In late October, JPMorgan Chase, the largest fossil fuel financier globally and among the lead backers of fossil fuel expansion in Latin America, quietly updated its policy on Indigenous peoples’ rights and its financing of Amazon oil.
This move, ahead of COP30, follows years of successful resistance and campaigning by the Indigenous Achuar, Chapra, and Wampís nations, supported by Amazon Watch, to prevent oil development in Block 64.
This outcome also comes after ongoing engagement by investor advocates, who led filings of Indigenous peoples’ rights shareholder resolutions. Olivia Bisa, president of the Chapra nation (GTANCH), presented the resolution at JPMorgan Chase in 2024, resulting in over 30% investor support after the bank initially rejected an in-person meeting with leaders.
The bank’s latest Sustainability Report points to new policies that now include enhanced diligence for Amazon oil. It also broadened its risk assessments of Indigenous peoples’ rights, including Free, Prior, and Informed Consent (FPIC), and human rights risks for “corporate purpose, asset-specific financing and capital facilitation activities.”
Additionally, the policy also states that the bank “will not knowingly provide financial services to clients where it determines that there is substantiated evidence of human rights violations” and in instances where a “client has not put into place adequate practices and policies to remediate such human rights abuses.”
Although this is a step in the right direction, the changes fall far short of what is needed to prevent violations of Indigenous peoples’ rights and to halt large scale destruction of critical ecosystems like the Amazon biome, now accelerating toward a catastrophic tipping point.
First, the policy does not require clients, in all cases, to address FPIC and implications for Indigenous peoples’ rights before and throughout financing. The current policy does not recognize the principal standards of Indigenous peoples’ rights, such as the U.N. Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP). The bank also does not reference ILO Convention 169, which countries have ratified, obliging them to obtain FPIC before authorizing projects that impact the land and resources of Indigenous peoples.
It also remains unclear what the bank’s enhanced due diligence entails, and whether this process will result in financing exclusions. Despite this change, the bank’s outsized role in global fossil financing, its funding of oil expansion in Latin America, and involvement in the Amazon Basin underscore the urgent need for JPMorgan Chase and other financiers to cut ties to all toxic oil expansion plans.
With Petroperú’s Block 64 in Peru and Ecuador’s announced oil rounds, both in violation of FPIC, we have yet to see whether JPMorgan Chase’s new policies hold weight or are meant for just show, because effective implementation remains an unanswered question. Ultimately, a decision to provide new financing or services supporting these processes will feed into the complicity of governments, undermine FPIC, and go against the growing Indigenous demands for an Amazon free from extraction.
As the year ends, Amazon Watch remains dedicated to amplifying the demands of Indigenous peoples confronting the fossil fuel industry and its backers. From strengthening viable economic alternatives and addressing emerging threats to defenders at risk to leading successful campaigns to #EndAmazonCrude, we will continue to provide unwavering support for Indigenous organizations at the forefront of this struggle.
