Planning Ecuador's Future: Narcisa Nuis Mashienta Jimbiti

Posted: 10 February 2003

This young Ecuadoran leader promotes the role of women in envisioning the future of their rainforest communities.

By Thea Gelbspan
South America regional office

Twenty-one year old Narcisa Nuis Mashienta Jimbiti is a member of the Independent Federation of the Shuar People of Ecuador (known as FIPSE), an organization formed for the advancement of the Shuar people of southeastern Ecuador. The Shuar are under pressure to allow companies to search for oil under their lands, and FIPSE is trying to balance the environmental and cultural threats and financial opportunities of this form of development with community needs.

The Shuar have lived on their ancestral lands and maintained their traditions for centuries. Proposed oil drilling projects present significant problems to their culture and their fragile rain-forest environment. Narcisa, one of several FIPSE leaders, has led efforts to build alliances with neighboring tribes to effectively resist oil exploration in their territories. As the Shuar have competed with their neighbors (such as the Achuar and the Quechua peoples) for centuries, it is a real challenge for Narcisa and others to reach out and form new cooperative relationships. The threats to their common environment and respective cultures are bringing these groups together so they can map out their future and play a defining role in how oil companies will influence their world.

FIPSE’s leaders recognize that women’s participation is essential to strengthen the Shuar’s collective voice. To open up their federation to include the voices of women challenges Shuar tradition. Oil exploration can have serious effects on the natural environment and livelihoods, and, as a result, human health. Women often bear the brunt of these decisions, and need to be part of the decision-making process when such projects are considered.

Women who emerge from strictly domestic responsibilities into the larger Shuar communities face criticism. According to Narcisa, “When a woman is in the house, pregnant, cooking, no one criticizes her. But, when she is working, doing something important for her people, fighting for the organization, she is criticized. She receives no thanks; rather, she is maligned.”

When Narcisa organized FIPSE’s first assembly for women, the attendees risked disapproval from their families. Narcisa is concerned about how hard it is for women to break the mold, and she works to boost their self-confidence. She also faces concerns from her immediate family that she is neglecting her traditional role in society. But she is torn between tradition and her growing social consciousness that keeps her engaged and working for her people. Her deep concern about the health and survival of the environment and Shuar culture compels her to continue her work in defense of their lands and rights.

Proposals to explore for oil on Shuar territories pose many dangers, and the entire community must evaluate the risks and opportunities, and seek alternatives to oil for development. Less environmentally-invasive development activities include eco-tourism, small-scale agriculture and animal husbandry, sustainable logging, gathering and processing medicinal plants or vegetables, and panning for gold dust in the rushing rivers of the Amazon lowlands.

Oxfam America is supporting FIPSE’s efforts to gain legal title to traditional Shuar territory, to better organize its members, and to strengthen the ability of the organization to analyze development options and to defend and promote the rights and interests of the Shuar communities. The leaders of FIPSE are working hard to determine their best path for community development, and what role the oil industry should play in their future.