Ecuadorean Indians demand end to oil exploration
Quito (Platts)--11Jul2005
Huaoroni Indians from Ecuador's Amazon will not recognize an agreement signed by one of their past leaders with Brazil's Petrobras, which gave the company their blessing to operate in their ancestral lands, members of the tribe said at a press conference Monday. About 150 members of the communities who traveled, some for days, to reach Quito said that they will increase protests until Petrobras and other oil companies end drilling near their homelands. "We want to end oil exploration because it is destroying our culture," said Enqueri Eguenguime, vice president of the Huaorani organization ONHAE. The group will march to the capital building on Tuesday to present a letter to President Alfredo Palacio demanding a halt to oil exploration as well as logging and mining in the Amazon region. Petrobras received permission last Aug 19 to begin exploration inside Yasuni National Park in the eastern Amazon region, where about 1,000 of the remaining estimated 4,200 Huaoroni live. The park, the country's largest, is a UNESCO protected biosphere area. The residents, plus several environmental groups, complain that the exploration and especially construction of a 32.4-mile road inside the park will hurt the environment and further affect the Huaoroni culture. The Huaoroni are regarded as fierce fighters, and were one of the last indigenous groups in Ecuador to have much contact with the outside world. "We will wage war on the invaders," Pego Miipo said, in Huaoroni, through a translator. Miipo, like several protestors, carried a two-yard-high lance and wore only a bellyband, bead necklaces and a feather headdress. Petrobras officials in Quito were not available for comment, but the company has in the past said that it is "highly conscious" of the level of social and environmental sensitivity in the area. The company has been given permission by the government to build in an area of almost 500 acres in the 2.4-mil acre park, where Repsol YPF and Occidental Petroleum also have drilling rights. Petrobras has produced an average of 23,135 b/d so far this year in its other concession area, Block 18, located about 20 miles southwest of the jungle town of Lago Agrio. Block 31 is located deeper in the Ecuadorean Amazon region, about 180 miles east of Quito, near the border with Peru. It holds probable reserves of 230-mil bbl. Petrobras plans to invest about $100-mil in Ecuador through 2010. For more news on oil exploration, take a trial to Platts Oilgram News at http://oilgramnews.platts.com.
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