FUNAI's duty is to protect and promote the rights of Brazil's native peoples. Among its chief responsibilities is to identify, title, and supervise the country's vast array of indigenous territories. Yet the right to ancestral lands free from industrial activity - 98.5% of which fall within the Amazon's diverse ecosystems - presents an obstacle to...
The Investor Eye on the Amazon provides an update on our campaigns targeting corporations with ties to dirty industry in the Amazon, and it aims to serve as a resource for socially-responsible investors, industry analysts, and researchers looking to better understand the risks associated with investment in extractive industries - and their own...
Thomson Reuters | "We will return to our communities and wait for a response from the government," said Zoila Castillo, vice-president of the parliament of the Confederation of Indigenous Nationalities of the Ecuadorian Amazon. "If we do not receive a response in two weeks, we will be back."
The Guardian | "Your government cannot permit that our rights continue to be violated," Patricia Gualinga, an indigenous Kichwa from Sarayaku, told the president during the meeting. "Ecuador has to change its energy policy. It could be an example for the world," she said. Gualinga, who received death threats in January, said environmental defenders, particularly...
Quito, Ecuador – After presenting to Ecuador's President Moreno their demands to end natural resource extraction in their Amazon rainforest territories in a meeting in the presidential palace late Thursday, a delegation of Amazonian indigenous women announced they will give him fifteen days to provide concrete responses. The women also...
"We are marching for our lives! Our sisters are being threatened, our rights are being trampled, and our territories are being destroyed. We are here as women to defend the Amazon against extraction. Enough is Enough!"
Mongabay | About 350 Indigenous women from across the Ecuadorian Amazon gathered here yesterday to celebrate International Women's Day, and, they say, to fight back against a system that violates their rights. Many women spoke out specifically against the extractive industries operating in their territories.
Cultural Survival | On March 21st, 2016, International Women's Day, an Amazonian women's alliance was born when indigenous women from seven nationalities – Kichwa, Sápara, Shiwiar, Shuar, Achuar, Andoa, and Waorani – joined forces for the first time, marching together in defense of their rights, rainforests, and future generations.
Moreno has his work cut out for him to get the country out from under the long shadow of Correa, and it remains to be seen how long Ecuadorians will give him to accomplish this challenging task. He should embrace the indigenous movement's call for no new expansion of extractive industries and permanent protection for their territories and join the...
Mongabay | A decisive battle is just beginning for Indigenous peoples and ecologists who have been watching helplessly as state-owned oil company Petroamazonas settles into Yasuní National Park, one of the world's most biodiverse areas, to take advantage of its oil reserves.
"While the referendum questions on oil drilling in Yasuní and mining extraction are a step in the right direction, they do not go far enough in protecting the Amazon or its peoples from the ravages of extractive industries."
Andrew Miller of the NGO Amazon Watch said the pope's words "deepened prior comments in favor of indigenous rights and protecting the Amazon. Now the question is: will Pope Francis make similar comments before larger crowds in Lima and in dialogues with Peruvian decision makers?"
With much joy and hope indigenous peoples will receive Pope Francis in Puerto Maldonado. They hope that he will translate their concerns and solutions into concrete words as he addresses the public and Peruvian decision-makers.
"Indigenous peoples have been organizing for their collective rights in the Peruvian Amazon for decades; we encourage the Pope to leverage his influential voice to hold up indigenous demands that are too often overrun by entrenched political and economic interests."
"Drilling in Yasuni directly contradicts Moreno's UN pledge and the expanded protections proposed in the referendum," said Carlos Mazabanda, Ecuador Field Coordinator with Amazon Watch.
This is a major victory for Ecuador's indigenous movement and for the global effort to keep fossil fuels in the ground! It also sends a compelling signal to international commodities markets that new resource extraction without the consent of indigenous peoples is a clear rights violation and companies who invest in these resources will end up...
"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...
New mining concessions are now stalled until the companies can prove they've complied with all regulations under the constitution. This includes Article 57, which states that indigenous groups have the right to free and prior consultation before extractive projects take place near their land.
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.
Today's meeting and surprise announcement jump-starts a renewed dialogue between the indigenous movement and the government. Many other issues remain, such as amnesty and pardons for rights defenders, as well as an end to new oil concessions on indigenous lands.
In a powerful victory for indigenous rights in Brazil last week, the Toronto-based company Belo Sun Mining had its license to drill revoked by a federal court, dealing a significant setback to its efforts to gouge a mega-mine into the banks of the Amazon's Xingu River.
"It's good that President Moreno pronounces himself in favor of protecting the Amazon. But how will he do it, if at the same time he wants to concession more oil blocks? For this reason, we demand no more oil and mining projects in indigenous territories. Our right to Free, Prior, and Informed Consent must be respected."
"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."
Indigenous groups claimed a victory at the UN climate talks in Bonn on Wednesday as governments acknowledged for the first time that they can play a leadership role in protecting forests and keeping global temperatures at a safe level.
"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...
Colombia's next president will face many pressing challenges, not the least of which is implementation of the FARC peace accord, but he or she must also take decisive action on Colombia's role in combatting climate change.
Despite the urgent imperative to keep at least two thirds of all fossil fuels in the ground in order to avoid catastrophic climate change, governments and companies continue to recklessly expand fossil fuel exploration and drilling across the globe.
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.
"This development model impacts communities. The mine displaces people, and the impact is direct. It's this industry that makes children lack nutrition."
