Authorities in Brazil say they freed over 1,000 workers who were being held captive as “debt slaves” at an ethanol producing sugarcane plantation. The Brazilian Ministry of Justice said that police from the Mobile Verification Task Force freed 1,108 workers… Read moreBrazil: slaves freed from biofuel plantation
On June 19 US District Judge Leonard Sand of the Southern District of New York ruled against Chevron Corp.‘s efforts to have the American Arbitration Association settle its dispute with Ecuador and the Ecuadoran state oil company Petroecuador. This was a… Read moreSetback for Chevron in Ecuador suit
Ecuador has offered to drop plans to develop the country’s biggest oilfield at Ishpingo-Tambococha-Tiputini (ITT) in the Amazon basin if developed nations pay it to protect the land. President Rafael Correa hopes wealthy governments and environmental groups will pay $350… Read moreEcuador to enviros: pay us to keep oil in the ground
The Enawene Nawe, a remote Amazonian tribe in the Brazilian state of Mato Grosso, are blockading a highway in protest at a series of hydroelectric dams that will destroy their vital fishing grounds. Companies led by the world·s largest soya… Read moreAmazon tribe block roads to halt hydro project
On May 15, wealthy landowner Vitalmiro Bastos de Moura was given the maximum sentence, 30 years, for being one of the masterminds of the February 2005 murder of US-born nun Dorothy Stang, a 73-year-old defender of the Amazon rainforest and… Read moreBrazil: rancher guilty in slaying of Amazon activst
Members of the indigenous Achuar communities in the Amazon basin in the Peru-Ecuador border region have notified US Oil Company Occidental Petroleum (Oxy) that they will bring a lawsuit against the company in the US if it will not clean… Read morePeru: Amazon indigenous warn Oxy over toxins
Venezuela is advocating regional integration at a two-day, 12-nation energy summit of South American leaders that opens April 16 on the Caribbean island of Margarita. “Gradually, the US empire will end up a paper tiger and we, the peoples of… Read moreChávez hosts South America energy summit
On March 24, Brazilian federal police and environmental agents shut down a major deep-water port on the Amazon River owned by Cargill Inc., saying the US-based multinational agribusiness firm failed to provide an environmental impact statement required by law. Cargill’s… Read moreBrazil: Cargill’s Amazon port shut down
From the New York Times, Jan. 18: BRASĂŤLIA — Far more Indian groups than previously thought are surviving in Brazil’s Amazon rain forest isolated from the outside world, but they risk destruction at the hands of encroaching loggers and miners,… Read moreAmazon’s “uncontacted” peoples: more than thought, facing peril
From Upside Down World, May 24: The nullification of Occidental Petroleum’s oil-drilling contract by the Ecuadorian government has generated mixed reactions in the Americas. Ecuador’s oil minister revoked the California-based oil giant’s contract last week for allegedly not informing the… Read moreEcuador boots Oxy
From EFE, April 29 via ServIndi (our translation): QUITO – The government will investigate an alleged massacre of indigenous people in the Amazon, at the hands of presumed armed madereros [pirate loggers], in a dispute over a forest zone, the… Read moreEthnic cleansing in Ecuador
On April 17, members of Brazil’s Movement of Landless Rural Workers (MST) commemorated the 10th anniversary of the day in 1996 when Military Police (PM) agents fired at some 1,500 MST members who were marching on the PA-150 highway in… Read moreBrazil: landless mark massacre
