It probably wouldn’t matter what time period I was writing from to understand that humans tend to destroy the things around us. It was true 1,000 years ago, 100 years ago, 10 years ago and still today.
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Whether we are scouring the Earth and ravaging it under the guise of empire expansion or goods extraction, we just seem hellbent on violence in its many forms.
As enlightened as we like to think we are, it’s hard to understand the difficulties we put ourselves through unless we look at everything through ideology, capitalism, democracy, autocracy and so forth.
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One thing’s for sure, there’s very little new under the sun, and history seems to be full of failed promises and the replaying of mistakes we never learn from.
One of the most tried and true ways we destroy things, of course, is in the pursuit of ever more power and wealth. And we don’t have to look much further than the oil industry’s plundering of the Earth’s resources to satisfy our avaricious energy needs.
Photographer Felipe Jacome has spent the past decade traveling to Ecuador’s Yasuní National Park to document the way of life of the Waorani people, inhabitants of the Ecuadorian rainforest who have been living under the thumb of an exploitative oil industry.
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For 50 years, the Waorani people’s land has been coveted by the oil industry.
Share this articleShareIn a statement about his project, “Spill,” Jacome says that before the oil companies encroached on their land, “They had lived for centuries in the jungle as hunters and gatherers, fiercely defending their territory against any intruders.”
After the oil companies came in, the Waoranis’ lives took on some of the trappings of so-called modern life. Unfortunately, that meant, according to Jacome “oil exploitation and the devastation that accompanies it: oil spills, pollution, logging, prostitution and alcoholism.”
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But there is some good news!
As Jacome told In Sight:
“On Aug. 20, 2023, Ecuadorians approved a referendum to halt oil drilling in the Yasuní National Park, home to the Waorani people, as well as to two other Indigenous communities living in voluntary isolation, the Tagaeri and Taromenane. While the popular decision is set to result in the loss of about 12 percent of Ecuador’s crude oil output, it sends a clear message that the people reject the country’s dependence on oil revenues and hope for a different model for growth and development.”
Jacome’s photos of the Waorani people were made after visiting them over a dozen times. The photos are printed on cotton paper and then stained with crude-oil marks. Jacome said the process of making the images this way hopefully communicates “the violence and the destruction of extractive industries and its brutal impacts on Indigenous peoples.”
You can find out more about Jacome and his work on his website.
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