Sleepwalking Towards Genocide: The Beginning of the End for the Amazon’s Uncontacted Peoples
How the end of the Yasuní-ITT may signify the extinction of Ecuador’s uncontacted peoples
Words by Matthew Carpenter-Arévalo @EcuaMatt
Photos by Michelle Arévalo-Carpenter @MichelleAc1
Changing Nature — The Nature of Change
Today his gripe with the oil companies has to do with his dogs.
The day prior, one of the hurried vehicles belonging to the oil company had run over one of his hunting dogs, and the company was offering the Huaorani elder pittances for compensation.
“They don’t understand,” Bolívar tells me, “it’s not just that we need our dogs to hunt and it takes some time to train them. The dogs…” he slowed, searching for the words, “the dogs are our friends!”.
This was the third time he lost a dog to a truck. He looks at me strange when I ask if he’s ever considered tying them up. Through his stare he makes a point: Bolívar Enomega lives in the Amazon rain forest. Why would he ever tie up an animal?
Though many of the world’s citizens are keenly aware of how the accelerated pace of change has differentiated our lifestyles from those of our ancestors, few of us have experienced the type of change Bolívar Enomega has seen.
Speaking to me in broken Spanish, he offers an apology by noting that he only started learning the language later in life. Before Spanish he learned two other indigenous languages, Shuar and Amazonian Quicha, both of which are unrelated to his native Sabela language.
“No-one I met ever tried to speak to me in Spanish, so I figured, why bother?” he tells me.
Now, everyone he meets speaks Spanish.
A resident of Ecuador’s Yasuní National Park, Bolívar has seen his previously overlooked traunch of the Amazon become entirely opened to the world, with a road, that definitive symbol of ‘progress,’ passing right in front of his house.
Aside from supplies, the road also transports workers between the oil rigs and Ecuador’s Catholic University’s Scientific Station, where the workers stay. Nothing could be more symbolic of the contradictions of Amazonian politics: the scientific outpost depends on income from the oil companies to keep operating,the exact groups whose work is irreversibly changing the forest.
Though he grew up subsisting on birds, monkeys, yuca, and other native plants, and spent much of his childhood learning to hunt, Bolívar’s grandchildren, all fluent in Spanish, have turned to more modern forms of labour, including hand crafts, and, well, oil.
Perhaps no change though was more meaningful for Bolívar than what happened in 1968. Already dispersed, the Huaorani community, known colloquially as Huaos (pronounced wows) became even more fragmented when a number of sub-groups separated off and ventured deeper into the jungle, including the Tagaeri.
They joined the Taromenane, a group living in isolation for at least 100 years, in occupying what in 1979 became the Yasuní National Park. Though neighbors, their relationship has been anything but friendly. Though at one with nature, violence is and has been a hallmark of their existence.
The catalyst for their self-isolation in the 1960s was the social change provoked by U.S. missionaries who accompanied oil companies such as Texaco, now Chevron, in scouring the earth for black gold.
Wherever companies like Texaco found vast reserves of hard-to-reach petroleum, missionaries found access to hard to reach souls. Just as the Spaniards Crown used evangelization as a pretext for pillaging the American continent, so too did the oil companies come accompanied by bad news following Good News.
When I ask Bolívar about his experience with uncontacted peoples, he discusses matter-of-factly coming across members during long hunting trips, and one occasion in which they came to visit him at his home.
Referring to them both literally and metaphorically as his ‘cousins’,he describes his contacts with them as cordial. Some groups, he noted, were comprehensible, as they were relatives who chose self-isolation when he was still a young man. Others were barely intelligible.
At the time of our conversation in 2010, he saw the uncontacted tribes not as an immediate or existential threat, rather as wandering members of his extended family who had taken the very logical decision, to him at least, to relinquish contact with the outside world in order to preserve a way of life.
Given that another cycle of events has once again changed the landscape in the sparsely habited Amazon jungle, I wonder if he still feels the same.
Yasuní-ITT: Brilliant Idea: Horrible Execution.
I got to thinking of Bolívar earlier this month just after the BBC reported on the rare sighting of members of the uncontacted Mashco-Piro tribe near an inhabited area of the Peruvian Amazon. They appeared to be asking for food and, after what almost resulted in a tense standoff, they retrieved some plantains and once again retired to the forest.
Though much was made of the encounter, those who work routinely in the Amazon will tell you that ‘uncontacted’ is probably an overstatement, since many uncontacted peoples have semi-frequent contact with others, including to trade for tools such as machetes. Our current ability to record these visits may make them seem more frequent and cause some to sound alarm bells, but as is always the case with uncontacted tribes, their motives are as secretive as their existence. Journalists can write about them, but they are inevitably unavailable for comment.
Regardless of the motivation of the Mashco-Piro tribe, the timing of their encounter could not have been more poignant. Only five days earlier Ecuador’s President Rafael Correa announced the end of the country’s boldest attempt to preserve part of the Amazon untouched, the Yasuní-ITT (Ishpingo-Tambococha-Tiputi) initiative.
Launched in 2007 at the United Nations General Assembly, Ecuador proposed leaving underground 20% of its oil reserves, located in one of the world’s most diverse biospheres, the Ishpingo-Tambococha-Tiputi block of the the Yasuní National Park, in exchange for 50% of projected revenues, totaling $3.5 billion over 10 years.The monies would be invested in research and development of renewable energy resources. At the moment the program died, the fund had accumulated only $13.3 million in cold, hard cash.
Based on the concept of Sumak Kawsay,an indigenous notion of finding harmony between nature and human needs, Ecuador argued that since the Amazon produced much of the world’s oxygen, the world should help compensate Ecuador for forgoing massive oil revenues in exchange for conserving the area.
Though the plan was initially well-received by both environmentalists and governments alike as ambitious, refreshing,and innovative, it didn’t take long for structural flaws to being exposing vulnerabilities.
First, in 2008 the world financial crisis hit, counting among its victims mortgages, then pension funds, then Lehman Brothers, until finally moving on to sovereign debt. Many of the governments that showed initial interest soon found themselves distracted by the oncoming financial meltdown, consuming everything in its path like Stephen King’s Langoliers. As Greece tilted on the edge of collapse, Yasuní-ITT died without dying. Like a bailed-out zombie bank, it marched forward until someone found the courage to put it out of its misery.
With reduced commitment came increased scrutiny, and soon voices of dissent started questioning why they should compensate Ecuador for, as they put it, “doing nothing.” “It’s environmental extortion,” some suggested. “They’re putting a gun to the head of the Amazon and say ‘Pay now or the jungle gets it!’.”
During the same year the founder of the Yasuní-ITT and its most prominent cheerleader, Alberto Acosta, left the government, citing, amongst other reasons, its lack of commitment to environmentally sustainable development. A well respected leftist economist and one of Correa’s closest collaborators,Acosta wanted to stop most all mining in Ecuador, whereas Correa saw mining as a necessary alternative to dwindling oil production. Having been one of the co-founders of Correa’s PAIS movement, Acosta’s departure was seen as a major blow to both the government and the future of the Yasuní-ITT.
In addition, further complicating matters was President Correa’s image as a trusted partner. He initially canned a UNDP co-managed fund set up to handle donations, claiming the structure violated Ecuador’s “sovereignty”, apparently without flinching at the idea that the entire plea for donations was underpinned by the notion that responsibility for the Amazon was not national but global.
Trouble on the domestic front also may have influenced some countries’ decision not to contribute. Despite being immensely popular at home and controlling both the executive and legislative branches, Correa has regularly bumped heads with the country’s corporate media outlets, and the world has noticed.
Correa claims the media is biased against him and his “citizens’ revolution” because he has taken away their traditional corrupt privileges. He has since helped pass a law that many claim to be a media muzzle, including the ban on “media lynchings”, whatever that means.
Making matters worse, in 2011 Correa sued the country’s largest daily and two independent journalists for libel and was rewarded a record $40 million by the courts.
Though he eventually pardoned the journalists, the damage to Correa’s international image was done. More attention was paid to Ecuador’s foreign policy, including its cozying up to countries such as Venezuela, Iran and Belarus, and its belligerent attitude towards the United States.
Despite having a PhD in Economics from a U.S. university and demonstrating himself to be far less ideologically-driven and far more pragmatic than his Venezuelan counter-part Hugo Chavez, few outside observers had time for nuances. Western media outlets, prone to painting entire continents with a single brush, dismissed Correa as a handsome imitator.
If his mastery of crafting his domestic image has contributed to his sustained popularity and electoral longevity, Correa’s mis-management of his international image contributed to the failure of the Yasuní-ITT initiative’s ability to convert good will into dollars.
Indeed, shortly after the announcement of the end of the program, the German Minister for Cooperation stated as much, prompting Correa to unilaterally end an environmental cooperation agreement with Germany, one of the Yasuní-ITT’s strongest supporters.
Unwittingly proving the Minister’s point, Correa announced that “we know how to move forward without the arrogance of certain countries that have always believed themselves to be the owners of the world”. Known as impulsive and temperamental, Correa’s reaction proved that though he gave birth to the Yasuní-ITT, he had no problem burning it to the ground. “It’s not personal,” one can imagine Don Corleone whispering into his ear. “It’s business.”
Yasuní-ITT: A Painful Death
Rafael Correa has always stated that, were the Yasuní-ITT not to achieve its financial goals, the country would proceed with drilling in the area.
When he announced to the nation on August 15th that the initiative was effectively over, citing what would become a hashtag “The world has failed us,” Rafael Correa claimed that the government would only need to disturb one one-thousandth of the landmass to reach the $18 billion in revenues the government expects to recover from the 920 million plus known barrels of oil.
Instead of building roads, the government claims, they’ll only need to construct 30 kilometers of “paths”. The country’s state oil-company, Petroamazonas, will use the latest in technology to drill “responsibly,” a word oft-repeated in order to contradict the “ecological terrorists,” “extremists,” and “demagogues” who seek to misinform the public about the real risks involved, to quote the government. The environmental impact to the Amazon and its inhabitants, the government claims,will be minimal. “We should all trust Petroamazonas,” Correa pleaded.
To Ecuadorians aware of the many spills and contaminated areas that have done irreversible damage to the country’s remarkable inheritance, such a request is sort of like trusting your drunk Uncle to safely drive the kids home on Christmas Eve. No matter how well intentioned, he simply doesn’t have the motor skills or instincts to inspire confidence to successfully manage such a complex task.
It also flies in the face of the evidence that ‘responsible drilling’ is even possible: in June 2013 a Petroamazonas managed pipeline burst, sending an oil slick formed by over 10,000 barrels down the Napo River and into the Amazon River where it was expected to reach Peru and Brazil. BP occupied a lot less than 0.1% of the Gulf of Mexico. The examples abound.
The problem with such an argument then is that few believe it, and for the first time in its 6 years in power the Correa government finds itself on the other side of popular opinion.
A victim of its own success, the government’s Yasuní-ITT initiative enjoys wide-spread support across the political spectrum, including the government’s most fierce critics. Polls place support for leaving the oil in the ground at between 85%-90% of the population. That opposition is now rallying around the idea of invoking a referendum to stop development of the Yasuní.
Adding to the arguments against exploitation is the fresh memory of a recent massacre that took place in a settlement of uncontacted people in 2003. Though the event failed to capture the imagination of the Ecuadorian people or the international media, critics warned that, if steps weren’t taken to slow development of the Yasuní, similar genocidal acts would follow. They were right.
If a Massacre Happened in the Amazon, Did it Ever Really Happen?
Events began to unfold in march of this year when two Huaorani elders, Ompure and Buganey,were murdered in their home by an uncontacted tribe believed to be the Taromenane.
Known as interlocutors between the Taromenane and the Ecuadorian state, the dominant narrative suggests their death was the result of frustrations boiling over from increasing infringement on the uncontacted’s ‘intangible’ zone,by illegal loggers (some of whom are Huaorani, some who pay off Huaorani), and increased oil-related activities. Others, however, speculate that the two may have been killed for failing to provide the tools and supplies demanded by the Taromenane. No-one knows for sure.
Almost 2 months later, a community of 30 Taromenane were massacred by a group of Huaorani seeking revenge for the murders of Ompure and Buganey. Two children were reported “rescued”, despite the fact they were actually kidnapped, and no-one is 100% the individuals killed were actually the ones who committed the initial crime.
Despite the alleged murderers being identified by the authorities, no charges have been laid, as the victim’s lack of documentation or existence within the official registry means that, in the eyes of the state, they didn’t really die, and you can’t be charged for killing someone who doesn’t exist.Just as in 2003, squabbles between the Federal District Attorney, the Provincial District Attorney, the Environment Ministry, the police, etc., have resulted in appalling inaction.
The “lack of personhood” argument was similarly used to justify the lack of action taken to investigate the last massacre which occurred in 2003 when a group of 23 Taromenane women and children were killed by a group of Huaorani allegedly engaged in illegal logging in the park.No-one was ever convicted or even charged for that crime, despite the killers willingness to confess to anyone who would listen.
In the past, when a few missionaries or loggers were killed by uncontacted peoples, the media and the government react with horror. When an entire community of uncontacted peoples are murdered, there is neither a bang nor a whimper. Just shrugs.
Some, including the President, have argued that the outbursts of violence between the Huaorani and the Taromenane are simply tribal conflicts, products of a history, cosmology and order beyond the understanding of those tainted with occidental knowledge.The Huaoranis and their offshoots have a long standing history and culture of violence, and we should not be surprised by these sporadic outbursts, states the argument.
Such an argument doesn’t sit well with long-time observers such as Miguel Angel Cabodevilla, the basque missionary who has spent years living in the zone and has authored numerous books on the uncontacted peoples.
According to Cabodevilla, reducing the violence to mere ‘tribalism’ both overlooks the very real political, social and economic impacts of increased economic activity in the region, and excuses the very real perpetrators of vicious crimes. Cabodevilla is incensed that we apply a different moral code for crimes committed against individuals who, despite their seclusion, are owed protection via the Ecuadorian constitution as well as a series of international law mechanisms. Indeed, Article 57 of the Ecuadorian constitution states,
The territories of the peoples in voluntary isolation are their irreducible and intangible ancestral possession, and all types of extractive activity will be banned within them. The state will adopt measures to guarantee their lives, to respect their self-determination and will to stay in isolation, and to protect the observance of their rights. The violation of these rights will constitute the crime of genocide, as defined by the law. The state will guarantee the application of these collective rights without any discrimination, in equal conditions and equality between men and women.” (my translation).
Seen through these lens, any further incursion into the Yasuní-ITT breaks Ecuadorian law, especially considering the uncontacted peoples are unaware or uninhibited by the borders based on the margins of underground oil fields. The same constitution places international law on equal footing with domestic law, and provides legal personhood to nature. The legal case against exploiting the ITT block is strong, but then again, Ecuador is a place where the law of the jungle often triumphs over the rule of law, especially in the actual jungle.
Cabodevilla has no qualms pointing his finger at the government’s negligence and the Huaorani leadership. The Huaorani leadership, according to him, presents itself as a saviour of the forest whilst at the same time profiting from its depletion. According to Cabodevilla, the members of the body have either participated in the massacres of 2003 and 2013 or has been unable/unwilling to stop them. Complicating matters is that within the Huaorani ranks there are both victims as well as perpetrators of illegal logging.The oil may be black, but the politics is a dense fog of grey.
Amazon v. Us
According to the Ecuadorian Newspaper El Comercio, the Yasuní National Park consists of 5 active oil blocks, of which the ITT is one, each managed by different operators, including one which has 50% of its operations within the ‘intangible zone’, the area reserved for the uncontacted peoples.
Though many environmentalists have pointed out that the juxtaposition of human needs versus the needs of the environment is a false dichotomy, since man requires nature to provide nourishment, nowhere is this more clear than in the Yasuní, where the uncontacted peoples depend entirely on the Amazon’s fragile eco-system.
Sitting next to the highway that runs between the entrance to the Yasuní and the jungle jump-off town of Coca, one can observe a steady stream of flatbed trucks carry softwood lumber back towards Quito, the sound of their puttering air-breaks reverberating for miles.Illegal logging, it seems, fears not the law.
Deep in the park, I met a group of university students trying to research the communication patterns of the resident spider monkeys. The researchers record the monkey’s calls and then play them back to attempt to interpret their responses.
The researchers work is complicated by the sounds created by the heavy machinery operating on the road, which pushes the monkeys deeper into the forest and farther away from accessible food supplies.
“We have to rebuild the road every year,” one of the oil workers tells me, excusing the noise. “Everything here grows so fast, if we didn’t re-build it, in no time the road would disappear.”
The problem here is that Spider Monkeys are one of the main sources of protein for uncontacted peoples. In addition, spider monkeys transport and distribute seeds of the fruits and plants they eat from one part of the forest to another. If spider monkeys desert an area its natural diversity suffers. Then, the other species, including some we have yet to discover, that depend on the availability of those fruits and vegetables, also die out.
Speaking to this point, the award-winning Peruvian environmentalist and entrepreneur Kurt Holle states, “Don’t let anyone tell you they can predict the impact (of further exploitation). No-one can predict the impact.”
Kurt’s work in creating sustainable eco-tourism models, including his development of partnerships with local indigenous communities in the areas of the Amazon where he operates, has made his work the subject of Harvard case studies and has afforded him recognition as a “Young Global Leader” by the World Economic Forum.
A tireless campaigner for making not exploiting the Amazon more profitable than exploiting the Amazon, Kurt notes that not even leading researchers in the Amazon can successfully predict the consequences of increased activity such as oil drilling, as the eco-system of the area is far too complex to be easily mapped and protected.
“Something as simple as increased boating activity on the rivers can impact the amount of oil and gas in the water which is in turn consumed by all species, including the uncontacted peoples, not to mention the impact on fish stocks.” The amazon river, lest we forget, has more fish species than the entire Atlantic ocean.
“Oil spills,” says Kurt, “are a threat, but a larger threat is the indirect impact, given that it’s so hard to measure, predict, and prevent.” As was the case with the aforementioned spider monkeys, even a foreign element as seemingly harmless as sound can carry drastic consequences.
Kurt fears that the economic potential of the Amazon, including hydro, oil, minerals, etc., will eventually lead to the Amazon being carved into smaller pockets of scarce natural forest. “Oil generates taxes, and taxes lead to roads. Roads in turn change entire landscapes.”
The Resistance
Grassroots opposition to deeper incursions into the Yasuní for the sake of oil drilling is slowly taking shape. As mentioned, the government has done a remarkable job of selling the initiative to Ecuadorians, and many as a result, especially the young, have discovered a new-found environmental conscience. Anticipating this outcome, the government is determined not to be caught off guard.
Immediately following the announcement of the decision, the hashtag #NoToquenElYasuní (don’t touch the Yasuní) began to trend on Twitter.
When a Facebook group of the same name opened and encouraged people to change their avatar to a graphic with the slogan, it became clear that the group was being organized by pro-government forces taking advantage of the hashtag to promote ‘responsible drilling.’ Though social media continues to rally around the cause, the hashtag quickly lost its momentum.
In an effort to stymie the more organized elements of civil society, only a week before the announcement the President introduced “Decree 16,” a new series of legal impediments for foreign and domestic NGOs that was universally denounced, including by Human Rights Watch.
Amongst its new powers, the government has provided itself with the right to approve the operations of all NGOs and dissolve them at any time, including for “compromising public peace.” Given the President’s penchant for invoking ‘sovereignty’ to justify his actions, no-one would be surprised if foreign-based NGOs working on environmental issues are given their marching orders, should they speak too loudly on the subject of Yasuní-ITT.
Whether or not the opposition can mount an effective challenge to the government’s legitimacy on the matter is still anyone’s guess.
On the one hand the Ecuadorian constitution provides for citizen-invoked referendums with the signatures 5% of the voter registry (500,000 people). A movement is already afoot to collect the signatures.
On the other hand the Ecuadorian official opposition has been in disarray for much of the past 7 years. Correa’s numerous electoral victories have been cakewalks as much because of his personal appeal as well as because of a lack of viable alternatives. In the last election Correa’s party won 100 seats in congress: the next party won 11.
Seemingly learning nothing from each defeat, most opposition parties choose strategies of political cynicism in which they criticize everything and propose nothing. Their positions are predictably the opposite of whatever the government does, and many are hypocritically waving the flag of Yasuní-ITT after initially opposing the project. None have proposed a viable alternative vision for the country that has managed to capture the imagination of Ecuadorians.
Despite the lack of official opposition and the increased pressures on civil society groups, Ecuador has a long history of using protest to define politics. Throughout the 1990s three democratically elected Presidents were overthrown by popular protests.
Though no-one expects Correa to fall as a result of Yasuní-ITT, it’s clear from its actions the government is concerned. Each time a protest rally is called a counter-protest magically appears. The media war is on.
The government fights back claiming that that we need oil to “pull us out of poverty,” but such a statement rings hollow for Ecuadorians who feel 40 years of oil exploitation has failed to deliver the dream of universal prosperity. The government’s own narratives around both its long-standing lawsuit against Texaco-Chevron and its initial position on Yasuní-ITT undermine their newfound enthusiasm for oil drilling and their assurances of ‘minimal impact.’
What should not be underestimated is the amount of goodwill Correa has built with voters. During his time in power Ecuador has seen the largest expansion of its middle-class, much of which has been funded through aggressive public spending. As the Yasuní is fairly inaccessible even for those who can afford the trip, the plight of the National Park is still very abstract for many. If the opposition does manage to call a referendum on the subject, the government’s undefeated and well-oiled (pun intended) media machine will definitely be up for the challenge.
Strangely, it may be that Ecuador doesn’t need the money so much as it needs the oil. Because Rafael Correa is constitutionally banned from another term in office, it is unlikely his government will see any of the revenues that come from the Yasuní. His willingness to spend large amounts of political capital to backtrack on his initial plan seems odd.
One theory I recently heard from an oil executive is that the government needs the oil to justify its massive investment in developing a new refinery and petro-chemical plant. Ecuador spends almost 5 billion a year on oil derivative products, one of the single-largest items in its foreign trade deficit.
This imbalance will be reversed once the new refinery is up and running, but to achieve a return Ecuador needs a steady stream of oil, something that would not come about with current domestic reserves dwindling. While this narrative seems plausible, others have argued that the new refinery wont have the capacity to process so much heavy crude which, like the oil produced in Canada’s tar sands, is extremely thick, heavy and expensive to refine. Correa’s real motives are thus as murky as the oil he seeks to extract.
What this all means for the uncontacted peoples is still up for debate for everyone except them. Their nasty, brutish and short existence, along with the long-standing culture of violence, poses deep philosophical questions that defy many of the notions we’ve developed to organize and understand the world.
Whether it be the ideas of national sovereignty, individual rights, collective rights, prior consultation and resource management, etc., neither Ecuador nor the world is equipped with the necessary tools to deal with individuals and groups who have voluntarily chosen to live beyond borders in isolation, foregoing all rights and responsibilities in order to live as one with nature.
Our only option then in preventing ourselves from sleepwalking towards genocide is to either do nothing or do nothing.
If we continue to do nothing, the continued exploitation of the Amazon’s natural resources will likely lead to further conflicts that will threaten the existence of the non-contacted peoples. Maybe the skeptics are right and oil drilling will have minimum impact, but like climate change deniers, the cost of their being wrong is high.
Then again, if we actually managed to actively do nothing and hence bring an end to all extractive economic activity in the amazon, then we might have a chance to prevent our appetites from destroying the hidden amazonian tribes.
Regardless of whether we do nothing or we do nothing, we should not do though is pretend there is no choice in the matter.
As President Correa said himself. “We have a responsibility to protect the uncontacted peoples of the Amazon, but at what cost?”
At what cost indeed.
