Our Indigenous brothers and sisters in Peru remind us that access to oxygen and healthcare must be guaranteed right in a just economic system. Our partners shouldn't have to choose between purchasing oxygen or paying their bills or feeding their families. COVID-19 is showing us the face of the global food and health crisis and demanding literal...
Once a year, the United Nations Headquarters in New York welcomes hundreds of indigenous leaders and representatives from around the world for the UN Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues. Amazon Watch spent the week accompanying and amplifying the voices and solutions of Amazonian leaders from Ecuador, Peru, and Brazil.
Reality Sandwich | Last April, a Canadian ayahuasca tourist rode a motorbike into the Amazonian township of Victoria Gracia, sought out the venerated 81-year-old Shipibo healer Maestra Olivia Arévalo Lomas, pulled out a gun and shot her dead. The fallout from the murder is emblematic of a common problem, what we are framing as spiritual extractivism.
The tragic murder of Olivia Arévalo and the Canadian man who killed her in the Peruvian Amazon have unleashed great sadness and a series of xenophobic defamations against the Shipibo Conibo people in mainstream media and on social networks, including from a sitting member of Congress, that have deepened the discrimination and hostility against the...
More than 1,000 representatives of indigenous peoples traveled to New York in late April to participate in the 17th Session of the UN Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues. Amazon Watch supported and accompanied Amazonian leaders to call for respect and protection of their lives, cultures, and ancestral territories and an end to the harassment and...
Amazon Watch is saddened and outraged by the news of the brazen assassination of the recognized Shipibo medicine woman Olivia Arévalo. We express our condolences to her family in community of and stand in solidarity with the indigenous organizations that are denouncing this horrific act.
Washington, DC – Peruvian authorities must take urgent steps to end land grabbing, deforestation, and political killings of indigenous leaders in the Ucayali region, thousands of individuals stated in international grassroots petitions published today.
Six farmers have been shot dead by a criminal gang who wanted to seize their farms to muscle in on the lucrative palm oil trade, according to indigenous Amazon leaders in Peru.
The expansion of oil palm plantations is an emerging threat to the Amazon in Peru and beyond. The rainforests of Indonesia and Malaysia have been devastated by oil palm, a legacy that does not bode well for the Western Hemisphere.
Over the last several weeks, we were honored to support the activities of Shipibo indigenous activist Ronald Suárez at the UN Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues in New York City and during the Peoples Climate March in Washington, DC.
"Our participation in the Peoples Climate March was very important because we were able to bring the voice of our Amazon all the way here, showing the world that we are resisting her plunder."
In the face of too many previous agreements left unfulfilled, more unity is the best strategy forward, affirm the indigenous federations united in Saramurillo.
The Guardian | Usually the indigenous peoples living in the remotest Amazon only draw international media attention if certain kinds of photos or film footage emerge, as in mid-2014, or they raid a village or, tragically, kill someone, as happened on 1 May. Many media reports misinform as much as inform: factual errors, no context and all kinds of sensationalism...
