September, 1999
Colombia
On September 21, Colombia's Environment Minister announced that Occidental Petroleum would be granted a permit for exploratory oil drilling in a remote mountainous area of Colombia. The region in question is home to the U'wa, a group of native Colombians who rely on healthy forests and clean water for survival. Protesting that the oil lease constitutes cultural and environmental genocide, the U'wa are desparately trying to block the drilling. If drilling proceeds, the U'wa argue that they and their native environment will be destroyed. Before that happens to them, they have threatened mass suicide if drilling begins.
 The Uwa live in the mountainous cloud forests of Colombia near the border of Venezuela. |
Oil exploration brings roads, pollution, violence, oppressive army forces and outside settlers into remote areas that had previously been largely undisturbed and isolated from the rest of the world. Elsewhere in Colombia government and guerrilla forces regularly fight over pipelines, causing ruptures and in one case spilling more than a million gallons of crude oil into the soil and water. For years the U'wa have been struggling to block oil exploration, while the Colombian government has been working to encourage it. The U'wa have endured harassment and at least three assassinations over this issue. Several years ago international protest convinced Royal Dutch Shell to drop its plans for exploratory drilling in U'wa lands. Now Occidental has received a permit for drilling.
The land the U'wa inhabit is a remote cloud forest region. The mountainous jungles grow at high-elevation where they are frequently enveloped by clouds. In this rare environment, specialized communities of plants and animals have evolved in the humid, cool conditions of the cloud-enveloped highlands. The U'wa insist that this land, which has supported them for centuries, is sacred, and that without it they have no identity or way of survival. The deforestation and pollution that accompany oil development would be devastating both to the people and to their environment.
Native peoples and their environments have often been destroyed together. Often governments and corporations have allowed (or some say encouraged) the destruction of the people who struggle to preserve their environments. The Penan in the Malaysian rainforests are another group that have opposed the government, but most Penan have now been removed and resettled in holding camps or barren frontier towns, making way for logging and plantation corporations to clearcut or burn the rainforests of Malaysia. Will the U'wa follow through on their threat to kill themselves rather than face such a humiliating future? In part the answer depends on the activity of the international community.
To read more, see
Environmental Science, A Global Concern,
Cunningham and Saigo, 5th ed.
Deforestation in Colombia: p. 298
Cloud forests: p. 98-99
Loss of tropical forests: p. 297-302
Map of megadiversity regions: p. 272
Environmental Science, Enger and Smith, 6th ed.
Tropical forests and farming: p. 81
For further information, see these related web sites:
News updates from the Action Resource Center (associated with the Rainforest Action Network)
feedback form |
permissions |
international |
locate your campus rep |
request a review copy
Copyright ©2001 The McGraw-Hill Companies.
digital solutions |
publish with us |
customer service |
mhhe home
Any use is subject to the
Terms of Use and Privacy Policy.
McGraw-Hill Higher Education is one of the many fine businesses of the
The McGraw-Hill Companies.