Chevron did not realize that in its persecution of Donziger it would mobilize tens of thousands to demand accountability against its pollution in Ecuador, and around the world. Last Friday, rallies calling for Donziger's immediate release took place in over a dozen cities including, New York, Los Angeles, Richmond, CA, Miami, San Antonio, Seattle...
The global climate and ecological crises are more alarming than ever. The Amazon rainforest now emits more carbon than it absorbs due to rampant burning and deforestation. As people around the globe suffer through worsening climate catastrophes, financial institutions continue to fund the corporations perpetuating ecological destruction and human...
Trading forest protection for continued greenhouse gas emissions presents a false and dangerous "solution" to the climate crisis. Instead, emissions must be drastically reduced, forests must be protected for their own sake, Indigenous forest stewardship must be recognized and respected, and the root causes of deforestation – namely commodity...
In Amazon Watch and Stand.earth’s latest report, Banking on Amazon Destruction, researchers compare the Environmental and Social Risk (ESR) policies of target banks to their actions. Together, we are calling on banks to exclude all types of finance (including investment) for any company engaging in the oil industry in the Amazon, setting markers...
San Francisco, CA – A new scorecard and report released today by environmental advocacy groups Stand.earth and Amazon Watch fails global banks for their financing and investment in the oil and gas industry in the Amazon rainforest, revealing that despite sustainability commitments and risk management screening processes, banks remain highly...
The Amazon rainforest is at the tipping point – rapidly approaching an ecological point of no return when, if enough deforestation occurs, the forest will no longer be able to sustain itself, triggering a massic dieback of plant and animal species, and deregulating global climate and temperature patterns. We must take immediate action to protect...
Together, BlackRock, State Street, and Vanguard hold $46 billion in debt and equity in oil companies currently operating in the Amazon rainforest. While the prospect of moving the world's largest asset managers to divest from climate destruction may seem daunting, it's not impossible. That's where you come in. Client investors have power.
With a vaccination rate that is already surpassing 120,000 patients per day, Peru is finally showing glimmers of hope that it will overcome the worst of the pandemic. However, a glance towards the Peruvian Amazon shows a different reality. Recovery from COVID-19 in this biodiverse region will be difficult and Indigenous communities will need...
New York, NY – Prompted by the recent alliance in Colombia between the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and GeoPark, an oil company credibly accused of human rights and environmental malfeasance in the Amazon rainforest, an international group of more than forty organizations wrote to the UNDP Executive Board on Friday, June 4. The...
Public Eye | The Geneva-based trader Gunvor has imposed itself as one of the main players in Amazonian crude without winning a single tender. With financial support from Swiss banks, Gunvor convinced Ecuador to become heavily indebted to Asian state-owned companies, pushing the country to drill even deeper into its natural reserves to reimburse them. Toxic...
"As long as the world's largest investors choose to place profits over people by continuing to pour money into the fossil fuel industry in the Amazon, our entire planet is at risk. BlackRock, State Street, and Vanguard must end their complicity in Indigenous rights abuses, forest destruction, and climate chaos," said Moira Birss, Climate and...
The “Big Three” manage trillions of dollars of investments for individual and institutional investors all over the world, including pension funds and university endowments. Together they control nearly 20 trillion dollars. By investing in oil companies with horrific environmental and human rights records, they are not only flagrantly ignoring...
Three of the world's largest asset managers – BlackRock, Vanguard, and State Street – with trillions of dollars under their control, invest in oil companies with horrific environmental and human rights records across the Amazon Basin. Right now, these asset managers hold a large amount of risk by actively contributing to Indigenous and human...
In a major victory for the environment, human rights, and our climate, nine Amazonian girls just put an end to the oil industry's gas flaring in the Ecuadorian Amazon! The practice has been hiding in plain sight across the Amazon rainforest for decades. For years, Amazon Watch has brought attention to flaring as a source of contamination through...
San Ramon, CA – Chevron held its Annual General Meeting online once again, taking advantage of the opportunity to limit community engagement during the meeting. However, its CEO Mike Wirth did not succeed in curtailing scathing shareholder criticism from the Board of Directors. Instead, Chevron faced the most sweeping criticism for its actions in...
Tomorrow, May 26, will be Chevron's 11th shareholder meeting since the company lost a historic $9.5 billion judgement for deliberately polluting the Ecuadorian Amazon. Since then, many more Ecuadorians have gotten sick and died awaiting justice, as Chevron pulled its assets from Ecuador and waged a retaliatory legal assault. It spent well over a...
Oakland, CA – "Anti-Chevron Day" is a global day of action, every year on May 21, to remind the world of the impacts caused by the oil company in places such as the Ecuadorian Amazon, Myanmar, and the Bay Area. For the eighth consecutive year, a diverse coalition of groups calls upon the international community before Chevron's Annual General...
The Intercept | As activists strive to hold fossil fuel companies responsible for their role in the climate crisis, there is growing popular recognition of the significance of Chevron's aggressive legal campaign against the environmental lawyer. But for the third time in the epic legal battle stemming from the pollution, the legal proceedings took place without a...
Amazon Watch expresses our solidarity with Colombian civil society and popular movements facing violent repression by state security forces, riot police (ESMAD), and the national army, since the national strike began on May 28. We are deeply concerned by reports of over 1,000 cases of violence, over 700 arbitrary arrests, at least 37 deaths...
"The oil companies are operating in the Amazon anyway, and we can help make sure they abide by human rights standards." Such was the rationale presented by the head of the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) in Colombia, Jessica Faieta. The UNDP managed to get itself into quite a pickle and found itself in the uncomfortable position of...
In our Indigenous worldviews, our grandmothers and grandfathers have taught us that when our people die, they return to the jungle...in other spirits, in other beings. In each encounter with María Taant, a Shuar leader from the Ecuadorian Amazon, she mentioned a boa that protected us. We heard what turned out to be her last song, in which she sang...
"Partnerships between UN agencies and oil companies seriously undermine the United Nations’ moral authority on climate and environmental issues. But UNDP Colombia isn’t just partnering with your run-of-the-mill oil company polluting the Amazon Rainforest. In Colombia, the UNDP is working with GeoPark which local communities have consistently...
"Too often Indigenous and frontline communities are denied the justice they deserve after racist fossil fuel pollution and corporate violence put their lives and livelihoods at risk," said Congresswoman Cori Bush. "Steven Donziger's successful lawsuit on behalf of Indigenous communities in Ecuador was a remarkable exception. His bravery and...
French corporate and investment bank Natixis published a commitment to end trade financing in Ecuadorian crude oil. While joining a growing list of banks making Amazon statements this year, the announcement marks Natixis as the only bank to update its policy to officially include all Ecuadorian oil and gas in its list of exclusions, after a...
Hundreds of Ecuadorian Indigenous people took to the streets of the Amazonian town of Coca yesterday to demand justice for the ongoing impacts of the country's largest oil spill in recent history. Amazon Watch’s team in Ecuador, alongside coalition partners, has been leading advocacy campaigns and maintaining pressure on the government and big...
Coca, Ecuador – This morning, hundreds of Indigenous Kichwa people from the Ecuadorian Amazon marched through the city of Coca to mark one year since the country’s largest oil spill in recent history. On April 7, 2020, 672,000 gallons of crude oil and fuel spilled from the country’s two major pipelines, the OCP and SOTE operated by the OCP...
The Nation | Chevron's strategy could be backfiring. Over the past few months, a global movement has grown to defend Donziger and his Ecuadorean clients. Some 55 Nobel Prize winners signed a letter defending Donziger; 475 lawyers and human rights defenders released a similar appeal. A blue-ribbon legal Monitoring Committee is closely following Donziger's case;...
Mongabay | "In Brazil the operations of corporations like the ones we mention above, into which BlackRock directs substantial investments on behalf of clients, have profound negative impacts on our communities, our forests, and the climate," APIB wrote. "You therefore have a responsibility for our future. And if the Amazon is destroyed, the future of the...
Esquire | Donziger is a human rights lawyer who, for more than 27 years, has represented the Indigenous peoples and rural farmers of Ecuador against Texaco – since acquired by Chevron – which was accused of dumping at least 16 billion gallons of toxic waste into the area of the Amazon rainforest in which they live. Cancer is now highly prevalent in the...
