Standing on the edge of a stream stained dark with oil in Ecuador’s northern Amazon, Indigenous woman Julia Catalina Chumbi watched an oily sheen drift across the water and said she was stunned by what the decades-long presence of oil and gas has left behind. Chumbi, 76 and a Shuar leader from the southern Amazon province of Pastaza, had traveled hundreds of miles to the oil-producing area of Sucumbios to see conditions firsthand, including broken pipes running through the forest and gas flares burning above treetops.
The visit was part of what activists described as a “toxitour,” with about 30 Indigenous women from seven Amazon nationalities traveling to witness environmental and health impacts of extraction. Organizers said the workshop in the city of Nueva Loja—widely known as Lago Agrio—aimed to connect women from areas facing proposed oil projects with communities that have lived alongside the industry for decades, particularly where oil blocks overlap Indigenous territories and contamination can reach rivers, forests and food sources.
During the tour of the Libertador oil field, operated by Ecuador’s state oil company Petroecuador, the women carried banners including one reading “Amazon free from oil and mining.” The Associated Press, which reported being present as the group entered parts of the oil-producing area to observe impacts, described polluted streams near pipelines and well sites, contaminated vegetation and a notable absence of wildlife. Nearby, Salome Aranda, 43, of the Kichwa community of Morete Cocha in Pastaza, said the trip let her view impacts she is “rarely able to observe near oil operations” in her own territory, adding, “In our area we are not allowed to enter.”
Aranda and others said the visit confirmed concerns they already had about extraction near their communities. Aranda said, “The animals are disappearing and the crops no longer grow the same,” and she pointed to what she described as visible environmental changes tied to nearby oil activity.
After returning to Nueva Loja, the women spent hours in workshops and group discussions to reflect on what they saw and to begin outlining strategies to resist potential new oil concessions in their regions. Legal adviser Natalia Yepes of Amazon Watch, speaking at the workshop, said, “Women in the north have already lived through more than 50 years of oil exploitation,” and that the intent was to share those experiences “with women from the center and south who are now facing these new threats.”
The political backdrop for the workshop is Ecuador’s “hydrocarbon road map,” which the government unveiled last year and which proposes major expansion of the country’s oil and gas sector valued at about $47 billion. The plan includes new licensing rounds for exploration blocks in the Amazon and other regions, with many blocks located in provinces including Pastaza and Napo, where Indigenous communities live.
Environmental groups and Indigenous leaders have warned that the proposed projects could open large areas of rainforest to drilling, pipelines and gas flaring, and they have said many communities have not given the free, prior and informed consent required under Ecuador’s constitution and international human rights agreements. Ecuador’s Ministry of Energy and Mines did not respond to a request for comment.
For some participants, the tour reinforced resistance efforts already underway at home. Dayuma Nango, 39, vice president of the Association of Waorani Women of Ecuador, said the contamination she saw strengthened her determination to keep oil companies out of Waorani territory, describing the forest as “our mother” and saying, “That’s why we protect it.” She also cited legal outcomes that have already curbed oil activity in parts of Ecuador’s Amazon, including a 2019 court ruling that blocked drilling in Block 22 in Pastaza after judges found the government had failed to properly consult communities, and a 2023 referendum in which Ecuadorian voters approved halting oil drilling in Block 43 inside Yasuní National Park.
Other women on the tour linked the observations in Sucumbios to their own experiences and to what they said could happen if new projects move forward. Toa Alvarado, 30, a Kichwa leader from Pastaza province, said the visit reinforced her determination to protect her territory and recalled that her late father had stood in a road with a spear to stop gold miners from entering their land. After the tour, many participants went on to demonstrations in the Amazon city of Puyo for International Women’s Day, where Ruth Peñafiel, 59, from a Kichwa community in Ecuador’s northern Amazon, said the aim was “reporting to the world about the violation of rights” Indigenous women face, including “the rights of nature.” For Chumbi, the trip in Sucumbios carried a clear message for her Shuar community: she said, “What we are going to do is fight,” adding, “Even if it costs us our lives.”