Ecuador auctions off Amazon to Chinese oil firms

Indigenous groups claim they have not consented to oil projects, as politicians visit Beijing to publicise bidding process.

Ecuadorean Amazon
Indigenous groups in Ecuador say the planned oil projects would devastate the environment and threaten their traditional way of life. Photograph: Alamy

Ecuador plans to auction off more than three million hectares of pristine Amazonian rainforest to Chinese oil companies, angering indigenous groups and underlining the global environmental toll of China's insatiable thirst for energy.
On Monday morning a group of Ecuadorean politicians pitched bidding contracts to representatives of Chinese oil companies at a Hilton hotel in central Beijing, on the fourth leg of a roadshow to publicise the bidding process. Previous meetings in Ecuador's capital, Quito, and in Houston and Paris were each confronted with protests by indigenous groups.
Attending the roadshow were black-suited representatives from oil companies including China Petrochemical and China National Offshore Oil. "Ecuador is willing to establish a relationship of mutual benefit – a win-win relationship," said Ecuador's ambassador to China in opening remarks.
According to the California-based NGO Amazon Watch, seven indigenous groups who inhabit the land claim that they have not consented to oil projects, which would devastate the area's environment and threaten their traditional way of life.

Ecuador map

"We demand that public and private oil companies across the world not participate in the bidding process that systematically violates the rights of seven indigenous nationalities by imposing oil projects in their ancestral territories," a group of Ecuadorean organised indigenous associations wrote in an open letter last autumn.

 

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Comments

 
drey.tosi on Thursday, 28 March 2013 11:05

Most governments' officials are completely corrupted and have no conscience. They have no problem selling off their country's wealth and the environment of millions of lives to the highest bidder. It's time we rein in on all nations' governments with the Repeace rules and set them through.

Most governments' officials are completely corrupted and have no conscience. They have no problem selling off their country's wealth and the environment of millions of lives to the highest bidder. It's time we rein in on all nations' governments with the Repeace rules and set them through.
repeace on Tuesday, 13 August 2013 06:48

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