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Observatorio Latinoamericano de Salud.and animal life in the world. The Oriente is also thehome of approximately 500.000 people, 4,5% of thetotal population of the country. This half million peopleincludes eight groups of indigenous population, aswell as peasants that immigrated to the zone, havingleft the coastal and Andean regions of the country[Fundación "José Peralta", 2001]. These populationsmoved to the Oriente at the end of the 70’s and beginningof the 80’s, driven by the agrarian policies ofthe national Government.In 1967, the Texaco-Gulf consortium discoveredan abundant oil field underneath the Amazonian tropicalforest that led to petroleum "boom", which sincethen has modified the region. The Ecuadorian Amazoncurrently holds an extended network of roads, pipes,and fields. Despite the national Government havingretained the right of property over all the mineral resources,numerous foreign private companies haveconstructed and operated the greatest part of the infrastructure.At present, the petroleum production activitiesin the Oriente employ roughly a million hectares, withmore than 300 wells of production and 29 fields.Thecountry has 4,6 billions of oil barrels of proven reserves,and a daily production of around 390.000 barrels.From 1967 to 2003, different companies have participatedin the process of petroleum exploitation. At thistime, there are 16 companies operating in the country:Petroecuador, 3 national private companies, and 12 foreigncompanies [Petroecuador, 2005]. Figure 1 illustratesthe companies that operate within the countryand the blocks where they are situated.From the beginning of petroleum exploitation,foreign companies in conjunction with Petroecuadorhave extracted more than two billion barrels of oil inthe Amazonian Region. Nevertheless, in this processbillions of gallons of toxic, gas and petroleum wastehave been spilled on environment [Kimerling, 1991](see table in follow page).This chapter examines impact on environmentand health occasioned by the process of petroleumdevelopment in the Amazonian Region of Ecuador andsuggests different mechanisms that could aid in palliatingthis enormous impact.THE ENVIRONMENTAL EXPOSURESource and extension of contaminationThe extraction of petroleum comprises variouscontaminating processes. The seriousness of theseprocesses depends mainly on the environmental formof practice and technology used by petroleum companies.In Ecuador, these forms of practice have been repeatedlyargued [Kimerling, 1991; Varea, Ortiz, eds,1995].In the interior of the earth, petroleum is mixedwith natural gas and formation water. In the AmazonianRegion of Ecuador, each well that is perforatedproduces a mean of 4.000m3 of waste, largely perforationmud (used as a lubricant) and formation waters(which contain hydrocarbons, heavy metals and an elevatedconcentration of salts). These wastes are frequentlydeposited in earth pools, from where they areeither eliminated directly to environment, or spilledonto it as a result of a fracture of the pool or the overflowingdue to the rain [Kimerling, 1991]. At the moment,there are nearly 200 pools without protection inthe entire Amazonian Region [Frente de Defensa de laAmazonía-Petroecuador, 2003]. Albeit some companieshave modified this form of practice in the last 10years, by means of the construction of protectedpools, still the forms described above are recurrent.If commercial quantities of petroleum are detected,the phase of production begins. During this phase,petroleum is extracted mixed with formation waterand gas, and they are separated in a central station.177