Amazon Watch
    Amazon Watch

    Shuar

    Keep Off Our Land, Indigenous Women Tell Ecuador’s President

    Women's movement demands an end to unrestricted oil drilling and mining on Indigenous lands and action on violence against land defenders in first meeting with President Lenin Moreno

    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...

    March 23, 2018
    3,413 views
    2 min read

    Amazonian Indigenous Women Take Demands for End to Oil and Mining Directly to Ecuador’s President

    In a Meeting with President Moreno, the Women Called for an Amazon Free of Natural Resource Extraction and an End to Threats Against Them and Other Earth Defenders

    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...

    March 23, 2018
    6,356 views
    4 min read

    Standing Shoulder-to-Shoulder with Indigenous Women at Risk in Ecuador

    A call for international solidarity to protect the rights and lives of Earth Defenders

    "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!"

    March 15, 2018
    6,360 views
    3 min read

    Indigenous Women March in Ecuador, Vow to “Defend Our Territory”

    Women from different regions of the Ecuadorian Amazon gathered in the city of Puyo, Ecuador to mark International Women's Day

    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.

    March 9, 2018
    5,604 views
    5 min read

    Indigenous Amazonian Women: Defending Mother Earth

    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.

    March 2018
    4,663 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.

    DONATE NOW

    Ecuador Announces End to New Oil and Mining Concessions

    "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...

    December 18, 2017
    2,984 views
    2 min read

    JPMorgan, BlackRock Tout Climate Bona Fides While Funding Amazon Oil Drilling

    "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...

    November 10, 2017
    5,135 views
    3 min read

    Amazonian Indigenous Peoples Reject Ecuador’s Plans for New Oil Tender

    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.

    October 26, 2017
    6,469 views
    3 min read

    When Defending the Land Becomes a Crime

    "At the end of the day resistance is an ethical struggle. It is a struggle we must take up. Resistance is a principle of justice, especially when we see that the people are suffering."

    October 5, 2017
    976 views
    8 min read

    El Pueblo de las Cascadas Amenazado Por la Minería

    Este pueblo está enfrentando una gran amenaza ya que el estado ecuatoriano ha concesionado parte de su territorio para la implementación del proyecto de extracción de cobre a cielo abierto a la empresa Explocobres, subsidiaria de la transnacional china CRCC y Tongling.

    May 5, 2017
    5,789 views
    7 min read

    The People of the Waterfalls Threatened By Mining

    The Shuar are facing a great threat given the fact that the Ecuadorian government has sold concessions to part of their territory for an open-pit copper mining project run by the company Explocobres, a subsidiary of the Chinese companies CRCC and Tongling.

    May 5, 2017
    4,753 views
    6 min read

    Ecuador Election: No Good Option for the Amazon

    Regardless of who wins, the response to the escalated social conflicts over extractive industry projects, rollback of indigenous rights, and criminalization of civil society protest will be an early and pressing challenge for the incoming administration.

    March 31, 2017
    1,892 views
    5 min read

    Amazon Threatened by China-Ecuador Loans for Oil

    Meeting contractual loan payments with oil is a major driver behind Ecuador's effort to open up new, pristine Amazon indigenous rainforest territory to oil drilling. All this new drilling has led to massive impacts in the Amazon rainforest that have been dire both for its world-renowned biodiversity and its indigenous peoples.

    March 31, 2017
    3,588 views
    6 min read

    Community Consent: Business Lessons from the Amazon

    From the snow-covered plains of the Standing Rock Sioux tribe of North Dakota to Shuar rainforest territories in the Ecuadorian Amazon, there is a resurgence of resistance to extractive industry projects around the world. These conflicts have major implications for China, Latin America's largest trading partner, whose state run companies are...

    March 29, 2017
    3,025 views
    10 min read

    Musician and Activist Nahko Travels To the Amazon To Build Bridges of Indigenous Solidarity

    Nahko, the musician and frontman of Medicine for the People, and his bandmate Patricio Zuñiga Labarca have just returned to the U.S. after a week in Ecuador, where they visited the pristine rainforests of the Ecuadorian Amazon and met with indigenous leaders and communities to hear first hand about local efforts to protect their rights, forests...

    March 23, 2017
    567 views
    4 min read

    Indigenous Leaders Denounce Ecuadorian Government Over Mining Conflicts

    "We are being persecuted by the military and the police who are invading the territories of the Shuar communities," Elvia Dagua, a local indigenous member of CONFENIAE told the media Thursday. "They have destroyed homes. So the Shuar people, women, men, and children have had to flee."

    March 14, 2017
    2,106 views
    5 min read

    “Buen Vivir” for Whom?

    Despite its professed commitment to protection of Mother Earth and to placing sustainable living over profits, Ecuador under Correa has pursued a resource extraction strategy that prioritizes short-term revenue generation over environmental protection and indigenous territorial rights.

    January 31, 2017
    3,706 views
    7 min read

    NGO Targeted by Ecuadorian Government for Shutdown To Remain Open

    "We believe that justice has been done, and we will continue to work with the same courage and strength to defend the rights of nature and the rights of the people as we have been doing for 30 years," said Alexandra Almeida, the group's president.

    January 13, 2017
    1,399 views
    4 min read

    Letter from the Shuar Arutam People to the Country and the World

    As many of you know, recent days have been very dangerous for our people. These days have not yet ended and are, indeed, probably only the beginning of a great territorial dispute initiated by the National Government against the Shuar Arutam People.

    January 11, 2017
    5,255 views
    6 min read

    Shuar Tribe Face Government in Amazon Mining Protests

    With a 30-day state of exception imposed across the entire Amazonian province of Morona Santiago, the government has reportedly mobilised up to 1,000 military and police personnel to protect the mining camp and hunt down what top officials have called an "illegally armed group" that they say does not represent the Shuar nation.

    January 3, 2017
    1,781 views
    3 min read