very same blocks, but received no bids due to indigenous resistance in the area. Even the Ecuadorian government has called the blocks "high risk." Leaders of the seven nationalities claim that a prior consultation process was not carried out in accordance with international legislation and Ecuador's constitution.

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A Message from the Achuar to Canada

April 11, 2013

"I am very concerned I can't stand alone in defense of my people.
We must stand together in solidarity."
– Peas Peas Auyi

Calgary, Canada – Last night we gave a keynote about the Achuar/Talisman campaign to a packed house as part of Public Interest Alberta's advocacy conference Fighting for our Future: People Power vs Corporate Control. The evening featured a special multimedia message from Achuar leader Peas Peas Auyi, who called up from the Amazon to be sure we recorded and delivered his words of gratitude to allies in Canada:

"Every day, across the globe, society suffers the environmental and social impacts of extractive industries. The history of the extractive industries is filled with negative stories...

"I would like to thank our allies in Canada and Public Interest Alberta for their solidarity in this struggle. Thanks to the many actions taken in defense of our territory we have achieved a great victory: a large and powerful corporation, Talisman, has been forced to leave our ancestral territory and Oil Block 64."

Speakers at the seventh annual advocacy conference came from the United States, Canada and India, including a keynote panel featuring Beaver Lake Cree Nation oil-sands activist Crystal Lameman, award-winning journalist and author Linda McQuaig (The Trouble with Billionaires) and Amazon Watch's Gregor MacLennan.

"I have been taken aback by Calgary, from our first visit with the Achuar to what appeared a cold and foreign land, to see a growing network of allies and friends who have stood with the Achuar to help their voice be heard and force Talisman Energy to leave their territory," said Maclennan. "Theirs is a story of inspiration and hope amongst a growing indigenous movement in the north to call governments and companies to account."

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