“Our fathers told us that for future generations not to suffer, we needed to struggle for our territory and our liberty. So we wouldn’t be slaves of the new kind of colonization.
The waterfall, the insects, the animals, the jungle gives us life,” he tells me. “Because man and the jungle have a relationship. For the Western capitalist world, the jungle is simply for exploiting resources and ending all this. The indigenous pueblos without jungle—we can’t live.”
Sarayaku now wants to help indigenous people around the world resist and defend their way of life. “Our message that we are also taking to Asia, Africa, Brazil, and other countries that are discussing climate change, we propose an alternative development—the development of life. This is our economy for living—sumak kawsay—not just for us but for the Western world. They don’t have to be afraid of global warming if they support the life of the jungle.
“It’s not a big thing,” he says understatedly. “It’s just to continue living.”
http://truth-out.org/news/item/29103-deep-in-the-amazon-a-tiny-tribe-is-beating-big-oil
Time, resources, and power are clearly not on the side of these valiant folks but they are going down fighting and I am heartened by their efforts.