Amazonian nationality demands that its territory is not a site for oil exploitation

The leaders expressed their discomfort outside Petroecuador, because they have information that would interest Chinese capital.

Faced with new threats of oil exploitation, a group of the Sapara nationality of Ecuador, located in the Amazon province of Pastaza, demanded on Wednesday the Government the cancellation of a contract with an oil company with Chinese capital.

Its leaders moved from the Amazon to Quito to express their discomfort in front of the Petroecuador headquarters.

Nema Grefa, president of the Sapara Governing Council, firmly pointed out that they do not want oil exploitation in their territory.

Grefa was accompanied by other members of this endemic nationality considered the smallest in the country with only 570 members.

With posters that had the legend “Down with the oilmen” they expressed their disagreement.

The controversy revolves around the exploitation of blocks 79 and 83 that are located in the ancestral territory, by virtue of a contract signed four years ago between the Ecuadorian State and Andes Petroleum, a consortium of the Chinese companies National Petroleum Corporation (CNPC) and China Petrochemical Corporation (Sinopec).

The leader insisted that their nationality wants their collective right to continue living in the Amazon jungle free from oil exploitation.

Manari Ushigua, another representative of the nationality, indicated that with the agreement that the Ecuadorian Government signed with Andes Petroleum, they began to die within their territory.

“We don’t want to continue dying in the jungle, they haven’t asked us either,” Ushigua said.

She clarified that the reason for the demand to the Executive occurs after the company withdrew from the territory “due to force majeure, a situation that the State accepted.” However, she explained that she has recently pressed again to move forward with the extractivist project.

The leader expressed that, although they are disappearing, they provide humanity with clean air and water that benefit the world and insisted that his wish is for the Government to recognize this, once the Sapara people were declared in 2001 Intangible Cultural Heritage of The humanity.

It transpired that they will give the authorities a period of two months before taking actions such as resorting to the Inter-American Court of Human Rights or the UN to prevent oil exploitation in their territory.

“Our fight is not only for the Sapara people, but for all the plants, their spirits and the oil that is going to be defended,” she said.

While the nationality’s gender and family leader, Irene Toquetón, accused the Government of leaving indigenous peoples to their fate by ensuring that they have lived the pandemic “in total abandonment” and regretted that they do not have a health post despite your requests.

She called on humanity to become aware that they are defenders of the jungle.

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