Activist, Peruvians visit Fort McMurray oilsands

Activist and former Senate page Brigitte DePape was in Fort McMurray recently joining a delegation of Peruvian Indigenous leaders on a fact-finding mission about the oilsands. The visit was organized by Amazon Watch and Public Interest Alberta. The goal of the visit is to discover how the environment, economy and people — particularly Aboriginal people — in the Wood Buffalo region have been affected by Alberta’s oil development. “Some First Nations Elders that I’ve already spoken to here have told me they don’t want industry here, how they feel the provincial and federal government aren’t listening to them at all,” DePape told Fort McMurray Today. “We need our government to start investing away from the tarsands, towards an alternative energy economy.” The Achuar, an Amazonian tribe whose traditional territory straddles the borders of Ecuador and Peru, has seen massive oil extraction in recent years. In recent years, the Achuar have grown concerned about plans from Calgary-based energy company Talisman Inc. to begin exploiting the region’s petroleum reserves. “We have come to this developed country to know the Aboriginal people from here and to exchange our experiences of life,” Ampush Ayui Chayat told Today. “We want to see what the social impacts, environmental impacts are in Canada. We want to see if there is or isn’t contamination, how the land is affected and what type of benefits the drilling brings to the people here.”