Mark Ruffalo, DiCaprio Stand With Ecuador’s Indigenous Waoranis

The U.S. actors Mark Ruffalo and Leonardo DiCaprio called for people to be in solidarity with Indigenous Waorani people fighting against the Ecuadorean government who want to exploit their land for oil extraction. 

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Ecuador’s Waorani Set to Save Their Amazon Homeland From Oil Industry

As part of an ongoing battle to protect their homeland, on April 26, the Amazonian community obtained a significant legal victory as a provincial court in Pastaza ruled that the government had violated their rights, in a lawsuit, interposed by 16 communities, against Ecuador’s government for trying to auction off Waorani territory for oil drilling operations without their consent.

They are going to court Monday for an appeal hearing propelled by the government. 

Actor Mark Ruffalo posted on his social media accounts, “Today the Waorani people go to court to save half-a-million acres of forest from oil and they need our support. I stand with the Waorani and today I ask you to do the same.”

The actor also shared a petition in solidarity with the Waorani people.

Moreno’s administration is planning to sell off seven million acres of rainforest territory, some of the most biodiverse on the planet, to the international oil industry. As non-governmental organization Amazon Frontlines, explains, if exploited, 70 percent of the oil would be shipped up to refineries in California, and eventually pumped at gas stations across the United States.

Ruffalo joined another Hollywood A-list actor Leonardo DiCaprio in showing solidarity with the Waorani. 

DiCaprio shared the petition on June 28 on his Twitter. “The government of Ecuador is still trying to auction off the ancestral lands of the Waorani for oil drilling,” the actor wrote. 

“Our territory gives us life. We will not allow oil-drilling to poison our creeks and our fishing holes. Our forest homeland is not an oil block, it is our life,” the Waorani petition reads.

According to Amazon Frontlines, just one acre of the Amazon provides oxygen for 18 people to breathe during an entire year, meaning the Waorani land at stake provides air for 9,000,000 people.