El Meollo, Ecuador – Investment Advisors to Burlington Natural Resources wanted to hear the perspectives of local leaders and grassroots communities regarding their opposition to oil development.
A group of shareholder advisors to Burlington met with Achuar, Shuar, and Kichwa indigenous leaders. The purpose of their visit was to listen to the position these Amazonian indigenous nationalities take on oil development on their lands.
Burlington Natural Resources is a company headquartered in the United States. The oil company has concessions in Block 24 in the Morona Santiago Province, territory of the Achuar and Shuar nationalities. It also is a partial shareholder in CGC, General Oil Company. This Argentine company has rights to block 23, located in the Kichwa territory of Sarayaku.
Toni Symonds, Leslie Lowe and Steven Heim met with the nationalities’ Presidents last Friday in Puyo and listened to their reasons for opposing the development of oil activities. They also visited communities in the southern Amazon until yesterday.
The position of Marlon Santi, president of the Sarayaku community, remains firm. The community rejects all hydrocarbon related activities in its 135,000 hectares of ancestral territories.
Similarly, Milton Callera, head of the Interprovincial Federation of the Achuar Nationality, stated that each community had its own distinct style of development.
The Achuar wish to live off water conservation, a clean environment, and the commercialization of traditional medicine and plants by way of a meaningful patent law. Living off of oil exploitation is not in their plans, due to their fear of pollution and disappearance of their natural environment.
Burlington’s representatives also listened to Enrique Conambi, President of the Federation of Schuar Centers (FISCH) from Morona Santiago. He left open the long-term possibility of oil development, with the condition that it always be done by indigenous people themselves, and with prior knowledge of and education on its practice.
The indigenous leaders agreed that the Ecuadorian Government should revise the face of oil development, and redistribute oil concessions that truly help the development of indigenous peoples without harming their cultural ancestry.
The investment advisors to Burlington promised to transmit the indigenous peoples’ arguments to the large shareholders of the company. They also expressed their concern over Ecuador’s judicial system for its failure to apply previous consultation in their dealing with indigenous communities.
They also announced that on March 17 they would make a proposal that the company’s income from oil related activities be made public and transparent.
*Translated by Amazon Watch
