The Wauroni tribes live in the forests of Ecuador, and they say they are prepared to fight to the death (with pea-shooters) to protect the land, but why have they been forced to make such a bold statement? The Ecuadorian government plans to sell as much as eight million acres of Rainforest for oil drilling, and so the Wauroni tribes’ wellbeing is at stake, as well as your environmental wellness.
In his March 2013 editorial, Ecuador To Sell China More Than Three Million Hectares Of Pristine Amazonian Rainforest For Oil Development, constitutional professor Jonathon Turley explained, ‘The cost will not just be felt by these tribes. The destruction of these rainforests will contribute to global warming and accelerate the loss of species. Those species will not only reduce diversity in this world but many likely hold medical and scientific breakthroughs. We have found key treatments for diseases and illnesses in such rare species. In other words, we are slitting our own throats in the loss of these areas.’
Boaventura de Sousa Santos has also discussed the problems of drilling oil for revenue, if it is taken to the extreme as in the case of Ecuador. ‘Most of all, it constitutes an ongoing assault on the indigenous and peasant populations where those resources are to be found, as their waters get polluted; their ancestral rights are disregarded; international law – which requires that local populations be consulted – is violated; people are expelled from their lands and community leaders are murdered,’ he said.
By saving Ecuador’s Rainforest, the earth will be able to recover from global warming when the polluting sources of energy are replaced with clean energy. However, if we destroy eight million acres of the Rainforest, we’ll be doing the equivalent of removing the heart and lungs from the body of the earth. As we learnt from the BP spill in the Gulf of Mexico, there’s no such thing as safe oil drilling, but the international communities, and the affluent members of our society could transform our earth from a hot, polluted death trap to a world of clean skies, oceans, forests, and quiet highways. We need to preserve Ecuador’s Rainforest to get there.
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