AGRICULTURE

The vegetation here is varied with a many trees, plants and shrubs. Agricultural production proves somewhat difficult here as it involves clearing forest, cutting down trees and creating pathways. Furthermore, the climate is not particularly ideal.  Gold extraction and tobacco production are the provinces oldest economic activities During the 19th century the Jesuits arrived in the region and predicted that the province’s future lay in agricultural production.

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Rubber 'Fever'

In the 1880s the area was overcome by ‘rubber fever’. This product began to be extracted by various firms who exploited the indigenous. At the end of the decade, some 1,000 quintales of quina and 1,000 quintales of rubber had been exported from Coca without any taxes being paid. At the beginning of the 20th century, whites began to settle in the area, in 1920 official colonies were established in the outskirts of the Tena-Archidona zone. In 1921 four haciendas in the centre of the area were constructed and recently state project FODERUMA has distributed money throughout the province for the purpose of growing coffee, cocoa, corn and breeding cattle.

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MINING
Napo's Gold

The area also went through a period of ‘gold fever’. According to historian Blanca Muratorio after the world economic crisis of 1929 gold began to be exploited in the area as rubber had been previously. National and international companies all came forward for a piece of the pie. In 1936 it was reported that some 4-5kg of gold was being produced everyday; gold fever resulted in the neglect of agriculture. Exploitation came to a halt in the 1940s and due to the Second World War there was a renewed demand for rubber which only lasted until 1945.

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Oil

On 15th February 1967, Lago Agrio was number one in the extraction of oil in the Ecuadorian Amazon, converting the region into the country’s highest energy generator and principle source of income. Up until 1986 more than 1,010 million barrels of oil had been extracted in the Amazon. Oil production is extremely important for the Ecuadorian economy, accounting for a sizeable percentage of the country’s income.

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Consequences of Oil Exploitation

The extraction, production, transportation and industrialisation of the oil industry has had considerable chemical, biological, socio-economic and cultural side effects in the region. Air and rivers have been contaminated; flora and fauna has been destroyed and it’s estimated that in the 1970s approx. 4500 indigenous inhabitants fled the area Lago Agrio-Coca and that more than 5000 indigenous have migrated to the banks of Napo, between Misahualli and Suno. Since 1980 the Napo region has converted itself into an ‘immigration centre’.

Last Updated 23rd August 2006 (DLW)

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