Inside the lives of Ecuador’s Amazon defenders
Welcome back to Climate Weekly!
Today we have a bit of a special issue for you. We’ll be introducing Gabriela Ruiz from Ecuador, whose takes us down the Napo river to get a small taste of what life is like for environmental defenders on the frontlines of the Amazon.
Hola todos!
My name is Gabriela, and I wanted to share the story of the El Edén commune, in the Ecuadorian Amazon.
300 km from Quito, "El Edén'' is the ancestral territory of the Kichwa Naporuna people, and after a four hour motorised canoe ride down the Napo river, it’s a small paradise in Ecuador I would love to introduce you to.
We travelled on a motorised canoe, built to hold 50 people. The older wooden canoes have been replaced by fibreglass. The humidity is 98% . The rain is constant. When it stops, the sun beats through holes in the clouds.
El Edén, one of 238 communes and communities in the province of Orellana. Its extension is 864 km2. As its name announces, El Edén is a small paradise. Tropical fruit trees, native plants and flowers.
On the 10th of May this year, a small camp was set up to prevent access to the Edén-Yuturi oil station. The region, as beautiful as it is, is also rich in oil.
Petroecuador has been operating for two years without the consent of the population, affected by skin and stomach diseases and cancer. After almost 20 years of oil exploitation in their locality, they do not have drinking water, electricity or adequate health care.
Gathered in a small assembly, the community members have experienced five oil spills in the last eight years. The largest spill was only last year, when 15,800 barrels of oil spilled into the Napo and Coca Rivers. The oil and its chemicals then spread across the Yuturi river, the local lagoon, and four estuaries.
The community members I met were protesting peacefully. Their camp was blocking an access road to oil fields that produce up to 28,462 barrels of oil per day.
On June 3rd , Petroecuador called in the Armed Forces for “technical relief” and to helicopter in food for its staff.
As I am led towards the oil field, the first thing I see is a fire in the sky. The flare is burning natural gas, a by-product of oil extraction, practiced by Ecuador’s oil giants ever since Exxon began drilling in the 60’s. There are 447 flaring plants like this across the Amazon.
Each year, Ecuador burns more gas in open-air flares than Brazil, Qatar and Canada. According to a A 2017 study, communities close to gas flaring have higher rates of cancer.
On January 26th this year, an Ecuadorian court found this practice to be illegal, but failed to insist on a deadline of when this flaring practice has to stop.
The blockade was finally lifted in late June, after 48 days of protest.
Representatives of Petroecuador and the Kichwa community of El Edén signed a preliminary compensation agreement.
They still haven’t finalised that agreement. Petroecuador is still drilling.
Thanks for reading this special issue. We’ve been away for a little while, but have some big plans to bring you even more stories from across our Climate Tracker community in the next few weeks.
For now, check out some of our latest stories, opportunities and more on ClimateTracker.org