On September 30th , the U'wa reported that Occidental, with a military escort of 3,000-4,000 soldiers, transported 80 vehicles full of drilling equipment from the neighboring town of Saravena. It is expected to take 7 months to complete. Meanwhile, grassroots pressure on Oxy's top shareholders is working. For centuries, they have protected large tracts of forest by prohibiting all human access - including their own. These tracts now function as de facto biological reserves for such species as jaguars, spectacled bears, and toucans.
Outsiders marvel at the tribe's ability to sustain themselves without scarring the land.
So careful are the U'wa that photos from the air cannot detect where they have planted crops. If you kill the earth, then no one will live. Having survived their continent's conquest and colonization, the U'wa now face the greatest threat to their existence in the last 400 years at the hands of Occidental. The U'wa have repeatedly stated that they are willing to die to keep oil drilling off their ancestral homelands. In 1992, Occidental Petroleum and Royal Dutch Shell acquired oil exploration rights to U'wa ancestral land in partnership with the Colombian government.