The U’wa Indian tribe in Colombia, which had threatened to commit mass suicide if oil exploration was conducted on its ancestral lands, has been granted a large new reservation in a region believed to have significant oil reserves. Occidental Petroleum was granted exploration rights in a 500,000-acre block in 1992, and more than half of that block is now included in the new reservation. Colombia’s constitution says that mining and resource extraction on Indian lands must be approved by tribes, and the U’wa have refused to give approval to Occidental.
