When the Kichwa Indians in the Ecuadorian Amazon heard the helicopters, they knew that there were intruders on their lands. Oil company workers had come uninvited to install seismic explosives to gauge the amount of oil beneath their territory. The 1200 people of the Sarayaku communities rounded up the workers and forced them to leave, but not before the high explosives had been implanted at 467 sites but not exploded. The Ecuadorian Army was dispatched to support the oil workers, but were disarmed by tribal members. The army's weapons were returned ceremoniously by tribal women. Now, light aircraft are the only means of egress for the people of Sarayaku since their use of the Bobonaza River has been blocked. The Inter-American Commission on Human Rights issued an Order for the Government of Ecuador to take precautionary measures on behalf of Sarayaku. That was in 2003. All was peaceful when we visited Sarayaku in November 2005 during a trip sponsored by Global Exchange, but it was unclear if the oil companies and the army would return.

Sarayaku residents were fully aware of the consequences of oil drilling in the Amazon, some having seen the devastation and illnesses north of their lands. They knew that the oil beneath their territory, legally owned by the Ecuadorian government, could not be extracted without destroying their rainforest and way of life. Legal action similar to a class action suit representing more than 30,000 people is underway against Chevron-Texaco accusing them of despoiling a huge area of previously untouched rainforest and subjecting residents to serious illnesses. The suit alleges that 18 billion gallons of toxic formation water composed of hydrocarbons, heavy metals, and salts were released over a twenty year period into the headwaters of the Amazon River used by indigenous people and settlers for drinking, bathing, washing clothes, fishing, and cooking. In the United States these wastes would have been reinjected into underground strata and caverns. Waste oil was put into 627 unlined pits which have leaked into the ground water, polluting wells, sickening people, and killing farm animals. In Texaco's area of operation children younger than four have the highest cancer risk and those under 15 are three times more likely than in nearby provinces to develop cancer according to a study in a 2004 issue of the International Journal of Occupational and Environmental health. In San Carlos where cancer rates were the highest, a young man told us that his mother died the day after she had gone to the river to get water. Fish and game populations have fallen steeply, one indigenous tribe has been driven to extinction, and two others are on the brink. As we drove away from San Carlos, women were washing clothes and children were splashing in the river.

Who is to come to the aid of those few thousand rainforest dwellers who are pitted against irresponsible governments and resource exploiters? Accion Ecologica, an Ecuadorian NGO, works with people affected by extractive industries in campaigning, lobbying, offering legal advice, and supporting non-violent action. Amnesty International has launched a campaign to bring the environmental and human rights disasters in the Ecuadorian Amazon to the attention of Chevron-Texaco shareholders. In accepting the 2004 Right Livelihood Award in part for her work in Ecuador, Bianca Jagger said, "None of my past experiences prepared me for the environmental devastation and suffering I witnessed in the Ecuadorian Amazon... Texaco now known as Chevron-Texaco, is responsible for the worst oil related disaster in the history of Latin America, surpassing in scale the Exxon Valdez spill...These are stories of forgotten people, who cannot reach the media, and lobby Government officials, congressmen, members of Parliament and international institutions for rights and justice. They seldom have a voice, they are members of the most vulnerable segments of society..."

In our conversations with indigenous people, one thought kept reemerging, "The Earth is our home. We must take care of it." It is difficult for an urban North American whose land typically includes a house and lawn to understand that the lands of the indigenous peoples mean everything to them - their livelihoods, their grocery stores, their building-materials warehouses, their pharmacies, their sources of spirituality, their mother.