Ecuador:
New oil exploration activities in Yasuní National Park
Yasuní National Park stretches along the basins of the
Yasuní, Cononaco, Nashiño and Tiputini Rivers. Aside from the fact
that these are major rivers in their own right, they are also surrounded
by floodplains, wetlands, lagoons and lake systems like the Jatuncocha,
Garzacocha and Lagartococha. This area is also the ancestral territory
of the Waorani indigenous people and two indigenous tribes living
in voluntary isolation, the Tagaeri and Taromenane.
Cononaco and Tiputini, like hundreds of other indigenous names,
are also the names of oilfields. The oil industry’s practice of
using indigenous names for projects that entail the devastation
of indigenous territories are just one more means of humiliation
of the local communities.
In December 2008, the Waorani denounced new oil exploration activities
in the Cononaco oilfield. In order to appease the community, the
Ecuadorian state-owned oil company, Petroecuador, paid them 35,000
dollars. But these new activities affect the Yasuní National Park,
a protected area.
Previous oil operations in Cononaco have been inspected as part
of the trial underway against Texaco, since the activities in the
field were undertaken by this multinational oil giant. Of the 35
samples taken, 30 showed readings higher than those permitted by
law.
The area in question forms part of both the Yasuní Biosphere Reserve
and the Waorani people’s ancestral territory, and the contamination
caused by oil activities there directly affects Yasuní National
Park.
When the pipeline between the Auca and Cononaco oilfields burst
in 2006, the resulting oil spill contaminated the Tiputini River
which runs through the National Park. But the new exploration activity
is even more menacing, because it is taking place in areas vital
to the survival of indigenous peoples living in voluntary isolation.
Moreover, the denunciation of new exploration activity in protected
areas implicitly exposes the continuation of the extraction-based
economic model, which views nature as merely an adversary, and the
continued use of typical oil industry practices. Essentially, the
first hole drilled will imply the violation of all of the rights
recognized in the country’s new constitution:
* The prohibition of oil operations in protected areas, Art. 407.
* The right of nature to exist and maintain its life cycles and
structure, Art. 72.
* The precautionary principle, established through the stipulation
that the State will apply precaution and restriction measures to
all activities that can lead to the extinction of species, the destruction
of ecosystems or the permanent alteration of natural cycles, Art.
73.
* The protection of the territory of peoples living in voluntary
isolation, a right whose violation would entail the crimes of genocide
and ethnocide, Art. 57.
The Waorani, who have demonstrated their opposition to oil operations
through different forms of protest, have been treated as criminals,
divided and ignored. Today, however, protected by the right to resistance
recognized in the new constitution (Art. 98), they are armed with
a new tool to move from denunciation to action.
By Esperanza Martínez, Oilwatch: tegantai@oilwatch.org
