by Candace Crane

This article is edited for publication on the Internet. For the article in full, see Solimar magazine at Barnes & Noble, Borders, Crown Books, Tower Records, and Virgin Stores. On sale June 22, 1999. You can also subscribe online by clicking here or by calling toll free: 1 (877) 925-1213.

The dark-skinned, thirty-something man who steps up to the podium is impeccably dressed for the occasion. He wears a brown herringbone tweed jacket, well-pressed Dockers - and slashes of red paint across his cheeks. His wide headband of Toucan feathers, bright red and yellow, plus the blue reserved for chiefs of his rainforest tribe, commands attention, even amidst the brightly colored stained glass windows of San Francisco's venerable Grace Cathedral.

Santiago Kawarim is president of the Achuar, one of the Amazon rainforest's most remote indigenous tribes. Last October, he was in San Francisco to participate in the State of the World Forum - the annual gathering of world leaders started by former Russian president Mikhail Gorbachev - to discuss and resolve global problems. He came to tell the Forum about a serious threat his people and the rainforest now face: exploration for oil.

The Achuar tribe consists 4,300 people in 50 small communities scattered throughout one of the last pristine rainforests left on earth. There are no roads in their territory; access is by plane or dugout canoe.

Over the past few decades, Santiago and his people have seen the escalating cycle of poverty, violence, and environmental and cultural destruction that oil development has brought to other indigenous Amazonian peoples. Fifty other tribes living in the Amazon basin are currently living with oil concessions in their territories and suffering from problems it brings: increased military presence, political persecution, toxic contamination because of relaxed environmental standards, loss of population to foreign diseases, and loss of hunting grounds and habitat.

Indigenous people have so far not been able to keep oil companies out because, although they hold communal title to their lands, their claims do not extend to the land underground. Their countries can, and do, grant subsurface rights to extractive industries to gain hefty royalties they bring into government coffers.

Santiago came to announce the Achuar are saying "no" to oil development, and to ask for the partnership of the international community to uphold this position. In 1997, a US-based oil company purchased oil rights to 2.5 million acres of rainforest in Ecuador that includes Achuar territory and is now moving in to begin exploration. The company has been holding consultations, required by law, with other affected tribes, and the Achuar have been under pressure from other tribes to enter into the discussions. But Santiago is firm. "I am the voice of my people," he says. "I'm representing the entire Achuar community. We are all standing strong on 'no,' and when we say 'no' one day we do not change it the next."

. . .

One of only two Achuar of his generation to go to high school, Santiago started out as a teacher in the new Achuar school. Shortly afterwards, the elders asked him to be an advisor to their council. He continued to participate in his community's action meetings too, speaking "a little about this, a little about that," and people were listening to him. His self-esteem was growing. During that time, Achuar created a presidency and board of directors. When one of the board members quit, Santiago was asked to replace him. "I thought I was not ready," Santiago remembers, "but the people insisted."

Santiago accepted the position and finished the term of office, and when election time came around, the tribe elected him president. "I was surprised all the people chose me," he says. "I never expected to be the maximum authority of my people . . . but when I saw that everyone agreed on me, that gave me the confidence to accept the challenge."

Soon afterward, the government granted the oil concession in Achuar territory, setting the tone for Santiago's administration. Fortunately, Santiago says, "to be an Achuar is to be a warrior," and he has a chief's genes. He also has a strong spiritual foundation and a clear commission from his people. Under his leadership, the Achuar have been able to fight the good fight with a full range of weapons, from lawsuits to innovative sustainable development projects. One of them, the new Kapawi ecotourist camp, is bringing income to replace the need for oil royalties. It's also acting as a model of oil-independence for other indigenous peoples and their countries.

. . .

This people from the remotest area of the rainforest, once scoffed at for their primitive ways, last to organize, are now in the forefront of the growing international movement by human rights and environmental activists to keep oil exploration off tribal grounds and pristine rainforests, and to replace fossil fuels with renewable energy sources that don't cause climatic change. They could just be the tribe that turns the tide on global rainforest destruction. And not a moment too soon.

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