Thursday, April 26, 2012


©Tom McElroy

 Dirty Deeds

Consequences of oil in the Ecuadorian Amazon

©Tom McElroy
Since first contact over 50 years ago, a slew of environmental catastrophes wrecked havoc on the Waorani people’s homeland.  In the late ’60’s, the now defunct American oil company, Texaco, discovered oil near their territory, though further exploration provoked deadly clashes with Waorani warriors.  This prompted both the oil company and the Ecuadorian government to turn to missionaries, whom they provided with resources for relocating the Waorani to a “protectorate”.  More than 200 individuals were contacted and physically removed from Texaco’s path.  Many fled deeper into the rainforest where they still remain in voluntary isolation.  Of those lassoed into the protectorate, most converted to Christianity, and largely abandoned their traditions and way of life.  Alien diseases wiped out half of their population, and new sedentary lifestyles depleted valuable natural resources near their communities, forcing a dependence on imports.  As oil companies swooped into their ancestral lands, the forest fell devastated in the wake.  Today, this land and nearly all that of surrounding tribes became a “rainforest Chernobyl”, a wasteland of black sludge and frequent oil spills, which prompted a $6 billion lawsuit that remains unresolved today.  Beyond these damages, the rest of Ecuador’s lush environment also suffered.  Between 1990 and 2005, the country lost roughly 21.5 percent of its forest cover, and the rate of deforestation increased by 17 percent after the ’90’s.  Despite relatively recent efforts to assuage its deplorable reputation, Ecuador still has the highest deforestation rate and the worst environmental record of any South American country. 

Ecuador’s forests suffer at the hands of a number of industries including mining, illegal logging and slash/burn agriculture, though the most problematic has long remained oil production.  The aforementioned lawsuit is the controversial subject of the documentary, Crude, in which 30,000 indigenous Ecuadorians sued Chevron (which bought Texaco) for Texaco’s 25 years of environmental misdeeds.  During that time, numerous oil spills in rivers, some exceeding volumes of the ExxonValdez in 1989, and the dumping of more than 20 billion gallons of toxic drilling by-products caused irreparable environmental damage.  Moreover, they were linked to an epidemic of dire health problems within nearby indigenous communities including cancer, skin infections, spontaneous abortions, and respiratory infections.  Despite damning evidence, Chevron vehemently denies any connection to or responsibility for these ailments.  But beyond the acute damages, perhaps the most devastating and long lasting of all deeds is road construction, which continues to inspire settlement and mass deforestation.  It single handedly encourages the annual destruction of hundreds of millions of acres, gradually whittling away viable hunting grounds for indigenous people, including the Waorani.  Living off the land is quickly becoming a memory of ages past.

©Tom McElroy
Of course, the glaring question here is how does a small group of indigenous people defend themselves and their forest against seemingly insurmountable odds?  With relatively little legal experience, they face the power of the government and an enormous multinational corporation.  For decades, Ecuador’s indigenous people’s have struggled to bring a multi-billion dollar corporation to justice while also challenging basic principles of international law.  Tom McElroy, a master’s student in International Policy at the University of Connecticut dedicated his thesis to identifying loopholes in the international legal system, which allow transnational corporations to circumnavigate international human rights regulations.  He has generously agreed to guest blog about his work.  Be on the lookout for his post coming soon.  In the meantime, check out his photography.  It’s awesome.

-Jennifer Berglund

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