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A group of Waorani from the Miwaguno village went to the courts in the town of Francisco de Orellana (Orellana province) to file a lawsuit on December 10, according to AFP.
In the lawsuit, locals protested that PetroOriental burned millions of cubic meters of natural gas while extracting crude oil, polluting and affecting their lives.
The chief of Miwaguno, Juan Pablo Enomenga, said: “We want them to turn off the natural gas burners because they damage the environment and our land.”
Enomenga said that in the last 15 years, local yucca and banana yields (which are the basis of the Waorani community’s diet) have declined due to environmental pollution.
“Currently, our production is less than 50% compared to before,” Enomenga said.
Environmental protection organization Acción Ecológica expressed support for the lawsuit and efforts to defend the protection of the lives of the Waorani.
PetroOriental operates exploration lots 14 and 17 in the province of Orellana, with a production of around 10,000 barrels per day. The village of Miwaguno is located near the oil wells exploited by PetroOriental.
In its 2018 report, Ecuador’s Department of Energy estimated that for every barrel of oil produced there would be about 5 meters3 Natural gas (also called associated gas) is burned.
In Ecuador, there are some 5,000 Waorani indigenous peoples living in the Napo, Pastaza and Orellana provinces.
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