In Part 2 of our special broadcast, we look at a recent victory for Indigenous communities in Ecuador, where people overwhelmingly voted to approve a referendum last year banning future oil extraction in a biodiverse section of the Amazon’s Yasuní National Park — a historic referendum result that will protect Indigenous Yasuní land from development. But the newly elected president, Daniel Noboa, has said Ecuador is at war with gang violence and that the country is “not in the same situation as two years ago.” Noboa has said oil from the Yasuní National Park could help fund that war against drug cartels. Environmental activists and Indigenous peoples say they’re concerned about his comments because their victory had been hailed as an example of how to use the democratic process to leave fossil fuels in the ground. “Amazonian women are at the frontlines of defense,” says Nemonte Nenquimo, an award-winning Waorani leader in the Ecuadorian Amazon who co-founded Amazon Frontlines and the Ceibo Alliance. Her recent piece for The Guardian is headlined “Ecuador’s president won’t give up on oil drilling in the Amazon. We plan to stop him — again.” Nemonte has just published her new memoir titled We Will Be Jaguars: A Memoir of My People. We also speak with her co-author and partner, Mitch Anderson, who is the founder and executive director of Amazon Frontlines and has long worked with Indigenous nations in the Amazon to defend their rights.
This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.
AMY GOODMAN: This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org, The War and Peace Report. I’m Amy Goodman.
In this this holiday special, we turn now to Nemonte Nenquimo, an Indigenous leader from the Waorani Nation in the Amazon rainforest of Ecuador. Last year, she helped win passage of a referendum in Ecuador to block oil drilling in the Amazon rainforest’s Yasuní Park. But now Ecuador’s President Daniel Noboa is pushing for oil drilling to continue, saying it’s needed to help finance the government’s war against drug cartels. Environmental activists and Indigenous peoples fear their victory to keep the oil in the soil could be overturned.
Nemonte Nenquimo co-founded Amazon Frontlines and the Ceibo Alliance. In June, she wrote an article for The Guardian headlined “Ecuador’s president won’t give up on oil drilling in the Amazon. We plan to stop him — again.” Nemonte also recently published a memoir titled We Will Be Jaguars: A Memoir of My People.
She came into our Democracy Now! studio in September along with her co-author and partner Mitch Anderson, who’s the founder and executive director of Amazon Frontlines. He has long worked with Indigenous nations in the Amazon to defend their rights.
I began by asking Nemonte Nenquimo to introduce herself and to talk about the Indigenous nation she’s from and the land where she lives in the Amazon, in Ecuador.
NEMONTE NENQUIMO: [translated] Good morning to all of you.
My name is Nemonte Nenquimo. I am a Waorani woman, leader, mother, who comes from the Waorani territory of Pastaza in Ecuador. All women, in general, Amazonian women, are at the frontlines of defense, giving our lives, because we women are more considerate and we worry about our sons and daughters, so that our daughters can have their living space, water, land, knowledge, values, plants, animals, so that we can live well, freely and with dignity. Now our territory is threatened every day. Why should we, as women, be threatened in our territory?
That is why I wrote a book about my resistance, about my childhood, from a child’s point of view. I grew up between two worlds. The missionaries came talking about saving souls, saying that our beliefs were bad. The oil men came to our territory, flying in helicopters, promising development. They did a lot of damage. They destroyed our water. They contaminated our land. They contaminated our people, as well, by disconnecting us from our knowledge and values. And also the governments and the big organizations come to offer to say that they’re going to build national parks, and at the same time they make things worse and take away our territory.
The struggle that we have lived through is very important, so I would like to contextualize it. It is a long story to tell in detail. So, for me, it is very important. As my father says, “Daughter, the more the people of the world don’t know the jungle well, the more they destroy it.” So my story and our culture is oral. That is why I transformed this oral story with my husband, Mitch, into writing, so that the world can understand how we Indigenous peoples are living, connected with Mother Nature, with much love and with much respect.
So, this is a story of resilience, of resistance, so that the people of the world can know the true story of the Indigenous peoples, of all the Indigenous peoples who are living a great, gigantic threat, because this system from here reaches our territory day after day after day. So this message is very important. You can read the book. You can touch and open your hearts and make a real commitment to take action.
What am I trying to say with this? The communities and the civil society here, you have to open your hearts and condemn that the companies do not continue to invest in what harms our territory and what exterminates our territory, our knowledge, our culture. So, from here, we have to begin to reeducate ourselves, not to consume what destroys our health, and to reconnect with Mother Nature, to reconnect spiritually, to love Mother Nature again and to heal ourselves. That is what’s important.
AMY GOODMAN: I wanted to go back to what happened last year, Nemonte, in Ecuador, in the rainforest. On August 20th, 2023, Ecuador voted to halt all........