Water Is Life
THE SKIFFS ARRIVED a few hours after sundown on September 18, a dark and moonless night in the Peruvian Amazon. They landed at several points along the broad Corrientes River, which flows south over the country’s densely forested border with Ecuador. Hundreds of indigenous Achuar men, women, and children, many carrying ceremonial spears, organized into units by clan and village. They then followed their apus, or chiefs, toward seven targets: the area’s lone paved road, a power plant, and five facilities for the pumping and processing of petroleum. The sites were occupied, their night staff escorted peacefully outside. By morning, the Achuar of the Corrientes controlled the local infrastructure of Lot 192, the country’s largest and most notorious oil block.