header image

Home

The Adventure Ecology team is working alongside high profile artists, film makers and photographers in the first Adventures in Waste mini mission destinations: Ecuador. Together, they will ARTiculate environmental issues facing Ecuador. The challenge: raise awareness about ‘waste issues’ and present realistic ways to reduce our global waste imprint.

a piece of dirty cloth on the floor

Ecuador at a glance

  • Location: North western South America bordering the Pacific Ocean at the Equator between Colombia and PeruArea: 283, 560 sq kilometres, roughly the size of the US State of Colorado, slightly smaller than Nevada
  • Capital: Quito
  • Population: 13,032,000
  • Language: Spanish is the official language however numerous indigenous tongues are spoken - Quichua, the language of the Incas is the most widely spoken indigenous language.
  • Industry: petroleum, food processing, textiles, metal work
  • Agriculture: bananas, coffee, cacao, rice, cattle, balsa wood, fish
  • Exports: petroleum, bananas, shrimp, coffee, cacao

Destinations

  • Northern Amazon rainforest of Ecuador: Huaorani tribe territory.
  • Achuar territory: south of the Ecuadorian rainforest where the Amazon basin is the most well preserved. Almost all of it is primary pristine forest.
  • Avenue of the Volcanoes south, Ambato and Patate. The Hacienda Manteles, located within an archaeological panzaleo site dating back 1500 years.

Mission Background

Ecuador is the site of a troubling ecological disaster that threatens the rainforest and indigenous groups. Billions of gallons of toxic waste water have been dumped into Ecuador’s rainforest – potentially one of the worst oil-related disasters on the planet.

Once a pristine rainforest, the area is now filled with more than 700 open-air toxic waste pits and hundreds of swamps and streams filled with oil muck.

Approx 18.5 billion gallons of highly carcinogenic toxic waste dumped into unlined pits dug out of the earth and into swamps, streams and rivers.

The amount dumped is far greater than that spilled during the Exxon Valdez incident. Experts consider the impact to be the worst ecological catastrophe on the planet other than Chernobyl.

Download Chevron's "Rainforest Chernobyl" in Ecuador

Mission Objectives

  • ARTiculate alternative perspectives through an artistic narrative.
  • Increase global awareness of the ecological effects of excessive toxic waste on indigenous communities and plant species through ethno-botanical assessments.
  • Document the effects of excessive toxic waste on local water quality.
  • Document the cultural and sociological effects of excessive toxic waste on indigenous communities and industrialised western societies.
  • Explore alternative solutions of effective toxic waste management.

Mission Details

  • Log: April 2007
  • Code Name: Toxico
  • Country: South America
  • Destination: 00°9S 78°21'W - Lago Agrio Ecuador
  • Waste: Oil
  • Durations: 3 - 4 weeks
Ecuador Mission Logo
map of Ecuador

Click to see the full size map of Ecuador