Eye on the Amazon

Two new reports detail potential scale of harm caused by mining projects in Indigenous communities, including water pollution and increasing the spread of COVID-19

July 2, 2020 – "We, the Yanomami people, have long been forced to live with the invasion of illegal mining. Miners are contaminating our rivers with mercury, carving out our lands, and killing our animals and our environment. Our health is poor as a result of drinking water contaminated by mining. Right now, they could potentially infect almost half of our people, who live in villages invaded by mining," said Dario Kopenawa Yanomami.

The Movement for Black Lives and the Climate Justice Movement Are Inextricably Linked

June 25, 2020 – The United States is in the midst of what some are now calling a "new civil rights movement." During such a groundbreaking historical moment, it is of paramount importance that the environmental and climate movements understand the connection between our work to stop climate chaos and the movement to end systemic racism. This intersectional analysis guides us in our mission and programs at Amazon Watch.

It says all you need to know about its ineffective climate policies

June 22, 2020 – After years of pressure from shareholders and legislators, BlackRock finally seemed ready to acknowledge the climate crisis in January, when it announced it would "place climate at the center of its investment strategy." On the surface, the move seemed to send a clear message that business as usual was over. Yet, it has been far from clear what practical good BlackRock's commitment to a "climate-centered" investment strategy does for the climate – or the future of life on earth.

June 15, 2020 – The murders of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor have catalyzed a seismic and long-overdue shift in support for the Movement for Black Lives and to defund the police. At the same time, the climate justice movement has finally begun to gain momentum because of the increasing recognition that overcoming our environmental crisis requires addressing and confronting racism. The case of Chevron's criminal mistreatment of Indigenous and rural peoples in Ecuador's Amazon provides a perfect example of this connection.

June 11, 2020 – The U'wa Indigenous Guard, active in the cloud forest of Colombia near the border with Venezuela, were formed to nonviolently defend U'wa territory from a multitude of external threats from extractive companies and unwanted "eco-tourists". In the era of COVID-19 – known to U'wa spiritual elders as "The Demon" – the Guard's mission has expanded to include the protection of their territory from the spread of the deadly pandemic.

May 28, 2020 – When the novel coronavirus first began to emerge as a global pandemic, its spread also carried centuries of collective memories of the diseases that previously decimated Indigenous peoples across the Americas. Indigenous peoples across the Amazon began to ban outsiders from their territories and disperse preventative information and resources in their communities.