Amazon Watch | Protecting the rainforest and our climate in solidarity with Indigenous peoples
Amazon Watch

Eye on the Amazon

Is Vanguard Sinking the Climate Ship?

Asset manager Vanguard is a major investor in some of the mining and oil companies that are causing irreparable harm to the Amazon rainforest and to Indigenous peoples. Vanguard is not only financing destruction and rights violations in the Amazon, but it is financing climate catastrophe throughout the world.

“Coloring” Brazil’s Indigenous Movement

Indigenous LGBTQ+ community in Brazil claims their space at this year’s Free Land Camp

Visibility as a means towards empowerment. That is one of the goals that the Indigenous LGBTQ+ movement in Brazil strives for as they brought their agenda to the center stage of the Free Land Camp this year.

Our Latest Reports

Human Rights and Chinese Business Activities in Latin America

New report by the Collective on Chinese Financing and Investments, Human Rights and the Environment examines 26 cases of rights violations perpetrated by Chinese companies and financiers across Latin America, over half of which are in the Amazon

As part of the 49th session of the UN Human Rights Council, more than 60 civil society organizations released a new report that evaluates 26 projects backed by Chinese companies and capital across nine Latin American countries. The investigation found a pattern of failure to comply with international standards on human rights and the environment...

Complicity in Destruction IV

How Mining Companies and International Investors Drive Indigenous Rights Violations and Threaten the Future of the Amazon

In the latest edition of the Complicity in Destruction series, research by APIB and Amazon Watch found that international financiers, including BlackRock, Vanguard and Capital Group, poured USD $54.1 billion into eight large mining companies, including Vale, Anglo American, and Belo Sun.

Linked Fates

How California's oil imports affect the future of the Amazon rainforest

“Oil drilling in our Amazon has brought contamination, disease, deforestation, destruction of our cultures, and the colonization of our territories. It is an existential threat for us and violates our fundamental rights as Indigenous peoples.” 

News on Indigenous Rights, the Amazon, and Our Global Climate Crisis

The Business Case for Indigenous Rights

Companies must account for Indigenous peoples’ human and land rights to understand and address business and climate risks

Stanford Social Innovation Review | As the effects of climate change worsen and concern grows, financial regulators are turning their attention to how companies report on climate-related risks. One crucial factor that businesses and investors may overlook is Indigenous and tribal peoples’ rights.

Indigenous Peoples Refuse to Be Ignored

The Amazon and Indigenous rights were amplified, not ignored, at the Summit of the Americas

"Oil drilling in our Amazon has brought contamination, disease, deforestation, destruction of our cultures, and the colonization of our territories. It is an existential threat for us and violates our fundamental rights as Indigenous peoples."

The Anti-Chevron Movement Gains New Allies

Activists, workers, and shareholders push company to act on climate and human rights during Annual General Meeting season

Chevron’s reputation as a price gouger, gross polluter, environmental racist, and greedy corporate behemoth with an army of unscrupulous lawyers and greenwashing PR firms grows worse by the day.

Hope and Danger in the Colombian Amazon

Amazon Watch and a high-level diplomatic delegation traveled to southern Colombia in early May to the “Amazon Pearl” to learn about and support local struggles against armed groups and extractive industries

The vision for the Amazon Pearl, created by the hundreds of families that live there, is beautiful: Live off the land in a sustainable way, while creating a professional future for youth through environmental education.

Illegal Miners Terrorize Brazil’s Yanomami Communities

The Bolsonaro regime stands by despite murder and sexual assault

The Yanomami’s Hutukara Association has declared a humanitarian crisis in the wake of the reported rape and killing of a 12-year-old Yanomami girl by miners, the disappearance of a 3-year-old child, and attacks on the Yanomami’s Aracaçá village that have placed the Amazonian community “on the verge of disappearance” because of violence caused by...

Peruvian Government Commits to Expel Narcotrafficking Settlers and Return Lands to Indigenous Communities

While attacks continue, the Kakataibo people are reaching new agreements with the government to get their land back

While Peru is in an ongoing political crisis, the Indigenous movement clamors for justice. The demands are clear: prevent the killings of threatened Earth defenders, pursue legal actions against the murderers, and guarantee Indigenous territorial integrity.

Four Ways Wall Street’s Annual General Meetings Impact the Amazon

During AGM season, consumers and shareholders can pressure corporations to change policies to respond to the climate and guarantee respect for human rights

We’re in the middle of the AGM season, which means corporations and financial institutions – including many complicit in Amazon destruction – will gather investors to discuss key business strategies and annual performance. Amazon Watch has historically strategized around these meetings to pressure them and demand accountability.

Massive Belo Sun Gold Mine Project Blocked in Brazil

Indigenous and traditional communities celebrate as courts hand big loss to the Canadian mining company

The ruling is the result of sustained efforts by civil society and institutional allies to prevent the installation of Belo Sun's massive gold mine and to seek redress for the illegal acts committed in the course of the project's environmental licensing process.

Steven Donziger Is Finally Free. Onward Toward Justice for the People of Ecuador!

Today, human rights lawyer Steven Donziger woke up free, marking the closure of the latest chapter in Chevron’s scheme to evade justice for its toxic dumping in Ecuador. Now all eyes turn back to the true crime – Chevron’s contamination from 1964-1992 in Ecuador and the company’s efforts to escape accountability.

Environmental Lawyer Targeted by Chevron Freed After More Than Two Years Under House Arrest

Steven Donziger represented Ecuadorians in a pollution lawsuit against Chevron. Then he ended up in the oil giant's crosshairs.

Gizmodo | After 993 days, Steven Donziger is finally free. On Monday, the embattled lawyer, who has been targeted by Chevron for years in a Kafka-esque court struggle, finished a six-month sentence, which came on the heels of more than two years under house arrest.