In advance of Chevron’s Annual General Meeting of shareholders,scheduled for May 25, community advocates, shareholder groups, and corporate accountability experts held an online briefing for investors, the public, and the media.
Oil and Gas
GeoPark Oil Company (GPRK) a High-Risk Investment, Report by Human Rights and Environmental Organization Details
Risk alert based on recent field mission outlines the social, political, legal, environmental, and reputational risks for GeoPark’s operations in the Colombian and Ecuadorian Amazon
GeoPark's current attempts to expand operations into the Colombian and Ecuadorian Amazon are creating serious human rights and environmental challenges for the company and risks for investors, Amazon Watch detailed in a 19-page risk alert published today, coinciding with GeoPark’s quarterly earnings call for investors.
Statement on BNP Paribas Pledge to End New Financing for Amazon Oil Drilling
Bank involved in industry deals worth $13.3 billion. Move follows investigation by Stand.earth and Amazon Watch pushing firm to take a lead role in excluding Amazon oil and gas.
“BNP Paribas’ decision to stop financing new oil production in the Amazon is the first of its kind and a major milestone for us as Indigenous peoples. This decision affirms what we have been calling for – that financing oil extraction in the Amazon is putting our lives, lands, and cultures at risk, and the health of our entire planet, and must...
Four Ways Wall Street’s Annual General Meetings Impact the Amazon
During AGM season, consumers and shareholders can pressure corporations to change policies to respond to the climate and guarantee respect for human rights
We’re in the middle of the AGM season, which means corporations and financial institutions – including many complicit in Amazon destruction – will gather investors to discuss key business strategies and annual performance. Amazon Watch has historically strategized around these meetings to pressure them and demand accountability.
Citigroup AGM: Bank Called Out for Amazon Oil Financing
Report shows bank’s role in funding oil companies with ties to corruption, rights violations, pollution, and deforestation in the Amazon. Indigenous leaders, alongside human rights and environmental campaigners, calling for Citigroup to exit Amazon oil and gas.
“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. We are calling for an end to all new extraction on our lands, and as our ancestors and science now affirm...
Amazon Watch is building on more than 25 years of radical and effective solidarity with Indigenous peoples across the Amazon Basin.
Steven Donziger Is Finally Free. Onward Toward Justice for the People of Ecuador!
Today, human rights lawyer Steven Donziger woke up free, marking the closure of the latest chapter in Chevron’s scheme to evade justice for its toxic dumping in Ecuador. Now all eyes turn back to the true crime – Chevron’s contamination from 1964-1992 in Ecuador and the company’s efforts to escape accountability.
Environmental Lawyer Targeted by Chevron Freed After More Than Two Years Under House Arrest
Steven Donziger represented Ecuadorians in a pollution lawsuit against Chevron. Then he ended up in the oil giant's crosshairs.
Gizmodo | After 993 days, Steven Donziger is finally free. On Monday, the embattled lawyer, who has been targeted by Chevron for years in a Kafka-esque court struggle, finished a six-month sentence, which came on the heels of more than two years under house arrest.
Stand.earth and Amazon Watch Deploy 75-foot Banner Demanding Gavin Newsom End Amazon Destruction
Massive banner drop in Sacramento spotlights California and Amazon oil connection and calls on Governor Newsom to take action
Sacramento, CA — Today, activists from Stand.earth and Amazon Watch deployed a 75-foot banner from Sacramento’s iconic Tower Bridge to demand California governor Gavin Newsom stand up to Big Oil and end California’s role in the destruction of the Amazon Rainforest.
Petroperú’s Ongoing Threat to the Amazon
Intense market and supply chain conditions – due in part to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine – have led to increasing inflation around the world, and Peru has been no exception. Today, the controversial Talara oil refinery will be inaugurated and touted by the government as a solution to the current energy crisis. It is not.
Climate Finance Groups Call on Financial Institutions to Heed IPCC Report Urging World to Stop Using Fossil Fuels
Report comes ahead of shareholder votes on fossil fuel expansion at six largest U.S. banks and major insurance companies
“The latest IPCC report affirms what Indigenous peoples in the Amazon and across the world have been saying for decades: colonialism caused the climate crisis, and colonialism continues to worsen it today."
Protect the Amazon, Protect the Planet!
Last year, the International Energy Agency released the most comprehensive and groundbreaking study yet, outlining requirements to meet the Paris Agreement goal of keeping global warming below 1.5°C. It argued that if we are to meet those goals, there can be no development of new oil and gas fields and no new coal-fired power stations or coal...
Inspiration, Healing, and Resistance from Amazonian Women Defenders!
Executive Director Leila Salazar-López traveled to the Ecuadorian Amazon to show solidarity and amplify Indigenous women’s work against Amazon destruction
On March 6, Indigenous women from across the Ecuadorian Amazon traveled to Puyo for the inauguration event of the Casa de Mujeres Amazónicas, a gathering and healing space for Indigenous women defenders of the Amazon. It is a safe space where women can strategize, create, share, and heal together, including work on programming to support women’s...
Human Rights and Chinese Business Activities in Latin America
New report by the Collective on Chinese Financing and Investments, Human Rights and the Environment examines 26 cases of rights violations perpetrated by Chinese companies and financiers across Latin America, over half of which are in the Amazon
As part of the 49th session of the UN Human Rights Council, more than 60 civil society organizations released a new report that evaluates 26 projects backed by Chinese companies and capital across nine Latin American countries. The investigation found a pattern of failure to comply with international standards on human rights and the environment...
Over 100 Environmental and Human Rights Organizations Join Amnesty International’s Call for Biden to Pardon Steven Donziger
Global human rights community calls for freedom for human rights lawyer Steven Donziger – unjustly detained for over two years according to the UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention
“More than four months since a discerning opinion by the UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention that found Steven Donziger’s detention to be arbitrary, U.S. judicial authorities have thus far failed to take any action to remedy the situation and implement the Working Group’s call to ensure Mr. Donziger’s immediate release.”
Letter Calling on President Biden to Immediately Pardon Human Rights Lawyer Steven Donziger
Steven Donziger’s prosecution is one more example of how far powerful interests are willing to go in their quest to silence those standing up for justice. They are trying to send a chilling message to environmental activists around the world that fighting against corporate interests can cost them their liberty and more.
What Are Carbon Offset Markets Selling? Not Solutions to Amazon Destruction
The world’s most notorious corporate greenwashers are once again targeting the rainforest to avoid actually reducing emissions
Corporate polluters have used offsets as an excuse to keep emitting, but there’s little evidence that offsets are actually slowing climate change. What’s more, offset programs have enabled land-grabbing and violations of Indigenous rights in the Amazon.
Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher Exposed in New Report: How a Notorious Law Firm Enables Corporate Exploitation
A new report, "Unacceptable Shenanigans" - How Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher Enables Corporate Exploitation, endorsed by ten national and international organizations, exposes how the notorious Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher law firm abets human rights violations by multinational corporations the world over.
Portraits of Women Defenders Uniting Across the Amazon
Indigenous women across the Amazon are coming together like never before to protect and defend our lives, rights, bodies, and territories in the face of ever-increasing threats.
Citigroup “Climate Forward” Reputation Remains Tainted with Impacts of Fossil Fuel Financing in Amazon Rainforest
Report shows bank’s role in funding state-run oil companies with ties to corruption, rights violations, pollution, and deforestation in the Amazon. Indigenous leaders, human rights and environmental campaigners calling for Citi to exit Amazon oil and gas
Ahead of Citigroup Investor Day, environmental campaigners at Amazon Watch and Stand.earth are releasing a report spotlighting the bank’s exposure and central role in providing financing and investments of tens of billions to oil and gas companies in the Amazon.
Indigenous Rights Victories Deal a Major Blow to Oil and Mining Expansion
Ecuador’s plans to greatly expand oil and mining extraction in the Amazon hit a major snag last week as the nation’s Constitutional Court handed down multiple decisions that affirm Indigenous rights and limit extraction.
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.
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.
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...
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...
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...
