Amazon Watch

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Ferrogrão Is a Shortcut to Collapse

The railway is being sold as a logistical solution, but in practice it means more deforestation, land invasions, and poison

O Globo | Ferrogrão is the backbone of a corridor that transforms the Amazon into a commodity export route and condemns Brazil to a subservient role.

California Lawmakers Seek to Curb Oil Imports from Amazon

Associated Press | “Consuming oil from the Amazon is incompatible with climate leadership. As the world’s fourth-largest economy, California is sending a powerful market signal by examining its crude footprint and role in Amazon destruction.”

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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When Criminals Rule the Amazon Jungle and Time Runs Out

The crisis of public security, environmental crime, and human rights must be on the agenda of the Summit of Amazonian Countries

El País | Without coordinated action and meaningful inclusion of local voices, the region faces escalating violence and irreversible damage to one of the world’s most critical ecosystems.

Amazonian Communities in Peru Rejoice as Plan for Oil Drilling on Ancestral Land Stalls

Peru’s state-run oil company failed to attract any bids to develop an oil field that overlaps ancestral territories of several Indigenous groups

Associated Press | “Local communities and their allies will remain alert to this zombie project which has been killed multiple times but always attempts to return from the dead.”

The Wisdom That Panduro Took With Him

Three years after the army perpetrated the Alto Remanso massacre, in which several civilians were killed, a community that almost disappeared is trying to recover from the absence of the leader who healed them and taught them their language

Voragine | Pablo Panduro was killed on March 28, 2022 during an army operation in which 11 people were killed, and which was carried out against the Border Command, a FARC dissident group that controls most of Putumayo.

Survivors of Alto Remanso Massacre in Colombia Commemorate Their Dead

This past Friday, in Bajo Putumayo, another anniversary was held to remember the military operation that killed at least eight civilians. At the time, authorities tried to pass the victims off as guerrillas killed in combat

El País | On March 28, 2022, the Military Forces of Colombia carried out an operation by air, water and land. Eleven people died, four were wounded and around 350 were displaced.

Petroperú Minimizes Oil Spill in Piura: Damage Reported in 10 Thousand Square Meters of Sea and Four Beaches

The state-owned company claimed the spill on the northern coast of Peru "was under control," but the Environmental Assessment and Oversight Agency and Municipality of Lobitos detect the spread of the environmental disaster

Infobae | An oil spill resulting from an underwater terminal of Petroperú’s Talara Refinery has spread to four beaches in Lobitos on the northern coast of Peru, affecting approximately 10,000 cubic meters of the sea.

President Biden: Stand Up to Chevron and Pardon Steven Donziger

Chevron spent billions trying to destroy him after he won the largest pollution case in history. It’s time for Biden to end this nightmare

The Guardian | Donziger’s story is nothing new. We all know that billion-dollar corporations wield their influence to silence critics. But what is so jarring about this case is the lengths to which Chevron has gone to manipulate the courts, corrupt the rule of law, and evade accountability.

The Amazon Is in a State of Emergency: A Mandate for Action from Indigenous Peoples

After participating in the COP on transnational organized crime in Vienna, and while the biodiversity summit is being held in Cali, two leaders from Peru show how criminal economies are the main threat to the rainforest and the people who care for it

El País | The largest and most biodiverse rainforest in the world has become the most dangerous for those of us who protect it.

Staring Down the Barrel: What Peruvian Oil Company’s Crisis Means for the Public

Fate of cash-strapped Petroperú holds major implications for national economy, Indigenous groups and the climate

The Bureau of Investigative Journalism | “In the long term, PetroPerú has a big problem: it is billions of dollars in debt, its core business is oil – and the world is decarbonizing”

Wall Street Banks Fund the Destruction of Our Indigenous Land

Newsweek | As representatives of communities who pay the highest costs of this toxic business, Indigenous Peoples demand banks prohibit new financing of Petroperú, and prevent its clients from pursuing new oil expansion.

Following the Money Behind Amazon Oil Development

Santander and HSBC worked on Petroperú bond issuance despite its record of Amazon oil spills

Financial Times | Local opposition has hampered Petroperú’s plans to start producing crude from two large blocks in the Amazon. For many banks, support for Amazon oil development must look like much more trouble than it is worth.