Tribes Ready to Block Oil Drilling in Territory Indian Tribes in Ecuador are Opposed to Oil Drilling and Have Asked Houston- Based Burlington Resources to Stay Out of the Region | Amazon Watch
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Tribes Ready to Block Oil Drilling in Territory Indian Tribes in Ecuador are Opposed to Oil Drilling and Have Asked Houston- Based Burlington Resources to Stay Out of the Region

March 22, 2005 | Miami Herald

Quito – The three largest Indian tribes in Ecuador’s Amazon region say they are ready to block oil-drilling activity on their territory, which could make a U.S. firm’s concession there all but worthless.

Leaders of the Achuar, Shuar and Kichwa peoples expressed their staunch opposition to the drilling in a meeting with representatives of Houston-based Burlington Resources, local media reported.

The publication Ecuadorinmediato said on its Web page that three delegates representing Burlington shareholders visited Amazon communities to hear the views of the Indians, who told them they did not want the oil company operating on their territory.

The indigenous peoples asked Burlington to stay out of their region and to forswear any attempts to establish a presence there through deals with landowners or individual municipalities in the southeastern Ecuadorean province of Morona Santiago, which borders Peru.

“The communities have their own forms of development, different from those being offered us by the multinationals, which want to come and usurp our natural resources and riches,” said the leader of the Achuar Interprovincial Federation, Milton Callera.

He said the Achuar do not want to live off petroleum, having seen the pollution caused by oil-drilling in other parts of the Amazon.

The Burlington representatives pledged to convey the Indians’ concerns to the firm’s shareholders. At the same time, they voiced worries of their own regarding the rule of law in Ecuador, noting that authorities failed to inform the indigenous communities that the government was selling concessions to operate on Indian land.

Burlington acquired rights to drill for oil in Block 24, which lies on the territory of the Achuar and Shuar, while Argentina’s CGC got the concession for Block 23, on land owned by the Kichwa Indians.

Oil is Ecuador’s main source of income and funds nearly 35 percent of the annual government budget.

Ninety percent of the country’s oil is pumped in the northern part of its Amazon region, where hundreds of Indians and other settlers are pursuing a multibillion-dollar lawsuit against U.S. oil giant ChevronTexaco.

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