Belo Monte: After the Flood is a documentary exploring the effects of the Belo Monte hydroelectric dam on the environment and peoples of the Brazilian city of Altamira and the Xingu River basin, a tributary to the Amazon River.
All: 2016
Reimagining Progress: Voices from the Ecuadorian Amazon
Developed jointly by the pair after experiencing first-hand the pressures faced by indigenous people in the Ecuadorian Amazon during 2015, the project was launched with the primary aim of raising international awareness of some of the key threats currently faced by the Sápara and Kichwa communities of Ecuador, specifically their long-running...
Amazon Land Rights Face Greatest Threat
“Not only is securing land tenure the right thing to do, it’s one of the world’s most cost-effective climate mitigation strategies”
Environmental Official Murdered in Brazilian Amazon
Araújo is the latest in a long list of environmentalists assassinated in Brazil. According to the NGO Global Witness, 448 environmentalists were killed in Brazil from 2002-2013. This was half of the total killed worldwide.
Yasuní Man Film Is an Intimate Portrait of a Beautiful Land Under Siege for Its Oil
In recent weeks, the first wells inside the Yasuni fields have come into full commercial operation. According to Amazon Watch, the oil from the Yasuni fields is being pumped to California, where it is processed at US refineries.
Amazon Watch is building on more than 25 years of radical and effective solidarity with Indigenous peoples across the Amazon Basin.
Amazonian Communities at the Front Line Against Climate Change
In spite of their frequent exclusion from the debate, indigenous communities are proposing innovative solutions to the international community regarding environmental protection and climate change.
Indigenous Groups Are Way Ahead of Everyone Else at Protecting Forests
According to Leo Cerda, Ecuador field coordinator of the group Amazon Watch and member of the Kichwa tribe, the plight of indigenous land rights in the face of corporate resource extraction is a global phenomenon. Cerda, who hails from the Ecuadorean Amazon, traveled with a group of four all the way to North Dakota to show solidarity with the...
Amazon Watch 20th Anniversary Gala
Thank you to all our friends and supporters who joined us at our 20th Anniversary Gala on Wednesday in San Francisco, where we shared food, music, dancing, and inspiring words about our last 20 years and our vision for the years to come supporting indigenous peoples and protecting the Amazon.
Amazon in Focus 2016
We recently completed a 4-year strategic plan that builds on our work over the last 20 years to strategically tackle the Amazon's gravest threats. Considering that indigenous lands hold 80% of global biodiversity, it is no surprise that extractive industries want their resources. If left to them, the Amazon's Sacred Headwaters would become one big...
Ecuadorian Indigenous Organization Resists Efforts To Divide and Undermine Its Work
Last Wednesday Amazon Watch received a very disturbing call: the headquarters of CONFENIAE, the regional organization of eleven indigenous peoples which represents nearly 1,500 communities in the Ecuadorian Amazon, was being taken by storm.
U.S. Imports of Amazon Crude Oil Driving Expansion of Oil Operations
Crude oil imported to the U.S. from the Amazon, most of which gets refined in California, is driving expansion of oil operations into the rainforest, according to a new report.
#EndAmazonCrude Campaign Takes Off!
With your help we will end destructive oil extraction in the Amazon. Our climate can't afford it and the indigenous communities fighting to save their homes and cultures need us to unite behind them today.
Peru’s New President Summoned to Amazon By Indigenous Protestors
Indigenous peoples are part blockading one of the main tributaries of the River Amazon and demanding that Peru's new president Pedro Pablo Kuczynski visit them – with no positive response to date.
Now Is the Time To #EndAmazonCrude!
Today Amazon Watch issued a new call to the consumers and companies in the U.S. and around the world: End Amazon Crude! With the release of a new investigative report, an animated video by long-time ally and Pulitzer Prize winning animator Mark Fiore, an infographic, and a petition to demand that refineries in the U.S. stop sourcing crude from the...
Finally, a Gross Climate Habit Californians Should Feel Really Guilty About
The analysis, done by Amazon Watch, a nonprofit working to protect the rainforest, is the first to document the extent to which Amazon rainforest crude oil is present in the United States. Not only does this oil contribute to local air pollution and global climate change, but the expansion of fossil fuel extraction in the Amazon Basin threatens...
U.S. Drives Rainforest Destruction By Importing Amazon Oil, Study Finds
U.S. imports of crude oil from the Amazon are driving the destruction of some of the rainforest ecosystem's most pristine areas and releasing copious amounts of greenhouse gases, according to a new report conducted by environmental group Amazon Watch.
Amazon Crude Used in U.S. Truck Fleets Is Destroying the Rainforest
Oakland, CA – A new report entitled From Well to Wheel: The Social, Environmental and Climate Costs of Amazon Crude released Wednesday by Amazon Watch reveals the extent to which U.S. imports of crude oil from the Amazon – most of which are refined in California – help drive the ongoing expansion of oil operations into some of the Amazon...
From Well to Wheel
Unbeknownst to most, oil extraction in the Amazon is not only rampant; it is also expanding rapidly as global supplies dwindle and economic pressures multiply. Even lesser known is the fact that the majority of this rainforest-destroying fossil fuel ends up in gas tanks throughout the United States.
Portraits of Resistance: Inside the Peaceful U’wa Uprising
Peace is more than the silencing of guns, and that the peace accord will not address all sources of violence in the conflict. To that end, we share with you this guest blog from Bogota-based activists working with our partners of the U'wa Nation in Colombia, recounting the U'wa's recent struggle to recover their ancestral territory from oil...
Amazon Watch Welcomes Acquittals in Peru’s Baguazo Case, But Denounces Ongoing Impunity for Real Perpetrators
Washington, DC – Late yesterday, Peru's Superior Court of Justice of the Amazonas region announced the long-anticipated verdict in the Baguazo trial, throwing out for lack of evidence all charges against the 52 indigenous defendants in the case, including internationally-recognized leaders Alberto Pizango and Santiago Manuin.
An Indigenous Community’s Battle To Save Their Home in the Amazon – In Pictures
There are currently over 60 major hydroelectric dam projects in the Amazon. The third largest project is the Belo Monte on the Xingu River, Brazil, which has already displaced 20,000 indigenous and riverine people.
Peru Amazon Leaders Acquitted of Killing Police During Clash
A court in Peru acquitted on Thursday 52 Amazon natives for the murder of 12 police officers seven years ago during protests against laws that indigenous groups said facilitated the usurpation of their lands for oil and timber development.
Global Solidarity from the Amazon to Standing Rock
The Sioux fight is representative of other fights around the globe. If Standing Rock wins this, we will win other fights for social and environmental justice. We all need to work together to build this global justice movement around the globe.
Calling Chevron’s Bluff
One of the worst oil-related disasters in history occurred when Texaco, later purchased by oil giant Chevron, deliberately dumped 18 billion gallons of toxic waste into the Ecuadorian Amazon over the course of decades. Amazon Watch spent four days last week in a courthouse in Toronto to witness the latest, and hopefully last, chapter in this epic...
Protection of Amazon’s Biodiversity Could Fuel "Fourth Industrial Revolution"
The Amazon rainforest holds the biological keys to kick-start a "fourth industrial revolution" if its biodiversity is protected, said a study published on Friday.
Solidarity from the Amazon to Standing Rock
Indigenous leaders from the Ecuadorian Amazon traveled to North Dakota this week to share with the Standing Rock Sioux and the #NoDAPL movement their solidarity and personal experience in successfully defending their sacred sites and water by expelling oil companies from their ancestral rainforest territory.
Chevron’s "Hell Freezes Over" Tour
This chapter in the ongoing saga of Chevron's toxic contamination in Ecuador highlights one of the most grievous threats to the notion of justice in the face of crimes committed by corporations anywhere in the world.
Defend the Sacred: Making Indigenous Sacred Sites "No Go" Zones for Extractive Industries
"Whatever fine print comes out of the World Conservation Congress, Amazonian indigenous women will continue to protect our Living Forest." Paty Gualinga, the powerful spokeswoman from Ecuador's Kichwa indigenous community of Sarayaku, inspired the attendees at one of the world's largest gatherings of environmental organizations and...
Ecuador Begins Drilling for Oil in Pristine Corner of Amazon
Ecuador began drilling for oil on Wednesday near an Amazon nature reserve known as Yasuni, a site that President Rafael Correa had previously sought to protect from development and pollution under a pioneering conservation plan.
