A group of indigenous Waorani women give a war cry warning that environmentalists are not welcome in their part of the Ecuadoran Amazon, where an oil field operates partly on a protected reserve.
“We will not allow kowori [strangers] ... to enter,” said Waorani leader Felipe Ima, translating the belligerent words of a group of seven women from the Kawymeno community that supports oil extraction at the nearby Ishpingo field.
The community is pitted in a battle of wills against environmental group Yasunidos, which has been fighting for a decade for a referendum on leaving the oil underground.
Photo: EPA-EFE
In May, the Ecuadoran Constitutional Court allowed the request, and a plebiscite has been scheduled for next month.
Escorted by a warrior wielding a spear, the women from Kawymeno hold hands and dance in little clothing and feather crowns at the entrance to Ishpingo A platform.
They demand that any consultation should be with “the owners” of the land, and not with anyone that is “not even from the territory,” Ima said.
In Ecuador, the constitution recognizes indigenous people’s “collective ownership of land as an ancestral form of territorial organization.”
However, the state maintains control over anything under the soil. Ishpingo, together with the nearby fields of Tiputini and Tambococha, form the so-called ITT block, or block 43, which holds an estimated 282 million of the South American country’s proven crude reserves of 1.2 billion barrels.
Extraction at Tiputini and Tambococha started in 2016 after years of fraught debate over whether to drill inside the Yasuni National Park. This came after the government of then-Ecuadoran president Rafael Correa failed to persuade the international community to pay former OPEC member Ecuador US$3.6 billion not to exploit the ITT block to protect the Amazon and help curb climate change.
In April last year, the government announced pumping had also started at Ishpingo.
At the site protected by women in the dense, green jungle, stands one of 12 platforms of the ITT block that contributed 57,000 barrels per day to Ecuador’s total production of 464,000 barrels per day from January to April.
It is in the Yasuni National Park, a biosphere reserve that houses about 2,000 tree, 610 bird, 204 mammal, 150 amphibian and more than 120 reptile species, the San Francisco University of Quito said.
The Waorani community of Kawymeno, a journey of about four hours by foot and canoe from Ishpingo, is near the border with Peru.
Its 400 inhabitants have declared themselves defenders of the oil activity and its windfalls they say make up for the absence of government services.
“If there were no oil industry, we would not ... have had education, health, family welfare,” said Panenky Huabe, leader of the village where many work in the oil sector.
Aside from being among the most biodiverse areas on Earth, the 1 million hectare Yasuni park is home to two of the world’s last uncontacted indigenous populations. It also holds oil fields that started operating before the ITT block.
“We see how extraction has been besieging the Yasuni for many years, since the 1970s when exploitation began,” Yasunidos lawyer and spokesman Pedro Bermeo said.
“Basically, the [block] 43 is the only one with a part [of jungle] that remains to be saved,” he said.
However, the referendum has generated deep divisions even among the Waorani, whose 4,800 members own about 800,000 hectares of jungle in the provinces of Orellana, Pastaza and Napo.
In 2019, the Waorani of Pastaza won a historic court ruling that prevents the entry of oil companies on 180,000 hectares on their territory, but at Ishpingo A in Orellana, oil worker Akao Yetebe — also a Waorani — said “we will continue working,” because “black gold benefits big cities, teachers, education, health, everything.”
State-owned EP Petroecuador is authorized to operate on about 300 hectares of the Yasuni for its ITT block. So far it has used about 80 hectares, generating US$4.2 billion for the state — about US$1.2 billion last year alone.
If the “yes” wins in next month’s referendum, “losses will be substantial” — about US$16.4 billion in projected income, as well as jobs and investments already made, Petroecuador manager Ramon Correa said.
Greek tourism student Katerina quit within a month of starting work at a five-star hotel in Halkidiki, one of the country’s top destinations, because she said conditions were so dire. Beyond the bad pay, the 22-year-old said that her working and living conditions were “miserable and unacceptable.” Millions holiday in Greece every year, but its vital tourism industry is finding it harder and harder to recruit Greeks to look after them. “I was asked to work in any department of the hotel where there was a need, from service to cleaning,” said Katerina, a tourism and marketing student, who would
i Gasoline and diesel prices at fuel stations are this week to rise NT$0.1 per liter, as tensions in the Middle East pushed crude oil prices higher last week, CPC Corp, Taiwan (台灣中油) and Formosa Petrochemical Corp (台塑石化) said yesterday. International crude oil prices last week rose for the third consecutive week due to an escalating conflict between Israel and Iran, as the market is concerned that the situation in the Middle East might affect crude oil supply, CPC and Formosa said in separate statements. Front-month Brent crude oil futures — the international oil benchmark — rose 3.75 percent to settle at US$77.01
Merida Industry Co (美利達) has seen signs of recovery in the US and European markets this year, as customers are gradually depleting their inventories, the bicycle maker told shareholders yesterday. Given robust growth in new orders at its Taiwanese factory, coupled with its subsidiaries’ improving performance, Merida said it remains confident about the bicycle market’s prospects and expects steady growth in its core business this year. CAUTION ON CHINA However, the company must handle the Chinese market with great caution, as sales of road bikes there have declined significantly, affecting its revenue and profitability, Merida said in a statement, adding that it would
UNCERTAINTIES: The world’s biggest chip packager and tester is closely monitoring the US’ tariff policy before making any capacity adjustments, a company official said ASE Technology Holding Inc (日月光投控), the world’s biggest chip packager and tester, yesterday said it is cautiously evaluating new advanced packaging capacity expansion in the US in response to customers’ requests amid uncertainties about the US’ tariff policy. Compared with its semiconductor peers, ASE has been relatively prudent about building new capacity in the US. However, the company is adjusting its global manufacturing footprint expansion after US President Donald Trump announced “reciprocal” tariffs in April, and new import duties targeting semiconductors and other items that are vital to national security. ASE subsidiary Siliconware Precision Industries Co (SPIL, 矽品精密) is participating in Nvidia