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    Call for Accountability Following Attack on Amazonian Land Defender Patricia Gualinga

    "If the intent to attack and threaten me was to instill fear to paralyze me, it failed. Following this incident, I am more motivated than ever to stand strong and work to defend the rights and territories of Sarayaku and all of the Amazon threatened by extraction," said Patricia Gualinga in reference to the recent attack.

    February 8, 2018
    1,583 views
    4 min read

    Amazon Watch Statement on Ecuadorian Referendum

    "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."

    February 3, 2018
    2,091 views
    2 min read

    BlackRock Receives Over 122,000 Petition Signatures Calling for Divestment from Amazon Oil

    "A healthy future for the planet lies not in short-term profits but in the protection of rights, the environment, and the climate, and in bold investments in renewable energy. It is high time that BlackRock, JPMorgan Chase, and other financial institutions put their money where their mouths are and stop bankrolling the road to climate chaos."

    January 11, 2018
    490 views
    3 min read

    Amazon Watch is building on more than 28 years of radical and effective solidarity with Indigenous peoples across the Amazon Basin.

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    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
    2,823 views
    2 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
    6,042 views
    3 min read

    My First Decade at Amazon Watch

    Over ten years, I have been privileged to play a role in most of the organization's major campaign initiatives. While the moments of exhilaration, frustration, learning, anger, and beauty could fill a book, I want to share ten snapshots of key experiences that represent what serving with Amazon Watch has meant to me.

    October 19, 2017
    1,056 views
    8 min read

    Stop Fueling Amazon Destruction

    Extracting crude oil from the western Amazon Basin threatens ecologically- and culturally-sensitive ecosystems critical to global climate stability. California is the largest single importer and processor of this fuel. Therefore, brand-name retailers with significant operations in California have a critical role to play in reducing U.S. demand for...

    June 19, 2017
    4,598 views
    1 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
    1,703 views
    5 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
    451 views
    4 min read

    Native Nations Rise: Indigenous Solidarity in Action

    Last week thousands of indigenous activists and allies traveled to Washington, DC for the Native Nations Rise march, convened by the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe and grassroots indigenous leaders. It was an important moment to bring the fight against the Dakota Access pipeline to the doorstep of the White House, stating unequivocally that far from...

    March 16, 2017
    5,919 views
    3 min read

    Why We Rise and Resist for the Amazon

    Just a few weeks ago, I was in deep in the Amazon visiting our indigenous partners the Sápara and the Kichwa of Sarayaku with a small group of Amazon Watch supporters. I am so grateful for this opportunity and want to share some of my reflections with you on why we rise and resist for the Amazon.

    March 1, 2017
    3,673 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
    3,529 views
    7 min read

    Breaking Precious Ground

    Just this past spring, in a move that shocked the international conservation community, Ecuador began trucking the first barrels of crude out of Yasuní. Is this the beginning of the end for one of the world’s most biodiverse ecosystems?

    January 12, 2017
    6,134 views
    2 min read

    U.N. Experts Slam Ecuador Over Forced Closure of Land Rights Group

    The United Nations criticized the government of Ecuador on Friday for ordering the closure of a land rights advocacy group that supports an indigenous community protesting mining plans in land they claim as their ancestral home.

    December 31, 2016
    3,880 views
    2 min read

    New Witch Hunt in Ecuador Against Indigenous and Environment Defenders

    Ecuador became an even more difficult place to be a defender of indigenous rights and the environment in recent days. You would think a country with constitutionally-enshrined protections for Mother Nature would support and encourage indigenous and environmental rights defenders, but sadly that is not the case, and it has implications for the...

    December 23, 2016
    6,278 views
    5 min read

    As Oil Companies Dig Into Yasuní National Park, Ecuadorians Are Fighting Back

    "If we can't manage to protect places that are this important,"" says Kevin Koenig, Ecuador program director for Amazon Watch, "then it seems unlikely that we'll be able to protect the rest of the planet. Depending on what happens here, we could be at the beginning of what could turn out to be a very tragic story."

    December 13, 2016
    1,743 views
    19 min read

    Sarayaku People’s Struggle for Justice in Ecuador Presented in Interactive Digital Map

    On the occasion of a public compliance hearing at the Inter-American Court of Human Rights today, members of the indigenous Kichwa community in Sarayaku exposed the Ecuadorian State's failure to comply with the 2012 judgement issued by the Inter-American Court of Human Rights, using a new interactive digital story-map to demonstrate how the...

    December 1, 2016
    2,567 views
    3 min read

    Reimagining Progress: Voices from the Ecuadorian Amazon

    Developed jointly by the pair after experiencing first-hand the pressures faced by indigenous people in the Ecuadorian Amazon during 2015, the project was launched with the primary aim of raising international awareness of some of the key threats currently faced by the Sápara and Kichwa communities of Ecuador, specifically their long-running...

    October 24, 2016
    2,746 views
    9 min read

    Amazon Watch 20th Anniversary Gala

    Thank you to all our friends and supporters who joined us at our 20th Anniversary Gala on Wednesday in San Francisco, where we shared food, music, dancing, and inspiring words about our last 20 years and our vision for the years to come supporting indigenous peoples and protecting the Amazon.

    October 7, 2016
    5,568 views
    1 min read