ecuador

Sprawling Ancient City Discovered in Amazon Rainforest

Sprawling Ancient City Discovered in Amazon Rainforest

An enormous ancient civilization has been discovered in Ecuador’s Upano Valley, hidden for millenia by rainforest vegetation, reported the BBC. The existence of the intricately laid development rewrites previous assumptions about the human history of the Amazon. The settlement — located beneath a volcano — has a web of canals and roads connecting homes and […]

Join our newsletter

The best of EcoWatch, right in your inbox. Sign up for our email newsletter!

    Pipeline Ruptures in Ecuadorian Amazon

    Pipeline Ruptures in Ecuadorian Amazon

    A pipeline has ruptured in the Ecuadorian Amazon near the site of a previous oil spill, contaminating waterways in Indigenous territory and threatening wildlife in a protected area. The spill has impacted almost five acres of a nature reserve in Cayambe-Coca National Park and polluted the Coca River, Deutsche Welle reported. Ecuador’s Environmental Ministry called […]

    Ecuador Creates New Marine Reserve North of Galápagos Islands

    Ecuador Creates New Marine Reserve North of Galápagos Islands

    A volcanic mountain landscape with lava plateaus and white coral sand beaches rimmed with blue-green sea, the Galápagos archipelago is inhabited by more than 180 species found nowhere else on Earth. The first recorded visitor to the group of islands was Tomás de Berlanga, fourth Bishop of Panama, who happened upon it on his way […]

    Communities in Ecuador Fight Back Against Palm Oil

    Communities in Ecuador Fight Back Against Palm Oil

    By Alejandro Pérez, translated by Romina Castagnino Fifteen years ago, Martha Valencia relied on the nearby river for water and for food. But then oil palm crops arrived in the area and polluted the river, say Martha and her neighbors. The community took the oil palm grower to court, which ultimately resulted in a ruling […]

    10 Most Intriguing Forest Stories of 2018

    10 Most Intriguing Forest Stories of 2018

    By Genevieve Belmaker and Joseph Charpentier Throughout 2018, forests continued to be threatened and destroyed. From the Amazon, to the Congo Basin, to the Mekong Delta and scores of places in between—journalists reporting for Mongabay filed hundreds of stories about the world’s forests. Although the significance of any one story is difficult to gauge in […]

    Ecuador Announces New National Park in the Andes

    Ecuador Announces New National Park in the Andes

    By Valeria Sorgato On Jan. 23, a new national park joined Ecuador’s 54 protected areas. Río Negro-Sopladora National Park lies in southern Ecuador’s Morona Santiago and Azuay provinces within the Cordillera Real Oriental mountain range and next to Sangay National Park. The area is dominated by almost-intact Andean páramos—treeless alpine plateaus—and forests that are home […]

    U.S. Judge Sides With Chevron in Case Against Ecuadorians, Allows Oil Giant to Evade Justice

    U.S. Judge Sides With Chevron in Case Against Ecuadorians, Allows Oil Giant to Evade Justice

    Amazon Watch stands with Ecuadorian communities in rejecting a misguided judgment delaying justice for some 30,000 indigenous people and farmers who continue to suffer from the company’s toxic legacy in the Amazon rainforest. The decision—handed down yesterday by New York District Court Judge Lewis Kaplan—also underscores the threat that well-financed corporations pose ​to​ justice and the rule […]

    Ecuadorians 40+ Year Fight Against Chevron Continues Into 2014

    Ecuadorians 40+ Year Fight Against Chevron Continues Into 2014

    By Adam Chimienti “This is the Court of Chancery … which gives to monied might the means abundantly of wearying out the right, which so exhausts finances, patience, courage, hope, so overthrows the brain and breaks the heart …” — Charles Dickens, Bleak House The court proceedings in the case of the 21st century, between […]