Searching for Middle Ground

Searchingfor MiddleGround NativeCommunities andOil Extraction inthe Northern andCentral Ecuadorian Amazon, 1967-1993 PaulSabin In September1993, two high-level United Statesgovernment officials appeared in a New YorkTimes photographbearing the featheredcrowns and large spearsof a small groupof Ecuadoriannatives, the Huaorani.These U.S. representativesplayed new roles in the changing dramaof internationalpetroleum development. By the early 199os, the balance of political power had shifted for the first time toward residents of the oil-producingregion, such as the Huaorani,and to national and internationalnongovernmental organizations(NGOs). This was the latest in a series of shifts:by the early1970s, powerhad moved decisivelyfrom industrialized consuming nations like the United States to the national governmentsof oil-pro- ducing countries like Ecuador. Why had the political climate changed so strik- ingly since the first major oil discoveryin remote eastern Ecuador in 1967? How should scholarsunderstand the nature of native opposition to oil development in the EcuadorianAmazon?' The local historyof oil extractionin Ecuador includes considerable exploitation and conflict. Dramaticlocal incidents suggeststaunch resistanceto oil development among indigenous Amazonian peoples. Communities have expelled seismic crews, harassedconstruction workers,and sequesteredgovernment officials in order to protest state and industry policies. A group of Huaorani even spearedto death three surveyworkers in the late 1970s.2But the historyof Amazo- nian oil development is not a simple tale of capitalist penetration and pristine native resistance. Such interpretationsmistakenly take these determined protests as an indicationthat Amazonian indigenous groupsoppose all development,wish- ing to remain in a purely "traditional,"unchanged culture. A more complex story emerges upon closer examination.Here, as in other instances of extractivedevel- opment, native groups complain that there has been too little of the right kind of development and too much of the wrong kind. Native leaders in the Amazon particularlycriticize the alliance between the Ecuadoriangovernment, the petro- EcuadorianNatives and Oil Extraction 145 lemhomane andrther large plantatonaTi pcaowrfulnombiatinhaz y teaiclywokdagis teiteet o atv omuiie enfrig hi needfo securpropery titls and teir deIreAfOroal retdeooiee opment3~ ~ ~ ~~~~~A Rater hanexmplfyig ntie rsisanc t economIc chng thtoyo Ecuadoria oildevlopment oints toproblemsIntewyhacopisad 146 EnvironmentalHistory nationshave developedpetroleum resources. The storyalso underscoresthe struggle of native communities to change how oil extractionoccurs. In Ecuador, as else- where, the conditions of extractionhave typicallyforced native groups to choose between no economic development and a form of industrialactivity that would undermine the foundations of native cultural and economic life. To extract oil cheaply and fulfill national strategicand economic goals, the oil industryand the national government ignored native concerns. Beginning in the 196os, they rode roughshod over local land rights, failed to mitigate or compensate for pollution damage, and allowed a sweeping processofAmazonian colonization that stripped native groups of large swaths of territoryand endangered their cultural and economic survival.In their opposition, native groupsfought to change these political, economic, and environmental conditions. Local residentsand fledgling political organizationssought to negotiate and participatefully in discussionswith multina- tional oil companies and national governments. By the late 198os, this strugglehad become roughlyanalogous to the triangular political dynamic described by historianRichard White in The Middle Ground: Indians,Empires, and Republics in the GreatLakesRegion, 165-1815. In White's study, none of the major players-the native Algonquians, the English, or the French-could get what they wanted from the othersthrough force. Instead,they had to seek cooperationfrom each other,and eventuallya "middleground" emerged between the competing empires of France and England. New, hybrid forms of cultural, economic, and political interactiontransformed the behaviorof the par- ticipants. For example, unable to unilaterallyimpose French law in the colonies, French officials found themselves awkwardlyadministering a hybridform of jus- tice that combined elements of Algonquianand French custom into a new ritual.4 Two key featuresdistinguish a middle ground: its creation by at least three political forces, and its characteristicnature of accommodation. As in the colonial GreatLakes region, where the Algonquiansand Europeanscreated a middleground between nativepeoples and two competing Europeanempires, the middle ground emerging in modern Ecuador reflected not a meeting of equals, but rathera rela- tionship between groupsapparently unequal in power.To enhance theirpolitical and economic position, Amazonian native groups in Ecuador made crucial alli- ances with sympatheticoutsiders, including environmentaland indigenous rights organizations and international development agencies. These allies provided money, volunteers, and advice to supportthe native groups. Through advocacy, the internationalNGOs and aid groupscombined with nativeAmazonians to cre- ate a political force that constrained the scope of action for both oil companies and the Ecuadoriangovernment. This growingpolitical pressure partdy transformed oil industryactivity by the 1990s. Companies and governments had to pay new attention to the social and environmental impacts of future extractionand to the long-term development interestsof local communities. The Huaoranigarb worn by senior U.S. officials testified to these changing developmental politics, with local interests increasingly shaping policies and practices in the region. The Huaorani still did not fully control their destiny, but the politics of the middle ground gave them new influence over their fate. EcuadorianNatives and Oil Extraction 147 At the sametime, the processof politicalmobilization and the encounterand accommodationwith outsidersalso transformedthe nativesthemselves as they movedonto the middleground. They learnednew languages,traveled to Quito andthe UnitedStates, met with industry and government officials or foreign activ- ists, created new indigenous federationsand political practices, engaged with in- ternationallaw and science, and modifiedlong-standing social and economic activities.The accommodationof the emergingmiddle ground thus connoted mutualtransformation, distinguishing it fromthe raw,one-sided exploitation of the earlypetroleum boom in Ecuador. The nativepeoples of the northernand centralEcuadorian Amazon did not rejectall oil extractionin the region,but ratherrepudiated the specificmodel of developmentimposed by multinationalcompanies and the Ecuadoriangovern- ment.Native people sought many benefits related to oil extraction,including em- ployment,access to markets,and long-term investment in healthcenters, schools, andcommunity development. At the sametime, they struggled to establishcondi- tions for new projects, including monitoring of environmental pollution, estab- lishment of clear land rights, and sharing of profits from oil development. In particular,native Amazonians demanded stateprotection against illegal and often violent intrusionsby agriculturalcolonists from the Ecuadorianhighlands and by wood, mining, and agro-industrialcompanies, all of whom followed the oil companies into the Amazon. Historically,these conditionsfor developmentwere rarely fulfilled,forcing Amazonian natives to turnto dramaticpolitical resistance as their onlyrecourse. In sum,economic development and native interests were not necessarilymutu- allyexclusive. By analyzing oil extractionand other forms of economicactivity in the EcuadorianAmazon as the region'sresidents experienced it-as a complexset of costsand benefits whose cultural and economicimpact was politically negoti- ated-a morenuanced picture emerges. Not simplyvictims of the oil boom,Ama- zonian nativegroups sought to make the most of a complicatedand difficult situation.Native political opposition concentrated on changingexploitative con- ditionsand asserting a localvision of economicdevelopment. By the early1990s, afternearly thirty years of development,a modernmiddle ground haltingly began to emergein the EcuadorianAmazon. Whether the politicsof the middleground will fundamentally reworkfuture Amazonian development, or simply remain a tantalizing illusion, remains to be seen. TheEcuadorian Oil Boom Before Texaco and Gulf struck oil in Napo Province, the northern and central EcuadorianAmazon remained an economically slow-movingregion only weakly tied to the rest of the nation. Although linked with the Andean highlands since before the Spanish conquest, the region remained isolated by distance and a lack of transportationinfrastructure; a hazardous dirt road along the Pastaza River, constructedby Royal Dutch Shell in the 1930s and 1940s, providedthe only motor 148 EnvironmentalHistory vehicle access from the highlands. Aside from the Puyo-Tenaroad completed in 1963,land access to Napo in 1967 had changed liffle since pre-Columbiantimes. From the capital of Quito, a new road extended to a few kilometers beyond Papallacta,from which point only a muddyhorse trailwound its way pastBaeza to Archidona and Tena. Over thirtyother roadsbegan in highland sefflements with the aim of reaching into the EcuadorianAmazon, but all petered

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