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Extraction: The Plundering of the Amarakaeri Reserve

Ross Thomas

This clip from the documentary,“Extraction: The Plundering of the Amarakaeri Reserve”, co-directed and produced by Ross Thomas and Jamie Roberts, provides first hand accounts from the indigenous Harakmbut tribe, who live in the shadow of seismic oil exploration on their land deep in the heart of the Peruvian Rainforest. With their livelihoods and very existence in jeopardy, the Harakmbut are fighting back against their own Government and Texas based Hunt Oil to put an end to what they see as the decimation to the natural habitat they’ve hunted and fished upon for thousands of years. Extraction documents the sobering fact that U.S. companies are still in the business of pursuing the most vulnerable people and eco-bio diverse regions on our planet, all in the name of monetary profit.

Ross Thomas is an actor/filmmaker/activist living in Los Angeles, California. Ross’ deep respect for tribal communities and their sacred customs has led him on a personal crusade to help spread awareness and preserve indigenous peoples and their natural habitats.

Please click here for more information about the Harakmbut's fight and click here for more information about Extraction.

Comments

So very sad

Submitted by voyager1 on Fri, 10/29/2010 - 13:30.
This is a very fine piece but I was left with an incredible sense of powerlessness after viewing it. It is very frustrating that those in position (and with the $$) can still arrange the world without regard to their effect on the biodiversity (not to mention the people!) of this land...Didn't James Cameron (Avatar director) recently save a rain forest (in the eleventh hour)in South America similar to this one? Another movie (and supposedly true story) that this reminds of is "The Emerald Forest". Good luck to the journalists and the indigenous people fighting this battle.

Yes this reminds me of the

Submitted by drew hempel on Sat, 10/30/2010 - 04:19.
Yes this reminds me of the victorious struggle of the U'wa tribe in Northeast Colombia against Occidental Petroleum. I was able to confront Al Gore in 2000 when he was Vice President -- about a dozen activists were with me along with Gore's equal number of secret service members. When I told VP Gore that "everyone knows the CIA controls the drug trade" his staff got noticeable uneasy as Secret Service are bound to have CIA agents as well. Gore's family wealth is from Occidental Petroleum but he claimed he could not change his stocks. Even the Vice President is not in control of his own wealth source -- instead it was the lawyer who had the "fiduciary responsibility" to maximize profits. This is even true for the Rockefeller heirs -- a family member would have to sue to change their stock portfolio. Nevertheless Occidental Petroleum finally pulled out after their initial oil drill produced no oil, along with the expose that U.S. military funding to Colombia was directly tied to protecting Occidental Petroleum. The U'wa tribe had committed themselves to a "mass suicide" if their territory was drilled for oil. As for me, when I drove home after confronting the Vice President for half an hour -- we were face to face in the basement of a VFW -- the cop pulled me over and asked for my license. He came back to the car and said "thanks" -- never reporting why he had pulled me over. That there were helicopters at this event and the Mayor was there, etc. I'm sure I was put on some list. Still if there are enough protesters and enough campaigning then these oil companies can be stopped.

Greed

Submitted by cliffhen on Thu, 12/30/2010 - 23:32.
There's so much oil already to see us into a technological transition to renewable energy sources, there's no need to destroy people's livelihoods and natural habitats but these companies have no such considerations!