Over the past 30 years, the three companies that have managed Block 10, an oil extraction site in the Ecuadorian Amazon, have sought to divide local communities and increase their reliance on their corporations. However, Indigenous leaders and organizations are actively pushing back against these efforts.
Category: Indigenous people
Colombian and Ecuadorian criminal groups expand their violent influence throughout the Amazon
By Plan V* The Comandos de la Frontera, a Colombian armed group that also operates in northern Ecuador, and the Ecuadorian gang Los Choneros have imposed a regime of terror in the Amazonian provinces of Sucumbíos and Orellana, although the alliances between them are unclear. One of the illegal activities that has grown the most […]
Energy transition creates a race for strategic minerals with 5,000 applications in the Amazon
Copper, lithium and nickel, among others, are raw materials used to produce electric vehicles, batteries, wind turbines, and solar s. The Amazon holds part of these minerals, and large companies want to exploit it. Most mining applications are in Pará state, and some of them will have direct impact on areas located in Indigenous Lands and Conservation Units.
Dam project threatens indigenous rituals, hunting areas and even gravesites in the Tenharim Marmelos Indigenous Land
InfoAmazonia and Brasil de Fato visited the territory to understand the views of the indigenous people about the construction of the Tabajara Dam – a project for a 37-square mile (97-sq. km) reservoir in Machadinho d’Oeste, in Brazil’s Rondônia state, which is expected to impact 9 indigenous lands, including Tenharim Marmelos.
Perenco: no word from oil firm about environmental damages in Peruvian Amazon
Anglo-French multinational Perenco claims to adopt sustainable practices around the world, ignoring its 58 environmental violations in the Peruvian Amazon that affect ecosystems and its people, as shown by an investigation conducted by InfoAmazonia and international allies. In the department of Loreto, local indigenous communities directly and indirectly influenced by Block 67 were not aware that the company had been sanctioned for environmental violations.
In the Ecuadorian Amazon, oil threatens decades of Indigenous-led conservation
Ecuador’s Socio Bosque project has been key to safeguarding the rainforest. Now the country’s state-owned oil company is exploiting its many loopholes.
In Venezuela, Colombian guerrillas recruit Indigenous youth
Along border with Venezuela, Colombian guerrillas lure unemployed Indigenous youths into drug trade, extortion rackets and armed conflict.
Colombian drug runners turn to shamans for protection
Before embarking on a perilous trek through the jungle, drug couriers in Colombia turn to shamans for protection.
The poorest narcos in the drug-trafficking chain
The poorest narcos in the trafficking chain risk even their own children to deliver drugs to criminal organizations.
Armed groups threaten Indigenous lands in southern Venezuela
In Venezuela’s southern Amazon region, Pemón Indigenous communities are caught between encroaching armed groups and illegal gold miners.