Amazon Watch
    Amazon Watch

    End Amazon Crude

    The Amazon is a no-go zone for oil drilling

    The western Amazon is one of the most biodiverse regions on Earth. This vital rainforest is under threat from previous and ongoing oil extraction – which pollutes rivers, harms wildlife and human health, and opens the forest to roads, deforestation, and further exploitation.

    Amazon Watch works in close partnership with Indigenous peoples to stop oil extraction at the source and reduce global demand for Amazon oil. Together, we are building pressure on governments, corporations, and consumers to phase out Amazon crude and protect the rainforest – before it’s too late.

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    Ecuador’s Yasuní Bait and Switch

    While Ecuadorian government officials were busy touting the country's advances to reduce emissions at COP 24 in Poland, activists gathered outside the country's Environment Ministry to protest government plans to greatly expand oil drilling in its remote Amazon rainforest and indigenous lands. These are fossil fuels the planet can ill afford to...

    December 6, 2018
    2,312 views
    4 min read

    A Victory in the Struggle for REAL Climate Solutions!

    Not only do offset programs allow continued pollution, but these particular forest protection schemes have a poor track record of actually protecting forests and often lead to the displacement of indigenous peoples who have stewarded their lands for millennia. Plus, offset schemes hurt the communities – predominantly people of color and indigenous...

    November 27, 2018
    2,830 views
    3 min read

    California Should Reduce Emissions, Not Pretend to Offset Them with Tropical Forests, Says Broad Coalition

    Sacramento, CA – Today the California Air Resources Board will vote on a proposed policy to pay foreign states and provinces to sequester California's industrial CO2 emissions in their tropical forests. Citing a decade's worth of failed forest carbon projects, a coalition of environmental justice organizations, Indigenous Peoples' representatives...

    November 19, 2018
    2,190 views
    4 min read

    Today We Celebrate Life and Resistance on the Front Lines of Extraction

    Día de los Muertos is traditionally a day for remembering and honoring those who have come before us. For those of us committed to environmental justice, that often includes remembering those who have lost their lives resisting the impacts of pollution, deforestation, and land grabbing. In this celebration of resistance, of course we also took...

    November 1, 2018
    4,621 views
    2 min read

    Activists Deliver One Million Petitions to Governor Brown to Phase Out Fossil Fuels in California

    Sacramento, CA – With the midterm elections just days away, the Brown's Last Chance campaign delivered nearly 60,000 petitions to Governor Brown urging him to freeze new fossil fuel permits in California during his final time in office. Californians and allies from around the globe have directly petitioned the Governor over a million times to...

    November 1, 2018
    1,798 views
    4 min read

    Amazon Watch is building on more than three decades of radical and effective solidarity with Indigenous peoples across the Amazon Basin.

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    Bolsonaro Victory Spells Disaster for the Brazilian Amazon, Spurs Resistance Movement

    "The ascension of the divisive and callous politician Jair Bolsonaro to the presidency poses enormous challenges for democracy, human rights, and environmental preservation in Brazil. His administration could undo decades of hard-fought socio-environmental advances and move the country back toward the dark days of its brutal military dictatorship."

    October 27, 2018
    783 views
    2 min read

    New Climate Report Calls for Action Not Desperation

    Scientists have finally caught up with the lived experience and traditional knowledge of indigenous peoples. As the Florida Panhandle picks up the pieces and North Carolina recovers from its second hurricane in less than a month, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has issued its most dire warning yet.

    October 19, 2018
    6,161 views
    6 min read

    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...

    October 11, 2018
    4,167 views
    4 min read

    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...

    October 9, 2018
    918 views
    2 min read

    Throwing Stones at BlackRock’s Fossil Fuel Investments

    One of the world's largest fund managers, BlackRock, which has been proclaiming its high sustainability and ethical values is fighting off a barrage of criticisms that it is in fact one of the worst offenders against the planet.

    October 2, 2018
    700 views
    4 min read

    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.

    October 2, 2018
    4,158 views
    2 min read

    Environmental Groups Oppose Chevron’s Use of Dirty Tricks to Evade Justice in Ecuador

    Organizations argue in legal filings that attacks against lawyer creates widespread silencing of voices calling for corporate accountability

    Oakland, CA – Two environmental NGOs filed formal petitions this week before the Inter-American Commission of Human Rights and the New York Bar opposing Chevron's attempts to use the legal system to attack those pushing the company to address its toxic legacy in the Amazon.

    September 27, 2018
    5,691 views
    4 min read

    BlackRock Targeted as Largest Driver of Climate Destruction in New Campaign

    Leading climate groups call out the world’s largest owner of fossil fuel companies, tell BlackRock CEO to walk the talk

    New York, NY – A campaign launching today is holding BlackRock accountable as the single largest contributor to climate destruction. The campaign, BlackRock's Big Problem, asserts that as the world's biggest owner of fossil fuel companies, BlackRock is putting the planet on a path towards runaway climate change. The campaign launches as world...

    September 26, 2018
    4,713 views
    3 min read

    Environmental Campaign Targets BlackRock Amid Claims of “Climate Destruction”

    Calls out Fink for failing to "walk the talk"

    Investment Week | An environmental campaign has criticised BlackRock for allegedly being the "largest owner of fossil fuel companies and single largest contributor to climate destruction", and singled out CEO Larry Fink as failing to manage the business in line with his own expectations of stocks the firm invests in.

    September 26, 2018
    2,231 views
    2 min read

    Climate Action Must Address Fossil Fuels, Protect Forests, and Listen to Communities

    "We are here because 2.5 million acres of our forests are being negotiated behind our backs. Our forests are not just carbon," said Marlon Santi of Sarayaku. "Allowing oil companies to continue to pollute while using the forests we have protected for millennia as carbon sinks without our consent is not a climate solution."

    September 21, 2018
    6,120 views
    5 min read

    “They Won’t Be Able to Eat Their Money”

    Pacific Standard spoke with Amazonian activists, local grandmothers, and small children at Saturday's march in San Francisco

    Pacific Standard | "The planet depends on us; the Earth, the rivers, the mountains, the trees provide us with oxygen, and we need to ensure that we protect them. We need to listen to each other's voices, we need to understand that climate change doesn't just affect indigenous people – it affects all of us. We must have the will to change. We're committing suicide in...

    September 11, 2018
    1,247 views
    5 min read

    Thousands March in Rise for Climate Demonstration in San Francisco

    San Francisco Chronicle | Mirian Cisneros, president of the Kichwa people of Sarayaku in the Amazon rainforest in Ecuador had a simple plea to the United States: respect indigenous people's rights and stop extracting fuels from their land. "We must leave fossil fuels underground, both in the Amazon forest and the whole world," Cisneros said.

    September 9, 2018
    5,863 views
    3 min read

    Thousands March in San Francisco to Draw Attention to Global Climate Change Ahead of World Summit

    East Bay Times | “I come from the living forest,” said Mirian Cisneros, president of the Kichwa People of Sarayaku in the Ecuadorian Amazon. “I also come from a people that have fought for years and years against the threat of oil drilling. I am here in this large march with brothers and sisters from the whole planet because we understand that we have to leave...

    September 9, 2018
    4,137 views
    3 min read

    Climate Leadership Means Keeping Fossil Fuels in the Ground in Tropical Forests and Beyond

    California Governor Jerry Brown can show true climate leadership by phasing out oil and gas production in the state

    Mongabay | Protecting tropical forests is key to mitigating climate change. When California Governor Jerry Brown convenes the Global Climate Action Summit next week, he should seize the opportunity to make an announcement that will help address one of the root causes of both deforestation and climate change: a phase out of oil and gas production in...

    September 7, 2018
    4,279 views
    3 min read

    Trade Tribunal Validates Corporate Abuse of Amazonians by Ruling in Chevron’s Favor

    "It is absurd that an international trade tribunal can circumvent a sovereign democratic nation's independent judiciary. Ecuadorian courts were essentially found guilty of considering the evidence against Chevron and holding the company to account," said Amazon Watch Associate Director Paul Paz y Miño.

    September 7, 2018
    5,213 views
    3 min read

    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...

    August 23, 2018
    5,266 views
    4 min read

    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.

    August 23, 2018
    6,066 views
    2 min read

    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.

    August 21, 2018
    1,803 views
    6 min read

    Ecuador’s Indigenous Activists Are Under Attack. Will the Government Protect Them?

    President Lenín Moreno should make protecting Indigenous groups a priority, says Amnesty International's Americas director

    Americas Quarterly | As indigenous peoples from across Ecuador commemorate the International Day of the World's Indigenous Peoples on August 9th, activists will demand that Ecuador's President Lenín Moreno fulfills his promise to protect them and their territories. The day comes as a string of recent threats and attacks against indigenous human rights defenders has...

    August 8, 2018
    3,634 views
    4 min read

    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.

    August 3, 2018
    2,498 views
    2 min read