Why the International Community Must Listen to Amazonian Communities Who Are Again at the Front Line in the Fight Against Oil Companies and Climate Change

by Adam Punzano and Joe Tucker / Reimagining Progress

“We’re not talking about the conservation of our territory or this forest alone, we’re talking about the conservation of the planet!”

– Patricia Gualinga (Sarayaku, International Relations)

Indigenous communities of the Ecuadorian Amazon are facing considerable threats to their territorial integrity from the Chinese-owned Andes Petroleum. This puts them once again on the front line to preserve the Amazon on which the international community depends in its battle with climate change. Their resistance is inspiring and sees them pitted against some extremely powerful interests, but employing an internationalist approach with partners drawn from across the world they have had some remarkable successes over recent years.

In the wake of the G20 summit in Hangzhou where global leaders managed to reaffirm their commitment to tackling climate change but failed to agree on deadlines to ratify the Paris climate agreements and the phasing out of fossil fuels, it is becoming increasingly clear that the efforts of those at the front line resisting the detrimental effects of the global reliance on fossil fuels need to be recognised and their voices included to a much greater extent within the debate.

In spite of their frequent exclusion from public debate and decision making, indigenous communities are not only offering unwavering and firm resistance in order to protect their territorial integrity, they are also proposing innovative solutions to the international community regarding environmental protection and climate change. Most notably the community of Sarayaku have presented the ´Kawsak Sacha´ or ´Living Forest´ proposal at COP 21, which argues for a “shift from a modernizing model of development –a model that treats nature as material resource– to the alternative of Kawsak Sacha”, which treats “the economic system as an ecological web; the natural world as also a social world.”

The motivation to share their belief systems with the world is also held by the President and Spiritual Leader of the Sapara nation, Manari Ushigua. Manari has taken an active role in building a relationship with the international community through the ´Naku project´, a community-lead initiative inviting people to visit and stay with the Sapara to experience first-hand the spiritual relationship with nature and ceremonies that are carried out to facilitate this profound connection with the natural environment. He explained that “the Naku project is to get to know whether this forest is alive or dead and, more than anything, explaining how the indigenous communities, in general all the cultures, connect with the spiritual world”. It is understood that the more thoroughly they are able to communicate their beliefs and relationship with the forest, the better chance there is of enacting the necessary change at the national and global level.

These indigenous communities have also been building their international presence in ever-more creative ways, constructing and transporting a thirty-foot Amazonian canoe to COP21, which was sailed down the river Seine by Sarayaku delegates. Most recently they have collaborated with the independent documentary film ´Reimagining Progress- Voices from the Ecuadorian Amazon´ which offers an in-depth exploration of the current critical situation faced by these communities as well as looking at the powerful and vital messages they want to share with the world.

Having been consistently marginalised and ignored, there has been some recent positive progress at the IUCN Congress (International Union for the Conservation of Nature) earlier this month, where Sarayaku were presenting the living forest proposal, with the assembly creating a new membership category for indigenous peoples. Aroha Te Pareake Mead, Chair of IUCN’s Commission on Environmental, Economic and Social Policy (CEESP) expressed the significance of this development asserting that:

“For Indigenous peoples this provides an unprecedented opportunity to contribute to global policy on biocultural conservation, indigenous issues, traditional knowledge and the future direction of conservation as distinct peoples.”

It is without doubt that these communities are prepared to put their lives on the line to protect their territory whilst also reaching out to cooperate with those globally who see the importance of their struggle. However, the extent to which the international community at large is prepared to genuinely listen and implement their ideas through environmental and conservationist policy remains to be seen.

To learn more about the issues and communities featured in this article please visit the ‘Re-Imagining Progress – Voice from the Ecuadorian Amazon’ film website and crowdfunding page where you can find information on the film in full as well as a trailer-

https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/reimagining-progress-documentary-film–2/x/14356412#/

https://reimaginingprogress.com/

Adam Punzano & Joe Tucker

Directors & Producers

‘Reimagining Progress- Voices from the Ecuadorian Amazon’