No Extraction In The Amazon! Women of Ecuadorian Amazon and International Allies Reject Oil Concessions, Stand For Rights of the Earth and Communities

In late January, 2016, the government of Ecuador signed a contract with Chinese corporation Andes Petroleum, handing over rights for oil exploration and extraction in two controversial Amazonian blocks which overlap the traditional territory of the Sápara and Kichwa peoples.

Concession plans open up almost a million acres in the center of Ecuador’s road-less southeastern Amazon, where Indigenous communities have successfully prevented fossil fuel extraction for decades. The concession means large swaths of deforestation and irreversible devastation of the forest’s magnificent ecological, social and cultural diversity.

The implications of this contract for the rights and health of local communities and ecosystems, as well as for climate disruption at a global scale, cannot be overstated.

The Sápara people and the Kichwa of Sarayaku have denounced the new contracts as a violation of their fundamental rights, and have made clear their intentions to keep resisting extraction and protecting their rainforest.

ADD YOUR NAME OR ORGANIZATIONAL SIGN-ON in solidarity with the declarations of the Indigenous women of the Ecuadorian Amazon, and international allies calls for cancelation of the new oil contracts, action by the Ecuadorian government to immediately halt all further exploration and extraction in the Amazon, and attention to violence against Indigenous women Earth defenders.

Press & Media Contact: emily@wecaninternational.org