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: long form
Oil generates royalties, but not development in the Peruvian Amazon
Oil exploration in Peru generates millions for public works, but only half the funds had reached Amazonian municipalities by 2023. The city of Mazán exemplifies this gap between revenue generated and tangible benefits for the population.
Indigenous communities in the Colombian Amazon decry oil pollution and threats posed by guerrillas
President Gustavo Petro pledged to halt oil and gas exploration in the Amazon. However, Colombia faces a complex challenge, with the oil industry, armed groups, and Indigenous communities vying for control of the same territories.
How we investigated ExxonMobil and its promise of carbon neutrality in Guyana
An exclusive analysis by InfoAmazonia reveals a disconnect between the ExxonMobil-led consortium’s operations in Guyana and their environmental impacts, such as the practice of flaring and promises of compensation through carbon credits.
ExxonMobil builds ‘petro-state’ in Guyana, amid warnings of environmental disaster
Guyana’s rapid ascent to major oil producer status, fueled by the giant US oil company, has come at a steep price: rising inequality, weakened environmental regulations, unchecked gas flaring, and growing foreign influence.
Oil companies create ‘smokescreen’ to enable exploration off Brazil’s Amazon coast
Oil companies are covertly positioning to extract oil from the entire mouth of the Amazon River, an investigation shows. Drilling in this ecologically sensitive region could impact traditional communities, and nature reserves.
The Amazon rainforest emerges as the new global oil frontier
Half a century of oil exploration has left the world’s largest rainforest scarred by deforestation, water contamination and air pollution. Indigenous lands have been infringed and economic disparities exacerbated. Now a new wave of drilling threatens to perpetuate this destructive legacy.
How did we investigate oil data in the Amazon?
Por Renata Hirota April 1, 2025 This story is part of the special series EVERY LAST DROP Since July 2024, the cross-border project Every Last Drop has investigated and mapped available data on oil and gas exploration across the Amazon, focusing on the biome’s reach into Brazil, Colombia, Ecuador, Guyana, and Peru. The analysis used […]
In the footsteps of turtle and egg smugglers in Bolivia’s Amazon Forest
By Eduardo Franco Berton When the veil of darkness falls on the forest, men armed with .22 caliber Marlin rifles come with it, and they are determined to pursue their prey. Once a bullet hits its target, the injured animal falls into the water and has to swim to the shore, where it bleeds to […]
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 […]