In the last couple of years, we have grown our work in international advocacy and legal strategies to denounce the threats the Brazilian government tries to pose to the environment and Indigenous peoples by pushing for a set of bill of laws known as the “Destruction Package.”
It is essential that we recognize this pattern and be ready to mobilize in solidarity with the Peruvian Indigenous movement in the struggles to come over the next few months.
Peru’s regional governments, as well as extractive companies trying to greenwash their image in front of the world, must know that we will not allow them to continue. The GCF Task Force must denounce this contradiction.
The railway is regarded as one of the most anti-environmental projects being considered by Lula de Silva's government and has even been dubbed the "new Belo Monte."
A wave of uncertainty and concern has gripped Ecuador after right-wing President Lasso invoked Article 148, known as the “muerte cruzada” clause in the country’s constitution, dissolving congress and convening new elections.
Anti-Chevron Day is not just about drawing attention to Chevron’s misdeeds, but also pointing out how many affected communities and their allies continue to support one another in resistance.
“We formed this task force to protect our rights – and yours – to speak out, criticize, and protest peacefully. From SLAPP suits to surveillance, we are here to defend your protest. Because democracy needs dissent.”
Potássio do Brasil is an example of how mining companies violate Indigenous rights even before their operations begin.
"Lula promised to resume land demarcation. We believe in him, but let's not fool ourselves that now the fight will be easy. We will not solve 523 years of destruction in four years, but we will push on!"
We celebrate and honor the life and journey of resistance by the great Indigenous leader Alessandra Munduruku. May her example serve as a source of inspiration and strength to continue our work in defense of the Amazon in solidarity with all Indigenous peoples.
“As the U’wa Nation, we have a special mission for the Blue Planet, our Mother Earth, which is to defend her, protect her, safeguard her. Not just for the U’wa but for the whole world. This is the essence of the U’wa struggle from time immemorial.”
This April and May, the biggest financial backers of corporations that induce climate change and disregard rights will convene for their Annual General Meetings. We hope to push them to vote yes on important climate and Indigenous rights resolutions.
"We will all be affected by climate change." The truth is that some will face the impacts of this process much more than others. And it is women and girls who are the most vulnerable, with Black and Indigenous women being even more exposed.
This International Women’s Day 2023, we celebrated Indigenous women as life-givers, wisdom keepers, and leaders while denouncing violence against women and Mother Earth.
Across the Amazon Basin, women are organizing in defense of life, rights, and territories, and are a critical part of the front lines movement resisting increasing threats such as mining.
“The Shuar Arutam People have already decided and have declared forcefully that we do not want mining or consultation in our territory.”
The shocking images of death and destruction of the Yanomami people and their lands that recently swept the world reestablish a tragedy foretold.
“Gratitude is so much more than a polite thank you. It is the thread that connects us in a deep relationship. Gratitude and reciprocity are the currency for a giving economy or regenerative economy.”
We count on the positive energy and mobilization of our supporters so that, together with our partners on the ground in Canada and our allies in the new Brazilian government, we can evaluate and expose the climatic risks of destroying an ecosystem as critical as that of the Volta Grande do Xingu, still threatened by Canadian mining company Belo...
Over the last few weeks, Peru has been going through an unprecedented political and social conflict that has already resulted in more than 40 deaths.
There are several reasons to be optimistic about building momentum to further restrict plans to expand oil extraction in its Amazon and keep fossil fuels permanently in the ground, and Ecuador is a great example.
For the first time, a government has put Indigenous peoples at the center, recognizing their ancestral right to decide over their lives and territories.
Indigenous communities are uniquely qualified to speak on the intersections between mining and biodiversity: Indigenous lands make up around 20% of the Earth’s territory, containing 80% of the world’s remaining biodiversity, requiring Indigenous peoples to be at the forefront of all decision-making regarding any global climate commitments.
The Siona of Buenavista are a beacon of resistance against incursions of oil companies like GeoPark into their territories. Solidarity from Colombian and international allies can be crucial to their success.
After two weeks in Sharm El Sheikh, Egypt for the Climate COP27 (The United Nations Conference of Parties on Climate Change), I’m reflecting on our purpose in attending and the outcomes.
The activist-led Amazon Defenders Fund (ADF) forges a bond of solidarity between Amazon Watch and our Amazonian partners and allies, and contributes to the woven tapestry of direct actions in their territories.
When you make a U.S. tax-deductible donation to Amazon Watch, you can count on your gift being put to work effectively and immediately to uplift Indigenous visions and solutions for the Amazon.
A Peruvian delegation of Indigenous leaders and fishing communities is in the United States right now, confronting investors on their rights to live free from the devastation caused by the oil company the investors are bankrolling, Petroperú.
"This is a victory of love, of hope, of truth, of freedom, and of our fragile democracy that is now being strengthened," said Sonia Guajajara, Congresswoman-elect.
Defenders of Yasuní National Park in the Ecuadorian Amazon, one of the most biologically diverse places on the planet, have two new reasons to hope that oil drilling in the region could be imminently curtailed.
While Brazil's presidential contest forced a runoff vote scheduled for the end of October, the election saw the historic victory of members of Brazil’s Indigenous "headdress" caucus in São Paulo and the state of Minas Gerais, in a momentous advance for Indigenous representation in the lower house of the National Congress of Brazil.
After years of virtual events, Climate Week 2022 coincided with the gathering of world leaders at the United Nations General Assembly, bringing thousands to New York City to hold leaders accountable for the escalating climate crisis and making the presence of Indigenous peoples more important than ever.
Several days ago we asked you to take urgent action to tell the government of Ecuador to hold Chevron accountable for its deliberate Amazon pollution, before a legal deadline. Great news: it did!
Ecuador’s Indigenous movement and the government of Guillermo Lasso have agreed to a temporary moratorium on all new oil and mining concessions. This major development puts the country’s plans to double oil production and significantly boost mining investment in question.
The Achuar and Wampis have good reason to oppose further oil extraction: The Northern Peruvian Oil Pipeline, which runs through their territories, has repeatedly ruptured, causing countless spills and constant threats to the environment and safety of their communities.
The forum strongly condemned the so-called development paradigm, in which governments and large corporations are complicit in destruction with projects that privatize profits and socialize losses over Amazonian peoples and territories.
The Kawsak Sacha proposal aims to sustainably preserve and conserve territorial spaces, the material and spiritual relationship established there by native peoples with the living forest and the beings that inhabit it.
Legal attacks against the protections for isolated Indigenous peoples and Peru’s FPIC law are examples of how the oil lobby keeps the current legal framework – the product of years of struggle by Indigenous movements and civil society – under constant siege.
Since 2019, the Brazilian Amazon has seen record-breaking levels of fires and destruction. Under the Bolsonaro administration, the levels of destruction have skyrocketed and continue to worsen each year as his rhetoric and policies encourage land grabbing, destruction, and violence against Indigenous peoples. This crisis is not only a threat to...
“The problems in our region are not new but the violence has escalated to unprecedented levels because under Bolsonaro, illegal operations have gone unpunished.”
The Wampis and Achuar nations will not permit oil production on Block 64, and they have launched an international campaign to make it clear to anyone who still thinks it might be a good investment to attempt to extract oil from their territories.
Asset manager Vanguard is a major investor in some of the mining and oil companies that are causing irreparable harm to the Amazon rainforest and to Indigenous peoples. Vanguard is not only financing destruction and rights violations in the Amazon, but it is financing climate catastrophe throughout the world.
Visibility as a means towards empowerment. That is one of the goals that the Indigenous LGBTQ+ movement in Brazil strives for as they brought their agenda to the center stage of the Free Land Camp this year.
Indigenous leaders and the Ecuadorian government reached an agreement including a repeal of Executive Decree 95 on oil and gas and reform of decree 151 affecting the mining sector, among other demands. Both decrees had authorized the government to expand the extractive frontier into Indigenous territories and important conservation and forest...
Citi’s financial support to the Ecuadorian government is directly linked to oil drilling on and near Indigenous territories in the Amazon, where community leaders have repeatedly voiced opposition to such projects.
"Oil drilling in our Amazon has brought contamination, disease, deforestation, destruction of our cultures, and the colonization of our territories. It is an existential threat for us and violates our fundamental rights as Indigenous peoples."
The heartbreaking disappearance of Brazilian Indigenous rights advocate Bruno Pereira and British journalist Dom Phillips has once again revealed that under Bolsonaro the Amazon has been handed over to illicit networks and industries.
Chevron’s reputation as a price gouger, gross polluter, environmental racist, and greedy corporate behemoth with an army of unscrupulous lawyers and greenwashing PR firms grows worse by the day.
The vision for the Amazon Pearl, created by the hundreds of families that live there, is beautiful: Live off the land in a sustainable way, while creating a professional future for youth through environmental education.
The Yanomami’s Hutukara Association has declared a humanitarian crisis in the wake of the reported rape and killing of a 12-year-old Yanomami girl by miners, the disappearance of a 3-year-old child, and attacks on the Yanomami’s Aracaçá village that have placed the Amazonian community “on the verge of disappearance” because of violence caused by...
While Peru is in an ongoing political crisis, the Indigenous movement clamors for justice. The demands are clear: prevent the killings of threatened Earth defenders, pursue legal actions against the murderers, and guarantee Indigenous territorial integrity.
We’re in the middle of the AGM season, which means corporations and financial institutions – including many complicit in Amazon destruction – will gather investors to discuss key business strategies and annual performance. Amazon Watch has historically strategized around these meetings to pressure them and demand accountability.
The ruling is the result of sustained efforts by civil society and institutional allies to prevent the installation of Belo Sun's massive gold mine and to seek redress for the illegal acts committed in the course of the project's environmental licensing process.
Today, human rights lawyer Steven Donziger woke up free, marking the closure of the latest chapter in Chevron’s scheme to evade justice for its toxic dumping in Ecuador. Now all eyes turn back to the true crime – Chevron’s contamination from 1964-1992 in Ecuador and the company’s efforts to escape accountability.
“The demarcation of lands of all Indigenous peoples in Brazil continues to be our main goal. But to guarantee the demarcation, the protection of our lands, we must also 'Indigenize politics' with the presence of diversity, of women occupying the positions of power and decision-making positions.”
This Earth Day is perhaps the most important in human history. If we hope to avert the worst of the climate crisis, we must act now. With the Amazon at a tipping point, we must permanently protect the rainforest and make this moment a turning point for the future of our planet.
Intense market and supply chain conditions – due in part to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine – have led to increasing inflation around the world, and Peru has been no exception. Today, the controversial Talara oil refinery will be inaugurated and touted by the government as a solution to the current energy crisis. It is not.
Last year, the International Energy Agency released the most comprehensive and groundbreaking study yet, outlining requirements to meet the Paris Agreement goal of keeping global warming below 1.5°C. It argued that if we are to meet those goals, there can be no development of new oil and gas fields and no new coal-fired power stations or coal...
On March 6, Indigenous women from across the Ecuadorian Amazon traveled to Puyo for the inauguration event of the Casa de Mujeres Amazónicas, a gathering and healing space for Indigenous women defenders of the Amazon. It is a safe space where women can strategize, create, share, and heal together, including work on programming to support women’s...
Indigenous peoples have repeatedly mobilized to oppose Bill 191/2020, and polls show that 86% of Brazil’s public is against mining on Indigenous lands. The Munduruku refer to it as "the project of death that is dividing our people and bringing violence [against those who] fight to defend our land."
In many ways, Amazon Watch's community reflects the expansive ecosystem we work to protect, showing up in endlessly diverse ways to amplify Indigenous rights and resistance.
“We have not committed any crime, we are defending our territory, the natural resources of all Ecuadorians. We guarantee food sovereignty, the protection of land and water”
Corporate polluters have used offsets as an excuse to keep emitting, but there’s little evidence that offsets are actually slowing climate change. What’s more, offset programs have enabled land-grabbing and violations of Indigenous rights in the Amazon.
