2021 | Amazon Watch
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All: 2021

2021 Was a Year to Reflect, Reclaim, and Reconnect

2021 was full of highs and lows as we entered our second year in physical isolation from one another. We celebrated 25 years as an organization with our community, in deep solidarity with Indigenous peoples. We reflected on all that we have accomplished together and what challenges remain ahead.

Women Wisdom Keepers and Healers: Ancestral Authorities of Life

Our Amazon Defenders Fund will continue mobilizing direct solidarity funds into the hands of Amazonian women wisdom keepers, healers, and ancestral authorities, who are resisting by practicing reciprocal and holistic interactions with the forest and Earth.

All the Ways You Can Support Amazon Watch

When you make a tax-deductible donation to Amazon Watch, you can count on your contribution being put to work effectively and immediately. As we work to achieve climate justice and a just transition for all, we always center Indigenous voices in the movement.

Brazilian Government To Hand Over Public Lands to Canadian Company In Back Door Deal

Land reform agency has negotiated with Belo Sun Mining corp. to reduce a public land settlement to favor a gold mining project in the Amazon. Families in the area have not been consulted. Negotiations are “null and void,” says Public Defender.

Oakland, CA – The federal agency tasked with land reform policy in Brazil, INCRA, has reduced the area of ​​a settlement created 22 years ago to make room for gold mining. The negotiation, settled with a contract signed recently with the Canadian company Belo Sun Mining Corp., was revealed last week.

New Investigation Reveals California Fueling Amazon Rainforest Oil Drilling and Destruction

COSTCO, American Airlines, Amazon.com, FedEx, and other major corporations revealed in chain of custody research

“Oil extraction in our Ecuadorian Amazon has brought pollution, diseases, deforestation, destruction of our cultures, and the colonization of our territories. It is an existential threat to us, and it violates our fundamental rights as Indigenous peoples."

Amazon Watch is building on more than 25 years of radical and effective solidarity with Indigenous peoples across the Amazon Basin.

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Crude Reality: One U.S. State Consumes Half the Oil from the Amazon Rainforest

As oil companies carve up more of the rainforest, a new study says no place in the world uses more oil from beneath the Amazon than California

NBC News | Waorani leader Nemo Guiquita has been fighting the expansion of oil drilling in her tribe’s ancestral homeland for years. She said her grandmother, Nayuma, was the first Waorani to make contact with the outside world 60 years ago. “The rainforest for us is home,” Guiquita said. “It’s our life, our pharmacy, our everything.”

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.” 

Linked Fates: Ending Amazon Crude Will Benefit Us All

New research shows that California is the world’s largest consumer of oil from the Amazon rainforest. California converts 50% of the Amazon oil exported globally into fuel for airports, corporations such as Amazon.com, trucking fleets such as PepsiCo, and retail gas giants such as COSTCO. This new investigation expands upon our previous research...

Ecuador’s Constitutional Court to Issue New Ruling on FPIC

Ecuadorian government granted an environmental license in 2011 for San Carlos Panantza mining project without consultation and consent of the Shuar Arutam

“These cases are not isolated. There is not a single mining or oil project where these rights have been adequately complied with, so it is urgent that the Court rule in accordance with international human rights standards,” said Carlos Mazabanda, Amazon Watch Ecuador Field Coordinator.

Tlaib, Garcia Lead Letter Asking AG Garland, DOJ to Intervene in Donziger Case

Human rights lawyer and environmental activist jailed for taking on Big Oil polluter Chevron

“The Biden administration can’t claim to believe in the importance of climate action, much less climate justice, if it is unwilling to defend the rights of frontline communities and their advocates holding the fossil fuel industry accountable,” said Paul Paz y Miño, Associate Director at Amazon Watch.

Amazon in Focus 2021

The Amazon is at a tipping point. It is not near, it’s here. To reverse/halt this tipping point, we have joined the call from Indigenous peoples and global scientists to protect 80% of the Amazon by 2025. Not 2030 and definitely not 2050. The time to act is now!

We Will Continue to Unite and Organize for the Amazon and Climate Justice, Despite COP26

After two intense weeks in Glasgow for COP26, we are back home reflecting on the outcomes. While the Glasgow Pact does not meet the action needed to address the climate emergency, the civil society presence was truly inspiring. Indigenous peoples, frontline communities, women, and youth attended in full force organizing for climate justice and...

“Alternative Development” in the Peruvian Amazon: Deforestation, Drugs, and Death

Over the last few decades, the Peruvian Amazon has become a hotspot for coca cultivation. Drug traffickers in the region have shown a willingness to destroy the rainforest and kill anyone in the name of profit. Indigenous leaders working to protect their Amazonian communities from land invasions, deforestation, and violence come into the cross...

Will Iván Duque Protect Environmental Defenders?

The New York Times | At COP26, President Duque of Colombia attempted to convince the world he is an environmental champion. But back in Colombia, armed gangs are threatening and murdering community leaders and environmental activists who have been trying to protect forests from destruction by mining, lumber and oil companies.

Brazilian Police Attack Indigenous Community Trying to Halt Illegal Mining on their Territory

Yesterday, Brazilian Military Police, including a squad of elite special police known as the BOPE, violently attacked a surveillance post maintained by the Macuxi people in the Indigenous community of Tabatinga, on Raposa Serra do Sol Indigenous Territory, Roraima state. Police fired tear gas and rubber bullets at peacefully assembled community...

COP26 Agreement Fails to Address Climate Emergency, Take Necessary Steps to Protect Amazon and Respect Indigenous Peoples’ Rights

Fossil fuel lobby outnumbered Indigenous representation two to one, nations struck deal on international carbon markets despite Indigenous opposition to carbon pricing

Glasgow, UK – Undermining global hopes for meaningful action, the 26th annual Conference of Parties (COP26) climate summit in Glasgow concluded over the weekend without successfully addressing key drivers of the climate crisis, among them the destruction of the Amazon rainforest and the role of fossil fuels.

The Real Reason Behind Bolsonaro’s Climate Promises

Without proper enforcement mechanisms, nationalist leaders will continue to drive climate change with impunity

The Atlantic | So far, Bolsonaro’s actions have spoken louder than any of the Brazilian delegation’s words. Back in Brazil, he lambasted a youth representative of Brazil’s indigenous community for going to COP26 only to “attack Brazil.” Surely she should have realized that the easiest way to hurt the country would have been to not attend the summit at all.

Investigation Finds "Alternative Development" Program Ties to Land Theft, Coca Plantations in Peruvian Amazon

Counter-narcotics program supported by the U.S. Agency for International Development has contributed to land invasions, deforestation, and deadly social conflicts with Indigenous leaders

“The investigation clearly illustrates how Peruvian authorities violated Amazonian Indigenous peoples’ rights to their own territories, exposing them to land invasions, violence, and death."

Ecuador’s Consultation Process for Indigenous Lands Comes Under the Microscope

Ecuador’s Constitutional Court has selected two legal cases, involving the Cofán and Waorani Indigenous peoples, as a basis to analyze the country’s process of Free, Prior and Informed Consent (FPIC)

Mongabay | Conflicts with mining companies have become even more serious, says Carlos Mazabanda, Ecuador field coordinator for Amazon Watch, as the state looks to expand its mining sector and relieve some of its dependence on oil. Many communities have been divided by mining companies, while conflicts in the southern province of Morona Santiago have resulted...

Financial and Scientific Resources, Full Recognition and Respect of Indigenous Rights, Can Halt Further Degradation of the Amazon

RAISG study reveals that the region has 22% deforestation, reached the point of no return

Glasgow, UK – During climate talks at COP26 in Glasgow, experts and representatives of Indigenous nationalities shared their vision regarding what the strategies should be to stop the continuous degradation and deforestation of Amazonia, which have led the rainforest to a point of no return: 22% percent of the total area of the basin has been...

Indigenous Delegates at COP26 Endorse Campaign Demanding Banks Exit Amazon Oil and Gas

Dutch bank ING becomes latest to end oil financing in region, implement demands of Stand.earth, Amazon Watch’s new campaign

The role of European lenders in backing the trade from the Amazon came under scrutiny in August 2020 after a report by advocacy groups Stand.earth and Amazon Watch looking at oil exports from the region to the United States.

“A Continuation of Colonialism”: Indigenous Activists Say Their Voices Are Missing at COP26

Activists in Glasgow reject "big business" approach to climate crisis as they commemorate murdered land defenders

The Guardian | As world leaders inside COP26 in Glasgow boasted about pledges to slash greenhouse gas emissions and end deforestation, Indigenous delegates gathered to commemorate activists killed for trying to protect the planet from corporate greed and government inaction.

Isolated Indigenous Peoples Under Threat of Oil Expansion

New access road under construction intends to go deep into Yasuní National Park's "No Go" Zone

In late October, Ecuador’s right-wing president Guillermo Lasso declared a state of emergency, citing rising violent crime. But the surprise move also conveniently suspended civil liberties just as civil society was gearing up to protest his economic and policy proposals seeking to implement neoliberal reforms and a business-friendly environment...

Oil Executives Deny Misinformation on Climate Change, Despite Evidence

Mongabay | “Chevron has about 70 serious cases of environmental impunity in 31 countries worldwide, owing over $50 billion in settlement debts. When are you going to cut the check?” Tlaib said at the hearing. “You can poison the planet to make money, but we are going to defend the planet so we can live.”