Eye on the Amazon: The Official Blog of Amazon Watch
Belo Monte's Latest Legal Challenge – Will It Stand?
August 14, 2012 | Maira Irigaray
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Join thousands of others in sending a message to FUNAI and IBAMA today.
The construction of the Belo Monte Dam has been suspended again! What? Could it be true? My colleague Andrew woke me up early this morning with what could be the best news ever. I needed to confirm this news and understand it before getting too excited. I remember celebrating other court-ordered suspensions of the dam only to find out shortly after that these were overturned within a matter of days or even minutes. I just wanted to be more cautious this time before calling for celebrations.
Chevron's Disaster at Home
August 9, 2012 | Paul Paz y Miño
In case anyone didn't get the message that Chevron has a reckless attitude with regard to environmental safety and responsibility, the explosion and fire Monday night at its refinery in Richmond, California – and Chevron's rhetorical stonewalling since then – have provided a smoky, toxic answer.
The disaster caused government officials to issue a "shelter in place" order for hundreds of thousands of nearby residents. It also worsened local residents' already abysmal view of the company.
At a community meeting Tuesday night, Chevron officials' bluster was met by outrage:
Support the Achuar Any Way You Can
August 6, 2012 | Suzanne West
My daughter Elena and I have just returned from a journey deep into the Amazon where we spent a week as guests of an Achuar indigenous community targeted by Canadian oil company Talisman Energy, which is on a quest to control oil exploration in the Peruvian Amazon despite the fact that recent test drilling has shown only modest potential. During our stay we took part in strategy sessions with leaders from about 20 of the 48 surrounding communities, many of whom walked or traveled by boat for 2-3 days to attend. We left deeply inspired and motivated to protect this extraordinary place and its peoples.
The Achuar are well-organized and supported in their efforts by several international NGOs, including Amazon Watch. Last year, Amazon Watch led an Achuar delegation to Canada where they coordinated a series of meetings with the CEO of Talisman, important members of Parliament and key media. Amazon Watch is fighting this fight with relentless grassroots efforts through international channels, including attaining recognition of the Achuars' legal rights to protect ancestral territory and directly pressuring Talisman. After observing the Achuar's peaceful and pure way of living off the land and how they care for the rainforest, I am deeply moved and inspired to help however I can in their fight to get Talisman to leave the Amazon and their lives in peace.
We need your help to support the Achuar. Please join me in this fight as we all stand to benefit, or conversely, we all stand to suffer the consequences if we turn a blind eye. In addition to my ongoing support I have personally pledged $10,000 to Amazon Watch to see this fight through. Won't you join me by matching this commitment in any way that you can?
Looking Back at Rio+20 & the Xingu Occupation
August 2, 2012 | Maira Irigaray
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Join thousands of others in sending a message to FUNAI and IBAMA today.
We had just arrived at an official event at Rio+20 in late June, where Vitor Cardeal, the head of the Brazilian power company Electrobras, was discussing the Belo Monte Dam complex. As a representative of Amazon Watch, I was accompanying Sheyla Juruna, a well-known warrior from the Juruna tribe in the Xingu River basin. Just two days earlier, Sheyla and I had joined some 200 others on the banks of the Xingu to free the river, plant trees and bring attention to the devastation Belo Monte will have the Xingu and on the lives of the area's indigenous peoples.
The Importance of the Sarayaku Case Sentence for Indigenous Rights in the Americas
Mario Melo, lawyer of the Kichwa people of Sarayaku shares some initial reflections
July 27, 2012 | Mario Melo
From my point of view, the following issues, among others entailed in the ruling, add relevance to the rights of indigenous peoples because:
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After almost a decade of litigation (from 2003 to 2010 in the Inter-American Commission, and from 2010 to 2012 in the Inter-American Court), the international justice system has ruled in favor and agreed with an indigenous nation from the Amazon, who like other indigenous peoples of the world, saw its territory, life and culture threatened because the State imposed an oil project in their habitat without having previously informed or consulted, let alone reached a consent. The imposed oil activity meant for Sarayaku the militarization of their territory, environmental destruction, violence, persecution, aggressions, and even the deterioration of sacred elements of their culture and cosmology.
The wisdom of Sarayaku was in understanding that what happened to them in 2002, 2003 and 2004, was happening in response to a network of powerful transnational interests that could not be confronted solely through local resistance; in order to show the abuses and generate discussions locally and internationally, it required instead new strategies founded on International Human Rights Instruments.
