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'Defeat for Justice': Ecuador to Pay Amazon-Polluting Chevron $220 Million
"A debt is not owed to Chevron. A debt is owed to the Amazonian families still waiting for truth, justice, and full reparation."
Dec 09, 2025
A US advocacy group, American human rights lawyer Steven Donziger, and the group in Ecuador behind a historic legal battle against Chevron over its dumping of toxic waste in the Amazon rainforest are condemning the Ecuadorian government's plans to pay the oil giant hundreds of millions of dollars due to an arbitration ruling.
In response to the legal fight in Ecuador that led to a $9.5 billion judgment against Chevron—which bought Texaco—the fossil fuel company turned to the investor-state dispute settlement (ISDS) system, suing the South American country in the Hague-based Permanent Court of Arbitration. As part of the latter case, Ecuadorian Attorney General Diana Salazar Méndez's office announced Monday that the government would pay the US company only around $220 million, rather than the over $3 billion Chevron sought.
While Chevron said in a statement that it was "pleased with the resolution of this matter" and claimed the decision "strengthened the rule of law globally," and Salazar Méndez's office celebrated the dramatically lower figure, and the Union of Peoples Affected by Chevron-Texaco (UDAPT)—the group that began the case against oil company in 1993—pushed back against the government's framing of the reduction "as if it was a success and an economic achievement."
"The reality is it is a defeat for justice," UDAPT argued in a Tuesday statement. "For 32 years, UDAPT has documented pollution, environmental crime, and lives broken by Chevron, proving what should be obvious: Communities have not recovered, health has not been restored, clean water has not returned, and the territories that sustain life remain contaminated. A debt is not owed to Chevron. A debt is owed to the Amazonian families still waiting for truth, justice, and full reparation."
Amazon Watch deputy director Paul Paz y Miño similarly said Tuesday that "this illegitimate arbitration process is nothing more than Chevron abusing the law to escape accountability for one of the worst oil disasters in history."
"Ecuador's courts ruled correctly and based largely on Chevron's own evidence, that Chevron deliberately poisoned Indigenous and rural communities, leaving behind a mass cancer zone in the Amazon," the campaigner continued. "Adding insult to injury, the idea that Ecuador's people should now pay a US oil company that admitted to deliberate pollution is the epitome of environmental racism."
Ecuadorian President Daniel Noboa "must not honor this ISDS award, and the international community must stand behind the victims of Chevron's crimes and demand that the company clean up Ecuador once and for all," Paz y Miño added. "Amazon Watch stands with the affected Indigenous peoples and communities of the Ecuadorian Amazon. We urge President Noboa to reject this illegitimate award, disclose any negotiations with Chevron, and enforce Ecuadorian law by ensuring Chevron pays its debt to those it poisoned."
Donziger—who was detained in the United States for nearly 1,000 days after Chevron went after him in the American legal system for representing Big Oil's victims in Ecuador—was also sharply critical, saying Tuesday that "the decision by a so-called private corporate arbitration panel that claims to absolve Chevron of its massive pollution liability in Ecuador has no legitimacy and does not affect the historic $9.5 billion damages judgment won by Amazonian communities."
"That judgment still stands as the definitive public court ruling in the case," he said. "The private arbitral panel has no authority over the six public appellate courts, including the Supreme Courts of Ecuador and Canada, that issued unanimous decisions against Chevron and confirmed the extensive evidence that the company devastated local communities by deliberately dumping billions of gallons of cancer-causing oil waste into rivers and streams used by thousands of people for drinking, bathing, and fishing."
"I also strongly condemn President Daniel Noboa for his plans to betray his own people by agreeing to send $220 million from the public treasury to Chevron, a company that owes Ecuador billions under multiple court orders for poisoning vulnerable Indigenous peoples with toxic oil waste," Donziger added. "Noboa would effectively grant Chevron a taxpayer-funded bailout financed by the same citizens who remain victims of the company's pollution. This would be an outrageous dereliction of duty and a violation of his oath of office, warranting removal."
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South American Leaders Implored to Act on Record Wildfires
"The world is watching and cannot wait for the Amazon basin and other precious ecosystems in the continent to be saved from extinction."
Sep 23, 2024
Amnesty International on Monday called for an "unprecedented response" from South American leaders as the continent faces wildfires that threaten the Amazon rainforest and other important ecosystems.
Citing two months of record-breaking wildfires, Amnesty issued an open letter to the presidents of Argentina, Brazil, Bolivia, Colombia, Ecuador, Paraguay, and Peru calling for coordinated government action.
"The world is watching and cannot wait for the Amazon basin and other precious ecosystems in the continent to be saved from extinction," Ana Piquer, Amnesty's director for the Americas, said in a statement.
"South American leaders must, more than ever, take urgent action to prevent climate catastrophe that could have irreversible consequences for the entire planet and future generations," she added. "The time to act is now."
Official satellite data from Brazil showed earlier this month that the continent had seen more fire hotspots this year than any other on record. Fires in the Amazon have created a "toxic smoke cloud" in an area larger than the entire United States, according to Live Science.
Wildfire smoke leads to thousands of premature deaths in South America per year. The recent upsurge in fires has led to cries for action from public health advocates and climate justice activists in many countries.
Indigenous leaders from the region will hold a press conference to address the crisis on Wednesday, September 25, in New York, according to Amazon Watch.
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Indigenous Brazilians Lament Lula's Unfulfilled Land Demarcation Promises
"This is revolting for us Indigenous peoples to have had so much faith in the government's commitments to our rights and the demarcation of our territories," said one Indigenous leader.
Apr 19, 2024
Friday is Indigenous Peoples Day in Brazil, and tribal leaders and activists used the occasion to criticize the left-wing government of Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva for falling short on promises to safeguard native land rights.
On Thursday, the Brazilian government announced the demarcation of Aldeia Velha, land of the Pataxó people, in the northeastern state of Bahia, as well as the territory of the Karajá people in Cacique Fontoura, Mato Grosso.
"Since the beginning of the current government, 10 areas have been regularized out of a total of 14 routed for approval," the government said in a statement. "The act reaffirms the focus of the federal government on the protection and respect of Indigenous peoples."
However, Indigenous peoples were anticipating the demarcation of six new territories. Lula acknowledged their disappointment.
"I know you are apprehensive and expected the demarcation of six Indigenous lands. But now we only announce two. And I'm being real with you," he said.
"Some of this missing land is occupied either by farmers or peasants," the president explained. "We cannot arrive without giving these people an alternative. Some governors asked for time to resolve, in a negotiated manner, the eviction of these territories so that we can demarcate them."
"The definition of these lands is already ready. What we do not want is to promise you today, and tomorrow you read in the newspaper, that a contrary decision was made," Lula added. "The frustration would be greater."
But the frustration was already there—and growing.
"This is revolting for us Indigenous peoples to have had so much faith in the government's commitments to our rights and the demarcation of our territories," Alessandra Korap Munduruku, a member of the Munduruku people and a 2023 winner of the prestigious Goldman Environmental Prize, told Amazon Watch in a statement published Friday.
"We hear all of these discussions about environmental and climate protection, but without support for Indigenous peoples on the front lines, suffering serious attacks and threats. Lula cannot speak about fighting climate change without fulfilling his duty to demarcate our lands," she added.
Articulation of Indigenous Peoples of Brazil (APIB), an umbrella group, said in a statement earlier this week that "the most serious thing is that the Lula government is tarnishing its historical trajectory."
"Since campaigning for his first term in 2002, the president has committed to demarcating Indigenous lands, but he was one of the governments that demarcated the least," the group contended. "And now, like other old and conservative governments, in the name of the country's progress and economic development, [Lula's government] undermines the basis of Indigenous peoples' existence, becoming hostage to the market, the powerbrokers, agribusiness, evangelicals, and the military."
APIB demanded that Lula "put an end to the criminal organizations that intimidate our people and communities, persecute and murder our leaders" and "dedicate farms for agrarian reform and demarcate our lands, which have been invaded and plundered for centuries by the invaders who arrived here 524 years ago and their current descendants."
Thousands of Indigenous peoples from throughout Brazil are expected to rally in the capital Brasília next week for the Terra Livre—or Free Land, camp—the country's largest annual native mobilization. Two years ago, Lula, then a presidential candidate, told Terra Livre attendees that he would end illegal mining on Indigenous lands. Despite a crackdown that resulted in an initial dramatic drop in illicit mineral extraction on Indigenous lands, illegal miners have returned with a vengeance in places including land belonging to the Yanomami people.
Criticism of Lula's demarcation process and the Brazilian government's Indigenous rights record came from outside Brazil as well.
" Human rights defenders are under extreme threat in Brazil. The federal government knows this but has so far failed to put the structures in place to provide them with better protection and tackle the root causes of the risks they face," Mary Lawlor, the United Nations special rapporteur on the situation of human rights defenders, in a Friday statement after an official visit to Brazil.
"Land is also the key to the protection of these defenders," she continued. "When I asked them what they thought would protect them they were clear: removal of invaders and demarcation now; accountability for environmental crimes. This for them is what collective protection, which is what is needed, means."
"There must be demarcation and titling," Lawlor added. "There can be no more delay."
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Steven Donziger, Lawyer Targeted by Chevron, Appeals to Biden for Pardon
"A pardon would bring a measure of justice to a prosecution that has been widely criticized as a violation of international law... and as a grave threat to free speech," said 14 attorneys backing the climate justice lawyer's request.
Mar 20, 2024
After exhausting his options in the judicial system, American attorney Steven Donziger on Wednesday launched a campaign seeking a pardon from U.S. President Joe Biden for his misdemeanor conviction—the result of a process that experts worldwide have condemned as retaliatory for his climate justice work and an abuse of the nation's judiciary.
"No matter where one stands on the political spectrum, we should all be able to agree that what happened to me in the United States should not happen to anybody in any country that adheres to the rule of law," Donziger said in a statement announcing a letter to Biden signed by 14 prominent lawyers and a leader at the advocacy group Amazon Watch.
"Corporations should not be allowed to take direct control of a public prosecution from the government and lock up their critics, as happened to me," asserted Donziger, who spent 993 days in federal prison and on house arrest. "It's an outrageous abuse of power that not only wrecked me and my family's life for three years but also embarrassed our country in the eyes of the world."
"As far as we can tell, this was the nation's first private corporate prosecution and is an obvious violation of the rule of law."
Donziger is a Harvard Law School graduate known globally for representing farmers and Indigenous people in a lawsuit targeting Chevron for polluting communities in Ecuador that resulted in a $9.5 billion judgment against the oil giant. After nearly two decades of battling the attorney in Ecuadorian courts, the company went after him directly in U.S. federal court.
The attorneys backing his pardon request detailed in their letter how Donziger endured a "patently biased prosecution by a group of three Chevron-linked lawyers" for refusing to comply with an order from a U.S. judge—an ex-corporate attorney with investments in the oil giant—to turn over his electronics and client communications to the company.
"As far as we can tell, this was the nation's first private corporate prosecution and is an obvious violation of the rule of law," they wrote to Biden. "As a result of the private prosecution, Mr. Donziger, a resident of New York City, spent close to three years in detention at home and in prison even though the maximum sentence under the law for his misdemeanor offense level was 180 days."
"A pardon would bring a measure of justice to a prosecution that has been widely criticized as a violation of international law by respected international and U.S.-based jurists, and as a grave threat to free speech by a multitude of political leaders and over 120 respected civil society organizations including Amnesty International, Global Witness, and Greenpeace," the lawyers argued.
Critics of the process that resulted in his conviction include the United Nations Working Group on Arbitrary Detention; a team of international trial observers led by Stephen A. Rapp, U.S. ambassador for war crimes under the Obama administration; Judge Steven Menashi, appointed to U.S. Court of Appeals for the 2nd Circuit by former President Donald Trump; and right-wing U.S. Supreme Court Justices Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh, who dissented from a decision not to take his case.
"I am inspired by Steven's courage, resilience, and determination," said Paul Paz y Miño of Amazon Watch, who signed the 12-page letter along with the group of attorneys. "That's why Chevron wants to destroy him. Steven's very existence creates enormous financial risk to Chevron and to the oil industry generally. Every fossil fuel industry lawyer in this country fears Steven."
"More broadly, Chevron's outrageous abuse of power and manipulation of the federal judiciary to target Steven should deeply concern every advocate in the country, particularly those who engage in protest," Paz y Miño warned. "What happened to Steven is a central component of the fossil fuel industry's playbook to silence public opposition."
Water Protector Legal Collective director Natali Segovia, one of the lawyers who signed on, similarly condemned legal tactics used by corporations to target environmental campaigners.
"Around the world, human rights defenders like Steven Donziger are targeted and even killed for their advocacy and work on Indigenous rights and environmental justice issues," Segovia said. "Steven's case, however, is emblematic of the weaponization of the law by a powerful corporation against a human rights defender—an attorney, to be exact—and sets a dangerous precedent."
"If it could happen to Steven, a Harvard-trained human rights lawyer, it could happen to anyone on climate frontlines."
"If it could happen to Steven, a Harvard-trained human rights lawyer, it could happen to anyone on climate frontlines," Segovia stressed. "This is what we are guarding against. This is why a pardon for Steven barely hits the tip of the iceberg to reverse course, but is a necessary step in ensuring fundamental rights of due process and human rights in the United States."
The other lawyers supporting Donziger—who hail from prestigious universities and groups such as the Center for Constitutional Rights—are Nadia Ahmad, Baher Azmy, Scott Wilson Badenoch, Terrence Collingsworth, Aaron Fellmeth, Richard Friedman, Martin Garbus, Jeffrey Haas, Ronald Kuby, Jeanne Mirer, Aaron Marr Page, Nadine Strossen, and Michael Tigar.
Along with thanking "from the bottom of my heart the many distinguished lawyers who have agreed to represent me in this campaign," Donziger called on the Biden administration to investigate Chevron for abusing the U.S. legal system.
Donziger also said that it remains "critical that people focus on what is of paramount importance, which is the plight of the thousands of people in Ecuador who face a serious risk of death if Chevron does not comply with the rule of law."
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Rainforest Watchdog Accuses Peru of 'Predatory' Attack on Amazon
New rules approved by the nation's lawmakers "will effectively make it 'open season' for organized crime, says Amazon Watch.
Dec 21, 2023
In what opponents called a rushed vote without adequate notification or debate, Peru's right-wing congressional majority on Wednesday effectively decriminalized illegal logging, a move Amazon defenders warned will empower criminal groups to destroy ecosystems critical to the survival of Indigenous peoples and biodiversity.
El Comercio reported that after less than 10 minutes of debate, Peru's Plenary Congress approved amendments to the country's Forest and Wildlife Law following a request for legislative reconsideration filed by Congresswoman Nilza Chacón Trujillo, a member of the right-wing Popular Force party. The vote was 69-35, with five abstentions.
"Most experts in Peru agree that the interest behind modifying the Forestry Law is to adapt to the new import restrictions of products that deforest the Amazon in the European and U.S. markets in an underhanded way," said Ricardo Pérez, Peru's communications adviser at Amazon Watch—which said the amendments "will effectively make it 'open season'" for Amazon exploitation, including by organized criminal groups.
"The authorities of these countries must make a firm statement that they will not 'fall for' the game," Pérez added. "Millions of hectares of forest and the very lives of Peruvian Indigenous defenders are at risk."
The Interethnic Association for the Development of the Peruvian Rainforest (AIDESEP), an Indigenous advocacy group, said, "We point out the inconsistency of the Peruvian government which commits to reducing deforestation in international meetings and forums... but in practice promotes laws like this and other predatory actions against the Amazon."
"The modification of the Forestry Law directly affects Peru's climate commitments under the Paris agreement by reducing the necessary conditions to consider the zoning of properties that supposedly do not have 'forests,' thus freeing these spaces from a mechanism that protects areas still maintaining forest cover," AIDESEP added. "It is well-documented that individual properties are areas of high deforestation, and freeing them from forest zoning means encouraging deforestation, which is the main cause of greenhouse gas emissions in Peru."
Amazon defenders said the vote was especially alarming given that two Indigenous leaders— Quinto Inuma of the Kichwa people and Benjamín Flores Ríos of the Kakataibo—have been assassinated in recent weeks following the killings of multiple environmental defenders in Peru last year.
"In both cases, they had successfully exposed the 'crime of deforestation,' which now might no longer be legally sustainable in Peru," said Amazon Watch.
AIDESEP is demanding that the Peruvian government "effectively address the historical debt" owed to Indigenous peoples.
"Our lives and future generations depend on the Amazon, so we will defend it against the imposition of harmful laws," the group said.
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'Appalling': Cargill-MacMillan Family Refuses to Meet With Indigenous Advocate
"We knew that the company didn't care, but we expected more from the family," one campaigner said.
Oct 13, 2023
The Cargill-MacMillan family refused to meet with a young Indigenous advocate who had traveled 4,000 miles to hand-deliver a letter calling on them to stop deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon and Cerrado grassland.
Security guards denied entry to 21-year-old Beka Saw Munduruku when she arrived at the driveway of the family's offices in Wayzata, Minnesota, on Thursday. The family had not responded to requests to arrange a meeting ahead of time.
"It is appalling that an emissary who traveled 4,000 miles to deliver an urgent message from her people would be treated with such dismissal and disrespect," Amazon Watch program director Christian Poirier said in a statement.
"The Cargill-MacMillan family has demonstrated that they are unconcerned with the impacts of the company's actions on those victimized by them."
Cargill is the world's largest agribusiness company, according to advocacy group Stand.earth. It is also family-owned, with around 88% of it controlled by approximately 20 people. The Cargill-MacMillans have the highest concentration of billionaires of any family worldwide and are the fourth-richest family in the U.S. While the company has made commitments to end deforestation and human rights abuses in its supply chain, Munduruku said that this hasn't been the experience of her community in the state of Pará in the Brazilian Amazon.
"In every region where Cargill operates, you are destroying the environment and driving out or threatening the communities who live there," Munduruku wrote in the letter she attempted to deliver Thursday.
In her letter, Munduruku called out a specific project of Cargill's: the 1,000-kilometer Ferrogrão railway that would cut a swath through the Amazon to transport soy grown in the Cerrado.
"Last year the forests and savannas of the Cerrado were destroyed at a rate of 8,000 acres a day," Munduruku wrote in her letter. "This is an area of destruction the size of your hometown of Minneapolis every five days."
Munduruku, who is a member of the Munduruku community and lives on Sawré Muybu Indigenous territory, is the first Indigenous Brazilian leader to visit Cargill on its home turf to protest its activities.
By refusing to see her, Stand.earth campaign director Mathew Jacobson said, "the Cargill-MacMillan family has demonstrated that they are unconcerned with the impacts of the company's actions on those victimized by them. And they are dismissive of all attempts to bring it to their attention."
"We knew that the company didn't care, but we expected more from the family," Jacobson continued. "It's high time the family intervenes. We hope that the family will choose to be remembered as one that made the world a better place, not a worse one."
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Brazil Court Deals Blow to Massive Amazon Gold Mine Project
One prosecutor called the ruling "another victory for the Indigenous and riverine people of Volta Grande do Xingu," who "know that a mining project can have devastating impacts on the region."
Apr 26, 2022
Environmental and Indigenous rights defenders on Tuesday welcomed a Brazilian court ruling that will continue to block a Canadian company from building what would be the South American nation's largest open-pit gold mine in the Amazon rainforest.
"Belo Monte already has had a major impact on the Xingu. A second project could mean the death of the local peoples."
In a 3-0 decision, the Federal Regional Court of Brasilia on Monday upheld the suspension of an environmental license for Belo Sun Mining Corp., affirming a 2017 ruling that found the company failed to adequately consult with Indigenous peoples on the social and environmental impacts of an $800 million project located in the Volta Grande do Xingu region in the state of Para.
"My community wasn't consulted about the Belo Sun project," Lorena Curuaia, a leader from Iawa village, told the Associated Press.
Referring to the world's third-largest hydroelectric dam--located just 12 miles from the proposed mine site--Curuaia added: "Belo Monte already has had a major impact on the Xingu. A second project could mean the death of the local peoples."
Federal prosecutor Felicio de Araujo Pontes Jr. called the ruling "another victory for the Indigenous and riverine people of Volta Grande do Xingu," who "know that a mining project can have devastating impacts on the region."
"The judgment shows the resilience of this population," he told the AP.
Advocacy groups warn that Indigenous peoples--including Juruna, Arara, Kuruaya, Xipaia, and others--would suffer serious direct impacts from the Volta Grande project.
As the Interamerican Association for Environmental Defense (AIDA) detailed:
According to experts, the Belo Sun mining project in Volta Grande do Xingu has serious structural flaws which were not clearly presented to the impacted communities during the consultation process. Environmental impact studies carried out by the mining company disregard both the potential seismic impacts on the tailings dam that needs to be built and the cumulative impacts it would cause along with the dam of the Belo Monte plant.
The dam designed for the mine would be similar in size to the Vale dam that collapsed in Mariana in 2015, causing Brazil's biggest environmental disaster. A report by an expert in geology and mining, Dr. Steven H. Emerman, claims that at least nine million cubic meters of toxic mining waste could reach the Xingu River and travel more than 40 kilometers in two hours, causing irreversible damage. These tailings could contain highly toxic metals, such as cyanide, arsenic, and mercury, which could lead to ecocide of the Xingu River.
"Other studies point to impacts such as changes in the reproductive cycle of fauna, deforestation and/or burning, pollution of water resources, and soil contamination," AIDA added.
The court ruling came as a series of bills backed by Jair Bolsonaro, Brazil's right-wing president and self-described "Captain Chainsaw," advance through the National Congress. If passed, critics say the so-called "package of destruction" would allow mining on Indigenous lands, relax restrictions on the use of pesticides, and encourage illegal logging and land seizures.
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BlackRock Report Makes Clear Transition to Decarbonized World Not If, But How
"Achieving this necessary shift in thinking in the financial world was hard," said one Sierra Club campaigner. "What comes next will be even harder."
Feb 03, 2022
Even as it continues to hold billions of dollars in fossil fuel investments, the world's largest asset manager on Thursday told its clients that a transition to a post-carbon economy is inevitable, and that the company will work to ensure that they profit from it.
" BlackRock is not setting itself up for a successful transition unless it explicitly includes exclusion criteria on fossil fuel expansion, and recalibrates how it measures success within a sector."
In its annual letter to clients, BlackRock, which manages more than $9 trillion in assets, stressed that "the issue... is no longer whether the net-zero transition will happen but how--and what that means for your portfolio."
BlackRock's affirmation--which comes despite the company holding tens of billions of dollars in fossil fuel investments, including more than $1.5 billion in direct sector investments--was welcomed by climate and environmental campaigners, with caveats.
Amazon Watch climate and finance director Moira Birss said that "BlackRock crossed a big hurdle today: It finally acknowledged that a global transition to a decarbonized economy is underway, and began telling clients that they must navigate this transition."
Ben Cushing, fossil-free finance campaign manager at Sierra Club, said in a statement that "BlackRock is making it clearer than ever that the transition to a clean energy economy is inevitable, and the key questions are how fast we will progress and which businesses will fail to seize the opportunities that lie ahead."
"Achieving this necessary shift in thinking in the financial world was hard," he added. "What comes next will be even harder."
In a report accompanying the letter, BlackRock acknowledged that "the transition to decarbonize the world is happening," and that "ignoring the transition is no longer an option."
"Understanding how the journey will unfold in years to come has never been more important for companies and investors alike," the company asserted.
The report continued:
On top of physical climate risks, companies and asset owners must now grapple with the transition. Economies will be reshaped as carbon emissions are cut. The transition will involve a massive reallocation of resources. Supply and demand will shift, with mismatches along the way. Value will be created and destroyed across companies.
Companies must decide how to revamp their business models, where to invest and what operations to phase out. Asset owners must decide where to put capital to work, and how to use their shareholder votes to try to guard their long-term economic interests.
Despite BlackRock CEO Larry Fink's purported commitment to climate leadership, the firm remains one of the world's leading fossil fuel investors, and Fink opposes hydrocarbon divestment. According to BlackRock's own estimate, companies in the firm's portfolio released more than 330 million tons of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere in 2020--the equivalent of the annual emissions generated by 71 million automobiles.
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Birss said that "what BlackRock needs to confront next is the fact that the decarbonization it recognizes is needed can't happen without clear guardrails for the specific activities--including the expansion of oil and gas production and of deforestation-risk commodities--that will prevent us from achieving the Paris goal of limiting global warming to 1.5degC."
While acknowledging that BlackRock "has raised the bar for its clients, establishing the expectation that at a minimum, investors have to navigate the massive economic transition that the climate crisis necessitates," Sunrise Project senior strategist Casey Harrell said in a statement that "BlackRock is not setting itself up for a successful transition unless it explicitly includes exclusion criteria on fossil fuel expansion, and recalibrates how it measures success within a sector."
"If BlackRock is to successfully drive the energy transition in line with what climate science says is necessary," added Harrell, "it will have to face these details."
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'Major Victory for Indigenous Peoples' as Ecuadorian Court Rejects Drilling in Protected Area
"It is also a reminder for oil companies and investors that expanding oil extraction in Ecuador's Amazon is a risk and full of potential legal liabilities," said Amazon Watch's climate and energy director.
Feb 02, 2022
The advocacy group Amazon Watch celebrated Wednesday after Ecuador's top court struck down parts of a 2019 decree that would have allowed oil drilling in an area that is protected for isolated Indigenous peoples.
"Finally some justice for the isolated Indigenous peoples of Yasuni!"
Amazon Watch climate and energy director Kevin Koenig called the Constitutional Court of Ecuador's decision "a major victory for Indigenous peoples and an important step in protecting some of the most environmentally fragile and culturally sensitive places in the Amazon."
"It is also a reminder for oil companies and investors that expanding oil extraction in Ecuador's Amazon is a risk and full of potential legal liabilities," Koenig added.
The government of former Ecuadorian President Lenin Moreno asked the public seven questions in February 2018. One was about expanding the Zona Intangible Tagaeri-Taromenane (ZITT)--a protected area created for the Tagaeri and Taromenane--and reducing oil extraction in Yasuni National Park.
As Mongabay reported the following year:
More than 67% of the population voted yes, and many thought this created a legal tool in which to claim more rights for nature and Yasuni.
In May, President Moreno finally signed Decree 751, which detailed this expansion of 59,000 hectares (145,800 acres) in the east of the park--but said nothing about scaling back oil extraction activity. Instead, it included an extra clause that now allows oil platforms to be constructed within the buffer zone of the ZITT.
Tarsicio Granizo, who was the environment minister during the referendum and worked with the Moreno government on the question, told Mongabay that only low-impact activities are permitted in the buffer zone and the oil platform clause wasn't part of the initial plan.
"This is a goal for the oil industry," he said at the time. "This new decree opens the door for new operations [in the buffer zone], so for me this is a regression of rights. This could be considered unconstitutional."
More than two years later, all but one member of the country's high court agreed, a development cheered by environmentalists and supporters of Indigenous rights within and beyond Ecuador.
"Finally some justice for the isolated Indigenous peoples of Yasuni!" tweeted Pedro Bermeo, a spokesperson for YASunidos.
"Although the court leaves aside many very important aspects of the case by declaring it unconstitutional only for questions of form and not of substance," Bermeo added, "it is a major victory for all of us who dedicate ourselves to the defense of... the Yasuni."
Koenig of Amazon Watch noted that "any drilling in Yasuni National Park is an existential threat to the peoples living in isolation, who have deforestation and destruction at their doorstep."
The court's decision, he said, "may very well protect the Tagaeri and Taromenane from ethnocide."
While welcoming the win, Koenig also pointed out that the decision "does not curtail drilling in other areas of Yasuni National Park," which is "widely considered one of the most biodiverse places on the planet" and part of the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) World Network of Biosphere Reserves.
"Eight oil concessions overlap the park," the campaigner explained, "and plans are underway to drill 600+ wells in the Ishpingo, Tambococha Tiputini fields, known as Block 43."
Moira Birss, another director at Amazon Watch, highlighted on Twitter that celebrations of the court decision came as the country is dealing with an oil spill in the Amazon rainforest.
As Common Dreams reported over the weekend, Indigenous environmental defenders in Ecuador said the pipeline rupture is "the exact reason why we oppose oil extraction."
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'Policy of Death': Amazon Guardians Sue Ecuador's President Over Oil, Mining Decrees
"We are fighting to defend our territory, our rivers, our forest, our fish, and our animals," one Indigenous leader explained. "Without our forest and without water, we cannot live."
Oct 18, 2021
In a bid to halt what one Indigenous leader called a "policy of death," communities from Ecuador's Amazon region on Monday sued the country's right-wing president, who is planning a major expansion of fossil fuel extraction and mining that threatens millions of acres of pristine rainforest and the survival of native peoples.
"President Guillermo Lasso intends to impose an extractive agenda and sacrifice the lives of thousands of Indigenous families who inhabit these territories."
In the first of a series of lawsuits against President Guillermo Lasso, Indigenous nations, groups, and advocates allege that Executive Decree 95--which aims to double the country's oil production to one million barrels per day by deregulating the fossil fuel industry--violates their internationally recognized right to free, prior, and informed consultation and consent.
Lasso, a former banker who defeated progressive economist Andres Arauz in a second-round runoff election in April, has also said he wants to make mining one of Ecuador's leading income sources.
Monday's lawsuit will be followed by a second suit against Executive Decree 151, which loosens environmental controls to expedite foreign mining companies' entry into the Amazon region against the wishes of Indigenous peoples. The plaintiffs are demanding Ecuador's Constitutional Court strike down both decrees.
"The Ecuadorean government sees in our territory only resource interests," Waorani of Pastaza (CONCONAWEP) President Nemonte Nenquimo said outside the Quito court, according to Reuters. "Our territory is our decision and we'll never allow oil or mining companies to enter and destroy our home and kill our culture."
According to Amazon Watch:
These decrees are a threat to the Amazon, its peoples, and the climate. They pave the way for a massive expansion of extraction in some of the most ecologically fragile and culturally sensitive areas, and if history is any lesson, promise continued rights violations of Indigenous peoples and nature.
Viktor Quenama, president of the A'i Kofan community of Sinangoe, said, "We are fighting to defend our territory, our rivers, our forest, our fish, and our animals. Without our forest and without water, we cannot live."
"We have made a firm decision to keep our territory free from mining," he added. "We don't want the Aguarico River and its tributaries to be exploited and contaminated. Our elders, youth, men, and women are all united in this struggle. We want to care for our territory so that future generations can live well. The Ecuadorian government must respect our rights and let us live freely."
Maria Espinosa, an attorney with the advocacy group Amazon Frontlines, said that "we are presenting these lawsuits against Executive Decrees 95 and 151 because we consider that these decrees are in clear violation of Indigenous people's rights to prior consent and pre-legislative consultation."
"These decrees seek to accelerate extractive activities such as oil and mining, which generate grave and irreparable impacts against the physical and cultural survival of Indigenous peoples," she continued. "Through unconsulted administrative procedures and the pretext of economic development, President Guillermo Lasso intends to impose an extractive agenda and sacrifice the lives of thousands of Indigenous families who inhabit these territories."
Confederation of Indigenous Nationalities of Ecuador (CONAIE) President Leonidas Iza said that the Ecuadorian government seeks "to continue this policy of death."
"This isn't a problem of the Indigenous," asserted Iza, "it's one of civilization."
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