Community | September 14, 2009 | 7 comments

Oil company impacts indigenous tribes, wildlife in Ecuadorian Amazon

source: http://news.mongabay.com/2009/0913-hance_ecuador_oil.html

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"Oil company in Ecuador transforms indigenous community into commercial poachers, threatening wildlife in a protected area
The documentary Crude opened this weekend in New York, while the film shows the direct impact of the oil industry on indigenous groups a new study proves that the presence of oil companies can have subtler, but still major impacts, on indigenous groups and the ecosystems in which they live."

"In Ecuador's Yasuni National Park—comprising 982,000 hectares of what the researchers call "one of the most species diverse forests in the world"—the presence of an oil company has disrupted the lives of the Waorani and the Kichwa peoples, and the rich abundance of wildlife living within the forest. By building a 149 kilometer (92 mile) road through the protected forest and providing subsidies to the local tribes, the oil company Maxus Ecuador Inc. transformed some members of the tribes from semi-nomadic subsistence hunters into commercial poachers."

We’ve found that a road in a forest can bring huge social changes to local groups and the ways in which they utilize wildlife resources," said Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) researcher Esteban Suárez, lead author of the study. "Communities existing inside and around the park are changing their customs to a lifestyle of commercial hunting, the first stage in a potential overexploitation of wildlife."


The article concludes saying:"
"A simple, seemingly inoffensive road can have far-reaching effects on a landscape and its people," said Dr. Avecita Chicchón, Director of WCS’s Latin America and Caribbean Program. "It provides hunters with more access to a wider range of forest while providing a low-cost transportation route to markets. More importantly, it plugs communities more easily into the larger economic world while creating increased demand for numerous species of animals. It is the road to unsustainability."
The picture:Peccary legs. Wild meat fetched prices double that of domestic in the area. Photo by: Julie Larsen Maher © WCS




Not only roads are a big polluter and a natural resource devourer but actually accelerate destruction among nature and people.
  1. groups:
    Community,   Green,   Current Tonight,   Max and Jason: Still Up
  2. tags:
    News,  Green,  Environment,  Indigenous People,  4 more
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