What we want, and what the Huaorani want, in terms of minimising encroachment on their land is synonymous,'' he tells the film makers as the camera cuts to images of executives and dignitaries reviewing maps of oil concessions across Huaorani land. Ten, twenty people would die in one day. We are what has been left over,'' says Moi, a Huaorani leader. We knew we could drink the water. Delphin takes a stick and prods the soil at the bottom of a crystal-clear stream.
Crude oil rises in a murky cloud and blackens the stream where no fish swim anywhere.
Thirty pieces of tin,'' says Ramon, a Cofan forced to abandon his house because, day and night, oil company trucks tear along an oil-slicked road ripped from the jungle a mere three yards from his front door. Ramon says as he points to his abandoned ration. Meanwhile, local hospitals swell with chronic cases of respiratory, skin, and gastrointestinal problems attributed to oil- related contamination. In October 1993, the Cofan brought a law suit against oil giant Texaco in Federal District Court in New York. Among other things, the Cofan alleged Texaco had spilled seven times as much oil on their land as was haemorrhaged by the tanker Exxon Valdez when it ran aground in Alaska.