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        <div class="lead">Although the maps do not show people, they are there and live in this patchwork comprised by Yasuní: indigenous people, settlers, the forest and its animals, and oil pipelines. Roads are the means that facilitate this mixture and the gradual invasion of the forest, and roads attract ever more people.</div>

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        <p>The faces one finds in Yasuní are as diverse as the different cultures that exist in the region. For over 150 years, the Waorani were the sole owners of the territory between rivers Napo, to the north, and Cururay, to the south, a territory in excess of 2 million hectares. Since 1990, only 612,560 hectares belong to them, which are assigned on maps as the Waorani Ethnic Reserve. Their neighbors are the Kichwa newcomers (more used to life on the banks of Napo River) and settlers that since the 70’s have established themselves along a 130 km road called via Auca, on the park’s west side.</p>

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        <h1>The Waorani</h1>

        <p>Known as Waorani or Waos, they are a tribe of ancestral nomadic habits that roam the vast expanse of forest between the two major rivers in the region, especially by the southern part of Yasuní. They share the same language with at least two other groups, the Tagaeri and the Taromenane, tribes that live in voluntary isolation and also preserve nomadic habits.</p>

        <p>Up to the 70s in the previous century, the territory of the Waorani remained unexplored for they reacted savagely to any trespassing. In 1959, they killed five North-American evangelic missionaries who entered their domains in the region of Cururay River; they were found pierced to death by Wao spears.</p>

        <p>The Waorani were called “aucas” by other groups of indigenous people, a synonym for savages. They call themselves simply “wao” that in their wao-terero language means “man”. Of Tupi origin, the Wao were hunter-gatherers (and some still are) that journeyed through the forest and lived off its resources.</p>

        <p>The life of the Waorani changed in the 50s with the growing interest in exploiting oil in Yasuní. The first measure taken jointly by the government and oil companies was to contact these people. The Instituto Linguístico de Verano (ILV), a North-American evangelic mission, was the chosen arm for this action. It established a relationship with some of the Waorani families and took them to a reservation (called a protectorate) in Toñampare, in the Pastaza province. In this manner, they emptied the region to get the ball rolling on oil exploitation activities by companies such as Texaco, Shell and Gulf Oil.</p>

        <p>Subsequently, the Waorani split up: one group decided to remain in the reservation while another left to return to the forest. The latter, however, returned to find a territory which was no longer theirs. They met a devastated landscape, a fragmented habitat dotted by oil wells. A road took away the native forest and brought in mestizos from other regions in the country that came with their plantations and firearms.</p>

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        <p>The intervention by the ILV relocating the indigenous people plus a sedentary life, drove up the population of the Waorani, as it reduced the rate of homicides among quarrelling tribes. In less than 30 years, the Waorani almost tripled their numbers, from 500 to 1,300 individuals. Notwithstanding, they lost a major part of their territory and never really integrated into the Western style Ecuadorian society.  Currently, they are deprived citizens that are vulnerable to the decisions made by oil companies within their territories.</p>

        <p>Their sources of income are derived from jobs, usually temporary, with the oil industry. Aside from that, negotiations between oil companies and indigenous communities to gain access to new areas for research and exploitation almost always end up with material and financial compensations.</p>

        <p>Contact with oil companies and settlers drove the Waorani to make a living selling game meat and  illegally knocking down trees, precisely the activities that threaten the environment of their ancestor’s territory.</p>

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