Echoes of Betrayal: The Shiwiar’s Fight to Save the Amazon from Oil Exploitation

_{^{Depiction of Ecuadorian girl and oil drilling on her territory, art copyright by author Carlita Shaw}.}

I recently received urgent news from my lifelong friends in the Shiwiar Amazon rainforest nation of Ecuador—their ancestral rainforest is once again under threat from oil drilling. This is particularly shocking given that just a year ago, the Ecuadorian government pledged to halt oil extraction in the Amazon following an 18-day national protest led by Indigenous communities. That hard-won victory is now being disregarded, much like many earlier broken promises from Ecuador’s leaders. This betrayal threatens to prolong the devastation for another five years or more, violating the spirit of a referendum meant to protect the Amazonian biodiversity and its people.

_{a Shiwiar community navigating the Amazon river, Ecuador 2012, by author.}

Back in August 2012, I embarked on a journey deep into the Ecuadorian Amazon to meet the Shiwiar people, a community I had long dreamed of supporting. My history with the Shiwiar community goes back to since beginning my Wildlife Conservation degree in London, England in 2000, I had been in contact with them through Sarah Dixon, who was collaborating on a plant medicine project with them, they have always been working on pioneering projects to protect their rainforest territory. After years of planning, I finally made it to their Juintsa territory—a remote area only accessible by a small apache plane from Shell, a 1.5 hours flight over the Amazon rainforest or a seven-hour canoe ride along the Amazon River from the Peruvian border.

^{Read Ecocide in Ecuador}