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.
"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."
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.
"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...
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.
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.
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.
"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 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.
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.
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...
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.
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...
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.
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...
In the face of too many previous agreements left unfulfilled, more unity is the best strategy forward, affirm the indigenous federations united in Saramurillo.
"We have lived through the bad experience of damages to our habitat, health, and life as a result of activities related to the Northern Peruvian Oil Pipeline and activities of the oil company Talisman, from which there continue to be environmental liabilities, in part within our territory, that to date have not been remediated," the Achuar wrote...
Check out one of the stunning new films recently released about the Amazon and the heroic environmental defenders protecting it and defending us from climate change.
An indigenous federation opposed to a recently approved plan for oil drilling in the Peruvian Amazon said on Friday that native communities will physically block any attempt by oil companies to operate on their lands.
After five lackluster years under President Ollanta Humala, Peru is facing a new political scenario with the ascension of Pedro Pablo Kuczynski to the presidency. Here are some of the flashpoints Amazon Watch will be monitoring in the coming months and years.
Last Wednesday Amazon Watch received a very disturbing call: the headquarters of CONFENIAE, the regional organization of eleven indigenous peoples which represents nearly 1,500 communities in the Ecuadorian Amazon, was being taken by storm.
Across Peru, headlines have been dominated by the presidential elections. Deep in the Amazon, however, the ongoing trauma caused by oil pipeline spills seeps on. Almost three months following a 2,000-barrel spill in Chiriaco followed by another just days later near Mayuriaga, indigenous communities continue to confront the daily reality of...
Around 82 families from the community of Nazareth benefited from the arrival of emergency supplies of essential food and water. The assistance was delivered by ORPIAN President Edwin Montenegro, thanks to the help of everyone who joined the Everyone For the Amazon (#TodosxLaAmazonía) campaign. This initial delivery was also carried out on the...
The saga of Peru’s Amazonian oil spills continues, more than a month after the first rupture in Chiriaco. The fight for clean-up and accountability went to a new level on Monday, as Oscar-winner Leonardo DiCaprio spoke out for the cause to his 35 million social media followers.
The Inter-Ethnic Association for the Development of the Peruvian Amazon (AIDESEP) will meet today with representatives of Petroperu to demand from the company an immediate solution through an effective action plan to the environmental disaster resulting from the most recent spills in Chiriaco and Morona, caused by lack of maintenance of the...
Children and adults, including some nursing women, immersed themselves in oily water with no protective gear. Before long, many were complaining of headaches, dizziness, blurred vision or nausea. Some still have skin lesions. And although they'd hoped to earn money for school supplies, as classes are due to start in early March, many say they...
Indigenous peoples of Peru's Amazon are responding to the recent spate of oil spills along the Northwestern Peru Pipeline. Primarily, they are pressing the Peruvian government – which runs Petroperu oil company responsible for the pipeline – to urgently attend to the affected communities, to remediate the contaminated rainforest, and...
History is repeating itself in the northern Peruvian Amazon, where three oil spills have been reported along the Northern Peruvian Pipeline since January 25th.
Fish, vegetation and rivers are covered with black spots. According to estimates by Petroperu, about 3,000 barrels spilled into two sectors of Loreto and Amazonas. The spill has reached the Chiriaco River, a tributary of the Maranon, and the people of nearby communities are afraid to consume those waters.
More than a decade after Avatar brought global attention to the destruction of Indigenous lands, Amazon Watch has released a new short video narrated by Oona Chaplin and featuring director James Cameron, legendary Chief Raoni Metuktire, and Goldman Prize winner Alessandra Korap Munduruku.
