Beyond Dinosaurs and Oil Spills: Oil Development and Amazonian Indigenous Peoples

Ecuadoran writer jaime galarza’s scathing critique of international oil giants and pliant governments in Latin America in his widely read book, El Festin del Petróleo (1974), helped to win him two years in jail just as Ecuador was opening up its Amazonian region, once again, to oil development. Galarza painted a bigbrush picture of rapacious transnational companies in the mid-early 20th century: his Seven Dinosaurs—Standard Oil of New Jersey, Shell, Mobil, Gulf, Texaco, BP, and Standard Oil of California—doing whatever they darn well please in weak countries. Transnational oil companies’ plunders are now tempered by stronger and more democratic governments and the existence of national oil companies across Latin America. While Galarza was later named Ecuador’s first Minister of the Environment, oil development for indigenous communities remains highly controversial and heavily disputed.

• Main Author: Macdonald, Theodore (author)
• Format: article
• Language: eng
• Published: 2015
• Online Access: http://hdl.handle.net/10469/8276