“We don’t ask them to stop extract oil, but that they stop doing it with criminal methods, which violate the fundamental rights of hundreds of people and the environment”. To tell it to Wired It’s Pablo Fajardo during an interview. He is a lawyer who has been fighting for 30 years defense of indigenous peoples from the abuses of oil companies who operate in theEcuadorian Amazon. He was just over 25 years old when he sued the American giant Texaco (now Chevron) for the irreversible damage caused to hundreds of indigenous communities since the beginning of its mining activity in the 1960s. During its thirty years of operation, the company has spilled more than 18 billion liters of toxic water and thousands of barrels of oil into rivers and released thousands of cubic meters of toxic gases into the air, violating the rights of local indigenous populations .
Today Pablo continues to fight together with the Udapt team (Union de Afectados por Texaco/Union of Texaco victims)), an NGO he founded to protect Amazonian communities whose fundamental rights continue to be trampled upon by companies. The northeast of Ecuador, in fact, is one land rich in hydrocarbons, predominantly inhabited by peoples like i Siona, Kofan, Shuar, Siekopai and Achuar who have lived in complete harmony with nature for thousands of years, hunting, fishing and growing bananas and yuca. But since when Texaco has discovered the enormous wealth that lies beneath their feet, in 1964, these people no longer had peace. Today Texaco no longer operates in Ecuador, but dozens of national and multinational companies are enriching themselves by taking inspiration from its model of intensive and violent extraction, pursuing the sole objective of plundering resources without any respect for the local populations.
In the Amazon there are “eternal” fires
This is demonstrated by a practice common to all these companies: the gas flaring. It is a process through which they come gases derived from oil extraction were burned in the open air, gases that contain over 250 highly carcinogenic toxins. These perpetual fires, in most cases located near villages or schools, illuminate the Amazon skies 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. Considering that the contaminating range of many of these gases reaches a radius of 25 kilometers, it is easy to imagine the consequences they can have on the people living in the surrounding areas, on rivers, animals, plants, and the air.
At an ecosystem level, local biodiversity is profoundly compromised due to alterations of microclimates, acid rain, the physical-chemical mutation of the soil and rainwater and the consequent impoverishment of crops. One of the most harmful consequences for humans is the deposit of toxic particles on the roofs of houses. Since river water is too contaminated to drink, most families collect rainwater for daily consumption which, in contact with the deposited particles, becomes contaminated causing illnesses in those who consume it. The incidence of cancer in the area is frighteningly high: in the provinces of Orellana and Sucumbios, around 250 cases of cancer were detected in 2021, 70% of them in women. But there’s insult to injury: cancer patients have nowhere to go for treatment. “The Ecuadorian state only guarantees two days of chemotherapy at his own expense in the capital Quito, located approximately 10 hours by bus from the regions in question. Each additional day will be paid by the patient. It goes without saying that almost no inhabitant of this region has the financial means to cover the additional costs of the treatment!“, explains Patricia, coordinator of Udapt’s medical staff: “This translates into a very high mortality rate among cancer patients living in these regions.”.
