Amazonian Ecuador: An Ethnic Interface in Ecological, Social and Ideological Perspectives

i el Ecuador ha sido, es, y será, el país amazónico!
"Ecuador has been, is, and will be, the Amazonian country!" reads the national rallying cry frequently emblazoned on official stationary within the Republic of Ecuador. Ostensibly, the slogan is a political one which no party would dare to ignore, let alone negate; it protests - and justifiably so - the loss of half of its Amazonian territory to its southern neighbor, Peru, during the early years of World War II. This slogan also validates the nationalist, developmental capitalist realpolitik of an Andean nation - which was, until recently, dependent upon coastal mono­cultural agribusiness - to incorporate the remaining Upper Amazonian territory within its sphere of burgeoning bureau­cratic control with its new economic base of externally sponsored petroleum exploitation.