New York / Quito – Amazon Watch expresses grave concern about the escalating crisis in Ecuador, where a national strike led by the Confederation of Indigenous Peoples of Ecuador (CONAIE) that began on September 18 over rising fuel costs, restrictions of civil liberties and rights roll-back, and the expansion of oil and mining projects.
Seven Indigenous nations have issued an international denunciation of the government’s new oil expansion plans, officially announced today at the 2025 Annual Oil and Gas conference in Quito. This comes just days after ten international organizations released a joint statement calling for judicial independence and the protection of fundamental rights in Ecuador, warning about President Daniel Noboa’s plans to change the constitution in the midst of democratic backsliding and repression of civil society.
In the midst of a paro nacional (national strike) the Ecuadorian government presented its “Hydrocarbon Roadmap,” which opens nearly 30,000 km² of the Amazon to new oil drilling – including the ancestral territories of seven Indigenous nations (Andwa, Shuar, Achuar, Kichwa, Sápara, Shiwiar, and Waorani). None have given their free, prior and informed consent, as required by Ecuador’s Constitution and international law, which President Noboa plans to change in order to weaken or even disappear mentions to Indigenous peoples right to consent.
The statement calls Ecuador’s plans “a serious threat to vast areas of the Amazon, including their ancestral territories.” This announcement comes in the midst of a national strike, led by the Indigenous movement and other sectors, opposing subsidy cuts, extractive expansion, and the government’s failure to respect the results of the Yasuní referendum.
While certain outlets portray civil unrest as “under control,” the reality is starkly different. Civil society mobilization and Indigenous resistance reveal that the government’s oil round faces insurmountable obstacles. Despite opposition, Ecuadorian officials are reported to meet with investors and Citigroup, a leading fossil financier globally and in the Amazon, in closed-door meetings during Climate Week in New York, at the UN General Assembly and Ecuador’s XX Oil and Mining Gathering held today in Quito.
Over the past two decades, no new wells have been drilled in the southeastern Amazon due to sustained Indigenous opposition, legal victories, and international solidarity. Efforts by President Noboa’s administration to weaken legal protections, even to the point of seeking constitutional changes to violate Indigenous rights, fast tracking oil expansion and attract irresponsible investors to the Ecuadorian Amazon will be vehemently opposed.
Moreover, a historic cross-border alliance of Indigenous nations from Peru and Ecuador, announced earlier this year that they together will start an international campaign to reach out to possible investors, raising yet another barrier to the government’s extractive ambitions. A campaign that has already produced powerful results: California, the world’s fourth-largest economy and a top importer of Amazon oil – has already taken note of its own responsibility.
In August, its State Senate unanimously passed SR 51, committing to investigate California’s Amazon crude imports and consider a phase-out in order to limit the state’s participation in deforestation, biodiversity loss, and Indigenous rights violations.
As Amazon Watch’s End Amazon Crude campaign makes clear, financial institutions, governments, and corporations that continue to bankroll or import Amazonian are complicit in fueling environmental destruction and human rights violations.
The latest declaration from seven Indigenous nations – denouncing oil bidding rounds in their territories – is a powerful reminder that “the Amazon is not for sale!”
“Ecuador’s plans to auction new oil blocks in the Amazon are doomed to fail once again,” said Kevin Koenig Climate, Energy, and Extractive Industry Director at Amazon Watch. “Indigenous resistance, civil society mobilization, and growing international pressure will continue to expose these projects as illegitimate, unlawful, and unfinanceable.”
