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| credits: UK Guardian |
Betrayed by their own chief, who signed a contract with the one of the biggest oil companies in South America, the Kichwa tribe of Sani Isla, Ecquador are fighting a loosing battle against the national oil company, Petroamazonas. The company will begin prospecting on their territory for oil on January 15th while protected by security forces. According to a British woman who married the tribe's shaman and runs the tribe's eco-lodge, eighty percent of the Kichwa oppose exploration and rejected company offers in two meetings late last year. They are mounting a last ditch legal effort to stop the exploration but the task seems insurmountable. The tribe was using blowguns only two generations ago, but they say they are determined to fight to the death for their 70,000 hectares of pristine rainforest located near Yasuni National Park. Shaman Partricio Jipa says violent confrontation "is certain to end tragically. We prefer passive resistance, but this may not be possible...Our lawyers have sent them [Petroamazonas] letters and they won't even talk to us in Quito." Biologists think the Kichwas' land contains a
wider variety of life [photo gallery] than all of North America.
But what is more important than life is oil and there are significant deposits beneath Yasuni, perhaps as much as a billion barrels. An oil deposit worth $7.2 billion was recently discovered inside the Park boundaries. Ecuador is one of the few countries that legally recognizes nature's right to survive. President Rafael Correa championed
a plan to keep the fossil fuel in the ground if consuming countries would pay Ecuador half the value of the deposit over thirteen years. Since the proposal was made, few oil consuming nations have contributed, probably
viewing the novel initiative as a subtle form of blackmail by a poor country. The
Yashuni-ITT Initiative has raised only about $200 million. So, the access roads move closer to the Park while the Kichwa
amateurs contemplate their chances against professional killers.
