December 09, 2014

Ecuador indigenous leader killed for oil drilling?

editor:	Murat Suner

The body of José Isidro Tendetza Antún, an indigenous leader who was "opposed to a major mining project in Ecuador has been found bound and buried, days before he planned to take his campaign to climate talks in Lima" The Guardian reports. 

According to the newspaper the killing highlights the violence and harassment facing environmental activists in Ecuador, "following the confiscation last week of a bus carrying climate campaigners who planned to denounce" Ecuadorian President Rafael Correa at the United Nations conference. 

Earlier, Correa abandoned a plan to spare the Yasuní rain forest in eastern Ecuador from oil development,which would produce an estimated 900 million barrels of heavy crude – the country's largest reserve. 

The project is operated by Ecuacorriente – originally a Canadian-owned firm that was brought by a Chinese conglomerate, CCRC-Tongguan Investment, in 2010. According to the Confederation of Indigenous Nationalities of Ecuador, the project will devastate around 450,000 acres of forest.

According Amazon Watch, Yasuní is an area of extreme biodiversity, containing "the greatest variety of tree and insect species anywhere on the planet. In just 2.5 acres, there are as many tree species as in all of the US and Canada combined."

However, there has been a rise of conflicts since the transnational mining company entered the area, significantly increasing the risks faced by community leaders,” said Harold Burbano, of the human rights organization INREDH, and so there is suspicion that the killing of Tendetza was "related to his work as a land defender."

Also, Amazon Watch reports, that several other opponents of the oil drilling in yasuni national park project have "died as a result of the conflict in recent years, including Bosco Wisum in 2009 and Freddy Taish in 2013."

The project is operated by Ecuacorriente – originally a Canadian-owned firm that was brought by a Chinese conglomerate, CCRC-Tongguan Investment, in 2010. According to the Confederation of Indigenous Nationalities of Ecuador, the project will devastate around 450,000 acres of forest.

If you wish to support the petition to stop oil drilling in the Amazon rainforest please visit Amazon Watch's campaign page.