The origins of Las Lianas Resource Center date back to 1993, when group of community leaders from the Amazonian region of Ecuador visited Massachusetts for a USAID-funded training for community leaders from the Ecuadorian Amazon. Las Lianas founder, Jim Oldham, was part of a group invited to lead a series of workshops for the visitors. In those meetings we made our initial contact with representatives of the Secoya Indigenous Organization of Ecuador and learned of the Secoya's efforts for sustainable development in the rainforest. We also heard about the extensive damage caused by Texaco during over 20 years of oil development in Ecuador (in fact it was during this visit that some of the visitors filed suit against Texaco in New York with the help of Amherst attorney Cristobal Bonifaz) and of the ongoing search for oil that continues to threaten the Secoya and their rainforest neighbors.

In Fall 1995, Friends of the Amazon Secoya (FAS), a group of western Massachusetts citizens, hosted two Secoya representatives for an intensive, month-long residency involving presentations throughout New England on Secoya culture and the changing reality of the rainforest. The residency also connected the Secoya with experts in aquaculture, bioremediation, fundraising, organizational development, and other themes of interest to the Secoya. Experts from the Five College community, local businesses, and religious organizations contributed insights for approaches to sustainable development and environmental protection.

At the end of the residency the Secoya congress, OISE, asked the Institute for Science and Interdisciplinary Studies, which had been part of FAS, to partner with them for sustainable development. ISIS agreed and hired Jim Oldham as a consultant to raise funds and engage the Secoya in a participatory needs assessment and identify ways in which ISIS could help them. In 1997, Jim was hired full time to direct the Secoya Survival Project which later evolved into the ISIS Amazon Project and then into Las Lianas.

Between 1997 and 2003, our accomplishments included, among others:

·        Establishment of a native fish aquaculture project with the Secoya.

·        An Oxfam-funded international aquaculture exchange between indigenous communities in Ecuador and Peru.

·        Creation of a legal & technical support team to help the Secoya in their dealings with Occidental Oil Company, beginning with establishment of a Code of Conduct designed set ground-rules for the dialogue and protect the Secoya people’s rights in their dealings with the multi-national oil company.

·        Establishment, with the Secoya, of a environmental monitoring team to act as a community watch-dog protecting Secoya territory and evaluating impacts caused by oil development.

·        Publication, in collaboration with Fundación Kawsay, of a Manual of Indigenous Rights in Ecuador.

·        Publication of a series of articles about Plan Colombia and the health and environmental impacts of aerial spraying of herbicides in Colombia as part of the U.S. sponsored “war on drugs.”

More details about this history and these diverse activities can be found in the archives of After the Fact, the ISIS newsletter.

In July 2003, Las Lianas: Resource Center for Science, Culture, and Environment was incorporated to take over, continue, and expand, the work previously done by the Amazon Project. Since October 1, 2003 the organization has been operating as a fiscally independent entity. We continue our partnerships for environmental protection and sustainable development with the Secoya people while also expanding to take on new challenges such as strengthening indigenous land claims in Ecuador’s southern Oriente and evaluating the impacts of oil on indigenous communities in the northern Oriente.