This story was produced by Grist, co-published with InfoAmazonia and is part of The Human Cost of Conservation, a Grist series on Indigenous rights and protected areas. Lea esta nota en español.
Albeiro Mendúa was still in elementary school when the blockade began. For 10 days in October of 1998, hundreds of Indigenous A’i Cofán peoples joined together to stop oil workers from entering the community. Outraged by crude oil that had spilled into their streams and rivers, the A’i Cofán demanded the closure of Dureno 1, the well responsible for the contamination, and that Petroecuador — the state petroleum company of Ecuador — leave the area.
“Before the oil companies came, the community always lived in peace and we were all friends,” said Mendúa. “As a child, I went out to play and there was harmony between families and leaders, but that has now changed.”
Over the course of the protest, the Ecuadorian military was called in to monitor the situation. But in the end, the pressure exerted by the A’i Cofán became too much for the company’s management to handle: The government accepted their demands and agreed to temporarily close the well.
Indigenous Ecuadorians and environmental activists rally in front of the state attorney’s office in downtown Quito in December 1998 to demand the government’s support in their litigation against the oil company Texaco. Martin Berenetti / AFP via Getty Images
In 1969, Texaco drilled the Dureno 1 well inside the territory of the A’i Cofán peoples. But by 1992, the well had changed hands, eventually becoming Petroecuador’s, as did the mineral estate; in Ecuador, Indigenous communities like the A’i Cofán often hold title to land, but the minerals underneath, like oil and gas, and copper or gold, belong to the state.
Since the discovery of oil, the A’i Cofán village of Dureno in the northeastern part of the Ecuadorian Amazon has been threatened by a growing energy industry coupled with explosive population growth, the expansion of agriculture, and intense deforestation. More than two-thirds of the deforestation in the last two decades took place between 1990 and 2000. At the same time, the region’s population grew at a rate of about 5 percent each year.
After the closure of the Dureno 1 well, the A’i Cofáns lived in peace. At the age of 18, Mendúa received a scholarship to attend university in the city of Cuenca, 432 miles away. He graduated in 2010, with a degree in Educational Sciences and Research in Amazonian Cultures. His next goal: take what he learned back home in defense of his community.
When he came home, he noticed a change. Petroecuador had returned, and this time, they had a new tactic: offer incentives to the community, divide, and drill. When it came to economic development or the protection of lands, families had begun fighting and friends were in conflict.
At that time, his community survived by hunting, fishing, and collecting fruits, and Mendúa worked to develop projects that would protect their way of life, and their rights. For some time, Mendúa was vice president of the Confederation of Indigenous Nationalities of the Ecuadorian Amazon, an Indigenous organization that represents nearly 1,500 communities across the Amazon, and now leads the Fundación Hijos de la Selva, or Children of the Rainforest Foundation, an environmental organization focused on Indigenous rights.
“We continue to fight and resist,” Mendúa said. “But the leaders must be vigilant, and we need to defend ourselves.”
The A’i Cofán peoples hold legal title to more than 1,500 square miles of land across five sovereign territories in Ecuador’s northeast, along the Aguarico and San Miguel rivers, that contain dense tropical rainforests rich with plants and animals. Along the Aguarico, which begins in the Andes Mountains and runs 230 miles, narrow channels and lagoons provide homes to dolphins, manatees, and caimans.
In 2008, Ecuador’s Ministry of Environment, Water and Ecological Transition, also known by the acronym MAE, approached the A’i Cofán with a proposal to protect their homelands by paying residents to guard their forests. An A’i Cofán guard manipulates a camera trap to report the entry of hunters and mining and oil companies on their lands in Sinangoe, Ecuador, on September 11, 2022. Rodrigo Buendia / AFP via Getty Images
A’i Cofán guards tour their territory, on the lookout for hunters and mining and oil companies on their lands in Sinangoe, Ecuador, on September 11, 2022. Rodrigo Buendia / AFP via Getty Images
At first, many residents rejected the idea, fearing it was a ploy by the Ecuadorian government to obtain control of their territory. However, after trying multiple times to court the A’i Cofán and meeting with community members during open assemblies, the A’i Cofán decided unanimously to sign an agreement with MAE, and in 2008, they did just that, joining a national program called Socio Bosque, a cornerstone initiative behind the government’s promise to develop incentives that protect nature and ecosystems from development.
“The decision was made together, with the participation of young people, elders, women, experts, and leaders,” Mendúa said. “We started with 27 square miles of conservation area, and it was there that we raised our guard. We worked hard on the recovery of flora and fauna, and the community respected the terms.”
Today, the Dureno region is one of 222 Socio Bosque sites throughout Ecuador, consisting of nearly 6,330 square miles of protected land of which almost 5,605 square miles belong to Indigenous communities and other collective landowners. In Dureno, the A’i Cofán receive about $54,000 each year through Socio Bosque, and the money is used to train forest guards, improve surveillance strategies, and protect the territory from illegal miners and other threats.
A’i Cofán leader Alexandra Narváez takes part in the first meeting of the Indigenous guard in charge of protecting Native territories from resource exploitation, in Sinangoe, Ecuador, on September 11, 2022. Rodrigo Buendia / AFP via Getty Images
“The A’i Cofán have always been caretakers of the forests without receiving anything in return,” said Medardo Ortiz, who is also a member and former treasurer of the A’i Cofán community in Dureno. He says the agreement allowed them “to obtain economic resources and cover the needs of families.”
Forests inside A’i Cofán territory are some of the last remaining areas of pristine forest in the Ecuadorian Amazon, covering nearly 7,000 square miles. Through the Socio Bosque program, about 800 community members receive payment, collectively, each year to protect 30 square miles of land from logging and agricultural land grabs while preserving the land. The money is a windfall in a region where 54.45 percent of the population lives under the poverty line — and the program works. By 2025, the program aims to protect 7,000 square miles of forest across Ecuador.
“In general, deforestation rates in the northern Ecuadorian Amazon have remained relatively unchanged or even decreased in some areas since the early 2000s,” said Santiago Lopez, an associate professor of geography and the environment at the University of Washington, Bothell. “Socio Bosque is a very helpful program that has allowed individuals and communities to financially benefit from preserving their forests.”
But the expansion of energy development in and around Dureno, again, threatens to undermine the Socio Bosque project, potentially upending decades of conservation efforts and imperiling millions of dollars in international funding tied directly to the state’s protected area program.
A’i Cofán guards prepare to fly a drone for surveillance of the Aguarico River in Sinangoe, Ecuador, on September 11, 2022. Rodrigo Buendia / AFP via Getty Images
Since 2012, Petroecuador has drilled 70 new oil wells across 155 square miles of rainforest near Dureno, creating the largest oil field in the country and increasing production by approximately 75,000 barrels per day. And in 2017, the Ecuadorian government announced plans to expand drilling.
Last year, Ecuador produced approximately 482,000 barrels of oil a day, most of which was sourced from the Amazon region. More than 60 percent of the Ecuadorian Amazon is under oil concession, with almost 28,000 square miles of oil blocks in operation. By 2025, production is expected to ramp up to 756,000 barrels per day. Near Dureno, nearly 70 oil wells drilled before and after 2012 ring the Socio Bosque protected area, and two are producing oil inside the…