Ecuador’s private heavy crude pipeline bursts in Amazon region

Ecuador’s privately held heavy crude pipeline burst on Friday and technical staff are at the scene working to contain the damage, crude transport company OCP Ecuador said. The incident happened in the so-called Piedra Fina zone, an area in Ecuador’s Amazon where regressive erosion caused the OCP pipeline and the state-owned SOTE pipeline to halt

9 Democrats urge DOJ to free lawyer who won lawsuit against Chevron

Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.), Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.) and seven other House Democrats are urging the Justice Department to release American environmental lawyer Steven Donziger, who helped Indigenous communities in Ecuador win a $9.5 billion lawsuit against Chevron. Why it matters: Human rights groups say the charges against Donziger, who is serving a six-month prison term for contempt of

Violence targeting Indigenous people surges 61 percent in Brazil

Land invasions in Brazilian Indigenous territories rose 137 percent last, a rights group reported. Violence against Indigenous people in Brazil surged by more than 60 percent last year, a rights group has said, as land invasions of Indigenous territories increased and the government failed to provide protection. In its annual report, released on Thursday, on violence against

Colombia saw 42,600 hectares deforested in Amazon through June this year

Some 42,600 hectares (105,267 acres) of rainforest were destroyed in Colombia’s Amazon across three of the Andean country’s provinces in the first half of 2021, the government said on Tuesday. The figure represents a 34% decrease in deforestation across the provinces of Caqueta, Meta and Guaviare compared with the first half of 2020, when close

Lawyer Who Sued Chevron over “Amazon Chernobyl” Ordered to Prison After 800+ Days of House Arrest – Democracy Now!

The environmental and human rights lawyer Steven Donziger joins us just before he is ordered to report to jail today, after a years-long legal battle with the oil company Chevron and 813 days of house arrest. In 2011, Donziger won an $18 billion settlement against Chevron on behalf of 30,000 Indigenous people in Ecuador for

Ecuadorean indigenous communities sue to halt oil development

Indigenous communities from Ecuador’s Amazon on Monday (Oct 18) sued the government to halt plans by President Guillermo Lasso to increase oil development in the country, calling the expansion efforts a “policy of death. Lasso, a conservative ex-banker who took office in May, issued two decrees in the first days of his administration meant to

Brazil’s Bolsonaro accused of ‘crimes against humanity’ at ICC

Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro was accused Tuesday (Oct 12) of “crimes against humanity” at the International Criminal Court (ICC) for his alleged role in the destruction of the Amazon, the first case seeking to explicitly link deforestation to loss of life. Planet-warming greenhouse gas emissions from burning and industrial-scale agriculture in the Amazon are higher

Mass protests in Brazil call for Jair Bolsonaro’s impeachment

Crowds parade through cities as polling shows president’s ratings sinking to new depths Tens of thousands of protesters have returned to the streets of Brazil’s biggest cities to demand Jair Bolsonaro’s impeachment, as a poll showed the Brazilian president’s ratings had plumbed new depths. Huge crowds paraded through downtown Rio on Saturday to voice their

Nature congress calls for protecting 30% of Earth, 80% of Amazon

The world’s most influential conservation congress passed resolutions Friday calling for 80 percent of the Amazon and 30 percent of Earth’s surface — land and sea — to be designated “protected areas” to halt and reverse the loss of wildlife. The International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN), which is meeting in Marseille, does

Indigenous protest as Brazil high court hears land case

Thousands of indigenous protesters gathered in the Brazilian capital, bearing bows and arrows and traditional headdresses, as the Supreme Court prepared to take up a case Wednesday that could eliminate reservations on their ancestral lands. In what organizers say is the biggest indigenous protest ever in Brazil, an estimated 6,000 demonstrators prepared to march to