Brasília, Brazil – Today the Association of Indigenous Peoples of Brazil (APIB), alongside environmental and human rights organization Amazon Watch, launched Complicity in Destruction IV: How mining companies and international investors drive Indigenous rights violations and threaten the future of the Amazon.
Corporate Accountability
The Science Based Targets Initiative's Proposed FLAG Targets are a Corporate Gift to Big Agribusiness
The inclusion of carbon offset schemes and carbon intensity-based targets for commodity producers poses grave threats to Indigenous rights, forest ecosystems, and the climate, groups warn
Oakland, CA – Today, Amazon Watch and allied organizations submitted their opposition to the Science Based Targets Initiative’s (SBTi) newly-proposed Forests, Land, and Agriculture (FLAG) emissions targets. The proposed FLAG targets are incompatible with the action necessary to address the climate crisis.
New Oil Company Enters Failed Block 64, Again
Achuar and Wampis communities are mobilizing against Petroperú’s intention to exploit the northern Peruvian oil block
If you have followed Amazon Watch’s campaigns over the years, the name Block 64 might ring a bell. Over the course of almost 30 years, the Peruvian government has encouraged a steady parade of international oil companies to explore and exploit the oil concession, located near the border with Ecuador. All have hit a major obstacle: the vehement...
This Lawyer Should Be World-famous for His Battle With Chevron – But He’s in Jail
Chevron is accused of polluting the Amazon for 26 years. The only people who’ve paid the price are a human rights lawyer and those whose land was poisoned.
The Guardian | Most people have probably heard of Chernobyl, or the BP oil spill. You may also know about my legal battle over contaminated water in California, dramatized in the movie Erin Brockovich. Yet far fewer people have heard about what transpired in the Ecuadorian Amazon – though it’s considered by some activists, journalists, and members of US...
Amazon Watch Statement: Highest Ecuadorian Court Finds Decree 751 Unconstitutional, Would Have Allowed Oil Drilling in Area Protected for Isolated Peoples
Quito, Ecuador – In a reprieve for Indigenous peoples living in isolation inside of Ecuador’s Yasuní National Park, the country’s top court declared Decree 751 unconstitutional, permanently prohibiting drilling in the buffer zone.
Amazon Watch is building on more than 25 years of radical and effective solidarity with Indigenous peoples across the Amazon Basin.
Indigenous Communities Confront Ecuadorian Government and International Financiers at Oil and Energy Conference
Promises of environmental responsibility ring hollow as recent major spill turns rainforest and rivers black with crude
Quito, Ecuador – Today the leaders of Ecuador’s Indigenous movement and the regional pan-Amazon Indigenous organization mobilized outside Ecuador’s Annual Conference for Oil and Energy to demand justice for communities affected by the recent disastrous Amazon oil spill and to denounce plans for new drilling.
Belo Sun Brings More Destruction to the Volta Grande do Xingu
Despite the Belo Monte dam's devastating legacy, communities are now forced to resist against industrial gold mining in their territory
The Volta Grande do Xingu is under imminent threat. Local communities and organized civil society have been responding to these aggressive attempts to hand over agrarian reform land to international mining company Belo Sun.
Citigroup Fails to Rein in Oil and Gas Expansion to Address Amazon Rainforest Crisis
Oakland, CA – Yesterday, finance giant Citigroup released an outline of its latest plans to achieve net zero in its energy and power portfolios. Despite these new commitments, Citi remains a major bankroller of oil and gas expansion in the Amazon biome – as it is the top financier of state-owned oil companies in the Amazon. This reality is...
2021 Was a Year to Reflect, Reclaim, and Reconnect
2021 was full of highs and lows as we entered our second year in physical isolation from one another. We celebrated 25 years as an organization with our community, in deep solidarity with Indigenous peoples. We reflected on all that we have accomplished together and what challenges remain ahead.
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Brazilian Government To Hand Over Public Lands to Canadian Company In Back Door Deal
Land reform agency has negotiated with Belo Sun Mining corp. to reduce a public land settlement to favor a gold mining project in the Amazon. Families in the area have not been consulted. Negotiations are “null and void,” says Public Defender.
Oakland, CA – The federal agency tasked with land reform policy in Brazil, INCRA, has reduced the area of a settlement created 22 years ago to make room for gold mining. The negotiation, settled with a contract signed recently with the Canadian company Belo Sun Mining Corp., was revealed last week.
New Investigation Reveals California Fueling Amazon Rainforest Oil Drilling and Destruction
COSTCO, American Airlines, Amazon.com, FedEx, and other major corporations revealed in chain of custody research
“Oil extraction in our Ecuadorian Amazon has brought pollution, diseases, deforestation, destruction of our cultures, and the colonization of our territories. It is an existential threat to us, and it violates our fundamental rights as Indigenous peoples."
Crude Reality: One U.S. State Consumes Half the Oil from the Amazon Rainforest
As oil companies carve up more of the rainforest, a new study says no place in the world uses more oil from beneath the Amazon than California
NBC News | Waorani leader Nemo Guiquita has been fighting the expansion of oil drilling in her tribe’s ancestral homeland for years. She said her grandmother, Nayuma, was the first Waorani to make contact with the outside world 60 years ago. “The rainforest for us is home,” Guiquita said. “It’s our life, our pharmacy, our everything.”
Linked Fates: Ending Amazon Crude Will Benefit Us All
New research shows that California is the world’s largest consumer of oil from the Amazon rainforest. California converts 50% of the Amazon oil exported globally into fuel for airports, corporations such as Amazon.com, trucking fleets such as PepsiCo, and retail gas giants such as COSTCO. This new investigation expands upon our previous research...
Linked Fates
How California's oil imports affect the future of the Amazon rainforest
“Oil drilling in our Amazon has brought contamination, disease, deforestation, destruction of our cultures, and the colonization of our territories. It is an existential threat for us and violates our fundamental rights as Indigenous peoples.”
Ecuador’s Constitutional Court to Issue New Ruling on FPIC
Ecuadorian government granted an environmental license in 2011 for San Carlos Panantza mining project without consultation and consent of the Shuar Arutam
“These cases are not isolated. There is not a single mining or oil project where these rights have been adequately complied with, so it is urgent that the Court rule in accordance with international human rights standards,” said Carlos Mazabanda, Amazon Watch Ecuador Field Coordinator.
Tlaib, Garcia Lead Letter Asking AG Garland, DOJ to Intervene in Donziger Case
Human rights lawyer and environmental activist jailed for taking on Big Oil polluter Chevron
“The Biden administration can’t claim to believe in the importance of climate action, much less climate justice, if it is unwilling to defend the rights of frontline communities and their advocates holding the fossil fuel industry accountable,” said Paul Paz y Miño, Associate Director at Amazon Watch.
We Will Continue to Unite and Organize for the Amazon and Climate Justice, Despite COP26
After two intense weeks in Glasgow for COP26, we are back home reflecting on the outcomes. While the Glasgow Pact does not meet the action needed to address the climate emergency, the civil society presence was truly inspiring. Indigenous peoples, frontline communities, women, and youth attended in full force organizing for climate justice and...
Oil Executives Deny Misinformation on Climate Change, Despite Evidence
Mongabay | “Chevron has about 70 serious cases of environmental impunity in 31 countries worldwide, owing over $50 billion in settlement debts. When are you going to cut the check?” Tlaib said at the hearing. “You can poison the planet to make money, but we are going to defend the planet so we can live.”
As Donziger Is Jailed for Fighting Chevron, Congress Calls for His Release
Despite this, yesterday was a nightmare for Chevron and a victory for environmental justice
Chevron thought it would get away with its crimes after Kaplan’s 2014 decision. But Donziger didn’t give up and neither did the people of Ecuador. Now they have a rapidly-growing international movement behind them not only calling for Donziger’s freedom but that the executives of Chevron should be on trial for their crimes. This was not Chevron’s...
A New 100-Page Report Raises Alarm over Chevron’s Impact on Planet
Mongabay | “It says horrible things about large companies, multi-national companies,” said environmental anthropologist Nan Greer in an interview. “It says that they can completely walk around international laws, national laws, the laws of their domicile.”
Lawyer Who Sued Chevron over “Amazon Chernobyl” Ordered to Prison After 800+ Days of House Arrest
Democracy Now! | “Chevron and these two judges, really allies of the fossil fuel industry, are trying to use me as a weapon to intimidate activists and lawyers who do this work,” says Donziger. “I need to be prosecuted by a neutral prosecutor, not by Chevron.”
Breaking: Donziger’s Appeal Denied, Must Report to Prison Wednesday
Congress, international groups demand Chevron stop targeting activists and Attorney General Garland to release US human rights lawyer
New York, NY – After an unprecedented 800+ days of home detention, human rights attorney Steven Donziger, who helped win the historic $9.5 billion judgment against Chevron for deliberate pollution of the Ecuadorian Amazon for over two decades, was sentenced to six months in prison.
We’re Ending Amazon Crude
Human rights and environmental NGOs, alongside Indigenous organizations, are calling on all banks to Exit Amazon Oil and Gas immediately
On November 1, climate activists and policy makers from all over the world will be convening at the 26th annual Conference of the Parties (COP) in Glasgow, Scotland to discuss global efforts to address the climate crisis.
New Report: Chevron’s Global Record of Denial and Destruction
Chevron Violates Domestic and International Laws with Impunity Worldwide
Washington, DC – A new report entitled Chevron’s Global Destruction: Ecocide, Genocide, and Corruption was released today amid a firestorm of criticism directed toward the multinational corporation. The report’s author, Nan M. Greer, Ph.D., documents how Chevron, the world’s number one producer in greenhouse gas emissions among all investor-owned...
What Do You Get for Beating Chevron in Court? A “Two-by-Four Between the Eyes” and Six Months in Jail
Despite the UN’s demand for Donziger’s release, judge gives him the maximum sentence, a chilling message to anyone working to address the climate crisis and resist corporate exploitation
"It is emblematic of the larger trend of silencing activists, many of whom are fighting for the solutions desperately needed to combat the global climate crisis exacerbated by multinational fossil fuel companies. Donziger's fate could have lasting effects on environmental and corporate accountability activists, against whom threats and legal...
Is Chevron’s Vendetta Against Steven Donziger Finally Backfiring?
A judge sentenced the human rights lawyer to six months in prison – but the calls for environmental justice are only growing
The Nation | There are signs that Chevron has gone too far, and that relentlessly pursuing a human rights lawyer is damaging its international reputation. The United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights is only the latest sign of concern and anger. Sixty-eight Nobel Laureates have shown their solidarity; another 475 lawyers and human rights defenders...
Human Rights Lawyer Steven Donziger Sentenced to Maximum, Six Months in Prison
New York, NY – Today, judge Loretta Preska sentenced Steven Donziger to the maximum sentence of six months in federal prison for the petty misdemeanor contempt of court charges filed by judge Lewis Kaplan, a pro-Chevron former tobacco industry lawyer. The charges were prosecuted by corporate law firm Seward & Kissel, appointed by Kaplan himself...
Depths of Fossil Fuel Industry's Power Over U.S. Government Exposed in Chevron/Donziger Case
Despite demands for his freedom and calls for investigations from the UN, Congress, and the International Community, Steven Donziger to be Sentenced for Criminal Contempt of Court
"We are alarmed by human rights lawyer Steve Donziger's sentencing today. While the severity of Donziger's fate may seem unprecedented, it is emblematic of the larger trend of silencing activists, many of whom are fighting for the solutions desperately needed to combat the global climate crisis exacerbated by multinational fossil fuel companies,"...