A Leak in the Ecuadorian Oil Adventure

While rivers are being polluted, rainforests cut down and the health of citizens severely threatened by the oil industry, this black gold continues to flow through Ecuador. I am in the northern part of the Ecuadorian Amazon, visiting oil fields and researching the contamination of rivers, soil and forest in order to gain insight into what problems confront the Amazon. The area is ruined. Where there were once primary rain forests there are now oil plants, oil roads and a myriad of pipelines.

..In the Upper Oriente, oil exploration, alone, has led to the deforestation of approximately two million hectares (20.000km) of rain forest. Here, history demonstrates that between 400-2400 hectares of rainforest are colonized for every kilometer of new oil road built.

..The unsustainable oil projects are the direct consequences of an economic strategy, which primarily favors foreign oil companies and international banks over local communities. The Ecuadorian government is heavily indebted to the International Monetary Fund, and as a result it is forced to open remaining unspoiled rain forest areas in the East and Southern Amazon for oil exploration.

Upside Down World