Thank you to all our friends and supporters who joined us on October 5th, 2018 for our annual gala - Amplify! A celebration of voices from the Amazon.
Achuar
Block 64: The Wampis Nation Denounces the Serious Socio-Cultural Impacts of GeoPark and PetroPeru’s Maneuvers
The oil companies GeoPark and PetroPeru have no limits when it comes to forcing their operation in Block 64 in Loreto Region. In recent months these companies have increased their activities designed to confront a small handful of communities that support their project against the majority of communities that are opposed to the risk of seeing...
Peru's Achuar Take Territorial Defense Global, Again
The Achuar of the Pastaza River provide a different vision than the traditional top-down models of nature conservation, as laid out in the Achuar Life Plan. Put to paper in 2003, the Life Plan outlines the Achuar's own development model which includes a collective title for their ancestral territory, keeping extractive companies and roads out...
Amazon in Focus 2018
While the threats to the Amazon and indigenous peoples seem daunting at times, we cannot lose sight of hope and victories on the horizon. And while the day-to-day isn't always good, there are still many reasons to be hopeful for the future of the Amazon. Indigenous peoples across the Amazon are resisting extraction and further destruction of their...
The Most Destructive Force for Climate Change You’ve Never Heard Of
BlackRock, the world's largest investment firm, holds more shares in fossil fuel and other industries that cause climate change than any other company in the world. That means that BlackRock's portfolio constitutes a huge liability for putting the planet on a path towards runaway climate change.
Amazon Watch is building on more than 25 years of radical and effective solidarity with Indigenous peoples across the Amazon Basin.
Divide and Conquer: GeoPark Resurrects Nefarious Old Tactics
Let's say you're an oil company (because, you know, corporations are people, too). You have plans to drill in the Amazon rainforest. The government encourages you to go in, since it will get a share of your profits. There's just one problem: local indigenous communities are vehemently opposed, having seen nearby rivers polluted and people poisoned...
Statement on the Entry of GeoPark into the Wampis Nation
The authorities of the communities of the Wampis Nation, found within the Morona district of the Loreto region, would like to address public opinion to express our rejection of the oil company GeoPark's entry into oil concession Block 64.
Wampis and Achuar Peoples Demand Annulment of Oil Block 64 to Be Operated by GeoPark
110 organized communities opposed the exploitation and transportation of oil within their territories
Representatives of the Autonomous Territorial Government of the Wampis Nation and the Federation of Achuar Nationalities of Peru are sounding the alarm about a non-representative commission of indigenous people who are trying to dialogue with the government to demand benefits from oil activities.
Helping the Achuar Say #AdiosGeoPark
A new chapter has opened in the Peruvian Achuar effort to keep their Amazonian territory free of oil companies with the official launch of the #AdiosGeoPark campaign. An important tool in this new campaign is the short but powerful video produced by Vagabond Films in conjunction with filmmaker Charles Gay.
Indigenous Federation to GeoPark: Peru Project a Big Risk
Achuar reaffirm resistance to GeoPark in new video released ahead of oil company’s annual shareholder meeting Friday
San Lorenzo, Peru – A federation of indigenous communities deep in the Peruvian Amazon rainforest affirmed its rejection of planned oil operations in its ancestral territory ahead of Friday's annual shareholder meeting of GeoPark.
Strength in the Face of Adversity: 2017 Victories to Give Us Hope for 2018
2017 was a tough year in so many ways, from corruption scandals to massive hurricanes to regressive legislation. But plenty of good things have happened, too – things that remind us of the perseverance, strength, and resilience of those who struggle every day for a better world. So we want to close the year reminding our community of readers...
Victory for Indigenous Self-Determination and Collective Territory in Peru!
Beyond titling for their ancestral territory, the Achuar are demanding that oil concession known as Block 64 – the majority of which is overlapped by their territory – be annulled for lack of consultation when it was established. We expect yesterday's ruling will be challenged by the Peruvian government, which has dispatched lawyers...
Victory for Indigenous Land Rights and Self-Determination in Peru
Yesterday a Peruvian court issued a precedent-setting ruling in favor of the Achuar people of the Pastaza in the northern Peruvian Amazon, recognizing their right to self-determination and collective territory. The court ordered the Peruvian government to proceed with the collective titling of Achuar ancestral territory and recognized the Achuar...
Ecuador Announces End to New Oil and Mining Concessions
"This is a major victory for Ecuador's indigenous movement and for the global effort to keep fossil fuels in the ground. This sends a compelling signal to international commodities markets that new resource extraction without the consent of indigenous peoples is a clear rights violation and these resources will end up as stranded assets. We call...
Kukama Communities in Peru Still Being Poisoned Three Years After Oil Spills
Pollution of indigenous communities in the Amazon is not a new phenomenon. Over the last 50 years, the oil industry has viewed the rainforest as one big "sacrifice zone," where they can poison people with impunity in order to save a dollar or two per barrel.
Achuar Indigenous People to GeoPark: Stay Out of Our Territory!
"We have lived through the bad experience of damage to our habitat, health, and life. Given this, we have made the firm decision not to permit any oil activity within our territory."
Peruvian Achuar Federation Reaffirms Opposition to GeoPark as Oil Company Touts 3Q Investor "Results"
Oakland, CA – The 45 Achuar indigenous communities under the umbrella of the federation FENAP have once again reiterated their opposition to oil operations within their ancestral territory, this time represented by GeoPark, a Chile-based company that signed a cooperative agreement with the Peruvian government in late 2014.
JPMorgan, BlackRock Tout Climate Bona Fides While Funding Amazon Oil Drilling
"Like so many big businesses, JPMorgan Chase and BlackRock greenwash their activities rather than apply their resources to real solutions," Leila Salazar-López, executive director of Amazon Watch, told HuffPost in a statement. "Our report exposes their complicity in Amazon destruction, and we know savvy investors will respond...
"Our Grandchildren Will Thank Us for the Territory We Are Defending"
The Achuar have a concrete plan for defending their ancestral homeland: they're demanding that the Peruvian government provide legal recognition of their collective territory and they're actively campaigning to keep out extractive industries, including oil, mining, and logging.
Amazonian Indigenous Peoples Reject Ecuador’s Plans for New Oil Tender
Quito, Ecuador – Representatives of six indigenous nationalities traveled from their Amazonian communities to Quito this morning to reject plans by the new government of Ecuadorian President Lenin Moreno to auction off oil blocks that overlap their titled rainforest territories.
My First Decade at Amazon Watch
Over ten years, I have been privileged to play a role in most of the organization's major campaign initiatives. While the moments of exhilaration, frustration, learning, anger, and beauty could fill a book, I want to share ten snapshots of key experiences that represent what serving with Amazon Watch has meant to me.
Study Says Amazonian Locals Are Key to Saving the "Lungs of the Planet"
"Our analysis shows that local stewardship of the forest can be very effective in curtailing forest degradation in the Peruvian Amazon," said the study's lead author, Judith Schleicher.
Six Farmers Shot Dead over Land Rights Battle in Peru
Six farmers have been shot dead by a criminal gang who wanted to seize their farms to muscle in on the lucrative palm oil trade, according to indigenous Amazon leaders in Peru.
Peru Tribal Leaders Vow To Halt Oil Output Unless Indigenous Rights Respected
Indigenous leaders from the area around Peru's largest oil field have threatened to block the government from accessing their territories and halt oil production unless an indigenous rights law is applied within twenty days.
It Could Cost $1 Billion To Clean Up the Oil in Peru’s Northern Amazon
Who is going to clean up Peru's northern Amazon after decades of companies spilling oil and dumping billions of barrels of toxic production waters? Certainly not US company Occidental which ran the biggest concession, Lot 1-AB, until 2000, nor, it would seem, Petroperu, which ran the other major concession, Lot 8, until 1996 and operates the...
The Controversy That Could Swing Ecuador’s Election
Indigenous people make up as much as 30 percent of Ecuador's 16.5 million citizens, and their swing to Lasso could be the deciding factor in the run-off elections.
Community Consent: Business Lessons from the Amazon
From the snow-covered plains of the Standing Rock Sioux tribe of North Dakota to Shuar rainforest territories in the Ecuadorian Amazon, there is a resurgence of resistance to extractive industry projects around the world. These conflicts have major implications for China, Latin America's largest trading partner, whose state run companies are...
Visiting Indigenous Communities in the Amazon Rainforest with Nahko of Medicine for the People
Nahko has long been connecting his own indigenous roots – he is of Apache descent, as well Puerto Rican, and Filipino and Guam heritage – with indigenous peoples and social movements across North America and beyond wherever the band tours, linking struggles to defend the sacred, protect water, and life.
Musician and Activist Nahko Travels To the Amazon To Build Bridges of Indigenous Solidarity
Nahko, the musician and frontman of Medicine for the People, and his bandmate Patricio Zuñiga Labarca have just returned to the U.S. after a week in Ecuador, where they visited the pristine rainforests of the Ecuadorian Amazon and met with indigenous leaders and communities to hear first hand about local efforts to protect their rights, forests...
