“The jungle is my home, and I don’t want foreigners coming into my territory”.
Armed with a long blowpipe and dangerous curare-soaked darts, Kominta is ready to fight the oil companies that exploit and covet the Ecuadorian Amazon.
Ecuador oil referendum: The fate of the Yasuni reserve at stake
Like his nomadic ancestors, this old Waorani hunter lives virtually naked in a village of 200 souls in the Yasuni nature reserve in Ecuador’s Amazonian northeast. On August 20, during general elections, a nationwide referendum will be held to decide whether to continue oil production in part of this park, whose million hectares of rainforest are a world biodiversity reserve. – Live free! – The inhabitants of the village of Bameno, on the banks of the Cononaco river (in the province of Pastaza, bordering Peru), have apparently already chosen their side:
“I don’t want an oil company on my land. This is how I want to live, freely, in a healthy place”, proclaims the old Kominta in his native language (wao terere).
The environmental group “Yasunidos” has been calling for this national consultation for ten years. Last May, the country’s highest court finally authorized it. It will have to decide on the future of the Ishpingo, Tambococha and Tiputini (ITT) block, known as “Block 43”, which is located in Yasuni Park and contributes to the extraction of 12% of the 466,000 barrels/day produced in Ecuador. The government opposes this consultation, estimating losses of $16.47 billion over 20 years if the block is revoked.
The Waorani, guardians of Yasuni, rise up against black gold
The indigenous Waorani tribe, numbering some 4,800 members and owning around 800,000 hectares in the Amazonian provinces of Orellana, Pastaza and Napo, is divided on the issue. Some support the oil companies, others reject them, as in Bameno, spared from hydrocarbon exploitation for the time being. The Ecuadorian Constitution recognizes indigenous peoples’ “collective ownership of land, as an ancestral form of territorial organization”. However, it maintains the State’s power over the subsoil.
The oil industry is “destroying the environment where I live”, says the old hunter, whose words are translated by Elisa Enqueri, a young Wao woman visiting Bameno on a family trip, accompanied by a group of journalists including AFP. – “Ever more abrupt” – It takes almost 12 hours by pirogue over several rivers to reach the village.
“My grandmother says she’s going to take her spear. She has the energy and still feels young (…) to forbid foreigners to come,” explains Elisa, an activist in defense of Yasuni Park, home to two tribes related to the Wao who remain voluntarily isolated.
Bloody conflicts and the risk of ethnocide in the face of oil intrusion
The Taromenane and Tagaeri avoid contact with outsiders, are rivals and regularly engage in bloody clashes. They have already attacked oil workers and lumberjacks with spears.
Oil activity “affects their way of life and puts their lives in danger. There is a serious risk of ethnocide, of total extermination of these communities”, Pedro Bermeo, a lawyer and spokesman for “Yasunidos”, an environmental group behind the request for the ITT referendum, told AFP in Bameno.
The private San Francisco University in Quito has identified 2,000 species of tree, 610 species of bird, 204 species of mammal, 150 species of amphibian, 121 species of reptile and 100,000 species of arthropod in the theoretically protected Yasuni reserve. Moi Guiquita, another young Wao, claims that “every time” oil companies enter Yasuni, where deposits other than ITT are currently being exploited, the impact has been “more abrupt”.
“60 years ago they were much further away, but they’re getting closer and closer” to Bameno. Faced with the advance of oil activity and extractivism, “we have nowhere left to go”, warns the young man.
