Introduction

A group of Huaorani women, who are indigenous to Ecuador, have warned they will not allow environmentalists to enter their group’s reserve in the Amazon region, where an oil field is being developed, partly located on its territory.

“We will not allow koori (strangers) to enter,” said group leader Felipe Emma, ​​expressing the position of the group, which includes seven women from the Cavimeno community and supports oil production at the nearby Ispingo field.

They are fighting the environmental group Yasonidos, which has been campaigning for a decade for a referendum to ban oil production.

The Huaorani’s Position

In May, Ecuador’s Constitutional Court allowed a referendum to be held in August.

With crowns of feathers on their heads, the women of Cavimeno, accompanied by a warrior armed with a spear, hand in hand and danced, gathered at the entrance to the platform of Ishpingu Aleph.

The opinion, Emma said, should be that of the “owners of the land,” not of anyone outside the area.

In Ecuador, the constitution recognizes communal ownership of indigenous land as a form of ancestral organization.

However, the state retains control over everything that is underground.

The Ichpingo field, along with two other nearby fields, Tiputene and Tambococha, make up the so-called ITT Block or Block 43, which contains 282 million barrels of the South American country’s proven crude oil reserves, totaling 1.2 billion barrels.

Production at the two adjacent fields began in 2016 after years of intense debate over whether to drill in Yasuni National Park.

This came after the government of then-President Rafael Correa failed to persuade the international community to pay $3.6 billion to the former OPEC member country for not operating the ITT block, protecting the Amazon and helping to limit climate warming.

In April 2022, the government announced the start of oil production at the Ishpingo field as well.

The Benefits of Oil Production

Oil for Education and Health

Under the protection of women in the lush green jungle, one of the twelve drilling rigs in the ITT region was built, producing 57,000 barrels per day (bpd) from Ecuador’s total production of 464,000 bpd from January to April.

The field is located in Yasuni National Park, a biosphere reserve that is home to about 2,000 tree species, 610 bird species, 204 mammal species, 150 amphibian species, and more than 120 reptile species, according to the University of San Francisco in Quito.

The Huaorani, who belong to the Cauemeno people, live about a four-hour walk and boat ride from Ichepingo, near the border with Peru. These 400 residents said they support oil production, whose income compensates for the lack of public services.

“Without oil, we wouldn’t have access to education, healthcare and family care,” says Panenke Huabi, headman of a village where many people work in the oil sector.

Benefits of black gold

In addition to being one of the most biodiverse areas on Earth, the 1 million hectares (2.5 million acres) Yasuni National Park is home to the last two non-contact indigenous communities.

He also has oil fields, which began to be exploited before the ITT block.

“We see mining operations besieging Yasoni for years, starting in the 1970s when the oil started to be exploited,” Pedro Bermio, a lawyer and spokesman for the Yasounidos people, told AFP to rescue her.

The Referendum and Its Implications

But the referendum caused deep divisions even among the Huaorani themselves.

The Huaorani, with a total of 4,800 people, own about 800,000 hectares of forest in the departments of Orellana, Pastaza and Napo.

In 2019, the Huaorani in Pastas won a court order barring oil companies from entering 180,000 hectares of their land.

But in the Ispingo Aleph area of ​​Orellana, “we will continue to work because the black gold is good for building cities, paying teachers, education, healthcare and everything else,” says Akau Yetebe, an oilman from Waorani.

Ecuador’s state-owned oil company, Petro Ecuador, has received permission to operate on about 300 hectares of Yasuni Park within its ITT block.

So far, the company has cultivated about 80 hectares, which has generated $4.2 billion in revenue for the state – about $1.2 billion in 2022 alone.

“The losses will be huge,” said Ramon Correa, director of Petro Ecuador, if opponents of oil production win a referendum next month.

These losses are estimated at $16.4 billion in expected revenue over 20 years, in addition to lost jobs and wasted investments.