After a protest by over one hundred Waorani Indians in the Ecuadorian
capital last month, the government has announced the creation of a
commission to investigate the impact of oil exploitation on Indian
lands.
The commission will be headed by a Minister, but include human rights and environmental activists.
Much of the Ecuadorian Amazon has been destroyed in the last forty
years by hundreds of oil wells, and subsequent road construction and
massive colonisation by poor Ecuadorians. Several tribes have seen
virtually all their lands destroyed.
