Intro to my Tena Diaries

Dear Tena Diary followers,

My name is Emily Howland and I will be blogging from Tena on Ivanhoes activity here in the Napo Province ofEcuador. I am a volunteer for Amazon Watch, a U.S.-based non-profit that worksto protect the rainforest and further the rights of indigenous communities ofthe Amazon. You can learn more about our work at http://www.amazonwatch.org/about_us .

Since arriving in Tena I have attended a community government meeting and a workshop to teach indigenouspolitical leaders about the constitutions environmental laws in Ecuador. Ecuadoris the only country in the world whose constitution give rights to nature. Ivetalked to locals and tried to sort through the rumors flying around town aboutIvanhoe.

Tena is a beautiful Amazonian town known for its ecotourism, organic cacao growing and the Kichwa language andculture. Illegal oil and gold mining projects have sprouted up like weeds alongthe riverbanks. The government is supposedly handing out mining permits withoutrespecting the laws of the UNESCO Sumaco Biosphere Reserve, which protects therainforest in the provinces of Napo, Orellana and Sucumbos province.Communities have been divided between those who support the companies and thosewho want to conserve the land. Those who are on the conservation side aredeeply concerned about Ivanhoes potential to completely alter the way of lifehere. Not yet is always the response when I ask someone if there is visiblecontamination in the river. Not yet.

My Tena Diaries will document developments in the Ivanhoe case as we try touncover the facts about the Pungarayacu project in Ecuador regarding theseissues and others:

Is Ivanhoe complying with its EnvironmentalImpact Study?

Are they socializing the project to work withthe surrounding communities and compensating these communities for occupyingtheir land?

Does the company have the capital to completethe project?

Finding the answers involves talking to many people on different parts of the foodchainNGOs in the region, civil authorities in communities, governmentofficials, business owners, and townspeople. Many times I get conflictingresponses to questions like When is Ivanhoe building its second well? or Howmany wells is Ivanhoe planning to build in the three-year testing phase?Perhaps confusion and lack of transparency is part of Ivanhoes tactic to avoidresistance to their project.

The purpose of this blog is to give names to the Faces of Ivanhoe the people, places and things that live andbreathe the Pungarayacu project. Some may be adamantly against the Ivanhoeproject and others might work for Ivanhoe. And in some cases you never knowwhat side theyre on. Ill share my interactions, interviews, research andimpressions to report the very latest activity from Tena.

My hope is that Tena Diaries followers will be a force of informed people who can help get the word out. Weare all at risk here. Climate change is showing us that we simply wont surviveif we continue to destroy our natural resources. Yet somehow corporate Goliathslike Ivanhoe still see the rainforest as a disposable resource.

Ecuador holds a special place in my heartmy semester abroad in Quito during my junior year of college changed mylife. That semester taught me the immense value of speaking a second languageto connect to people and places far removed from my home in San Francisco, CA.Last May I received a B.A. in English Literature and Hispanic Studies fromMacalester College in St. Paul, MN. I returned to Quito in October and joinedAmazon Watch in Tena in January.

I look forward to getting your feedback on my blogs and using the Tena Diaries forum as a resource for mywork. Please visit the Amazon Watch website to see how you can contribute toconserving the Amazon rainforest!

Thanks for your interest and concern,

Emily Howland