Eye on the Amazon: The Official Blog of Amazon Watch

March 17, 2016 – Amazon Watch and our allies have long argued that the Belo Monte mega-dam project made no sense in terms of energy production or economics – especially taking into account the enormous environmental and social destruction it was certain to cause. The dam was constructed despite the steadfast resistance of the affected Kayapo and riverine peoples and in defiance of both national and worldwide condemnation. Time and again Brazil's courts halted its construction and operation only to be ignored or overruled as the Dilma administration pressed on in its relentless efforts to make the Belo Monte monstrosity a symbol of her administration. Ironically, it has now become a symbol of her administration's corruption.

March 14, 2016 – In light of last week's damning evidence directly implicating Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff and her predecessor Lula da Silva in a kickback scheme, a driving force behind Brazil's dam-building boom has been laid bare: corruption.

March 11, 2016 – Twenty years ago today, our founder Atossa Soltani stood face to face with Fernando Cardoso, then the president of Brazil. Atossa knew then that while indigenous peoples represent only four percent of the world's population, they are the guardians and stewards of 80 percent of the world's biodiversity. That's why she founded Amazon Watch on March 11th, 1996, to both protect the rainforest and advance the rights of indigenous peoples.

March 8, 2016 – "Women are the main victims [of oil extraction] – their ability to feed their families becomes impaired. There is deterioration of family health and they suffer the division of their communities and other forms of violence," women representatives of the Sapara and Shiwiar Nationalities and the Kichwa Kawsak Sacha and Sarayaku Peoples explained in a collective statement.

March 7, 2016 – Tomorrow on #InternationalWomensDay hundreds of indigenous women from the Ecuadorian Amazon will march to protect nearly a million acres of their rainforest territory from an oil deal that Ecuador recently signed with Chinese state-owned oil company Andes Petroleum.

March 2, 2016 – The saga of Peru’s Amazonian oil spills continues, more than a month after the first rupture in Chiriaco. The fight for clean-up and accountability went to a new level on Monday, as Oscar-winner Leonardo DiCaprio spoke out for the cause to his 35 million social media followers.