The Waorani community of Ecuador protects 180,000 hectares of their land against exploitation The indigenous Waorani community of Ecuador has won a landmark case against oil companies, protecting 180000 hectares of their land against exploitation.
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The Waorani people protected 500K acres of rainforest from oil drilling. A 3-judge panel indefinitely suspended the auctioning of Waorani lands to oil companies by trashing the Ecuadorian government processes undertaken in 2012. By setting precedent for indigenous nations across the Ecuador's Amazon by accepting a Waorani bid for court protection to stop oil bidding, auctioning of 7 million more acres was halted. Nemonte Nenquimo, plaintiff in the lawsuit:
“The government tried to sell our lands to oil companies without our permission. Our rainforest is our life. We decide what happens in our lands. We will never sell our rainforest to oil companies. The courts recognized that the Waorani people, and all indigenous peoples have rights over our territories that must be respected. The government’s interests in oil is not more valuable than our rights, our forests, our lives.”
At www.captain-planet.net
