NUEVA LOJA, Ecuador — About 30 Indigenous women from seven Amazon nationalities traveled to Ecuador’s northern oil region this week to witness the environmental damage caused by decades of oil extraction, part of a workshop aimed at preparing communities for a possible expansion of drilling.
Standing beside a stream stained dark with oil in Sucumbios province, Julia Catalina Chumbi, a 76-year-old leader from the Shuar ethnic group, shook her head in disbelief. Nearby, gas flares burned above the treetops.
“Everything is contaminated, even the air,” Chumbi said quietly. She learned that residents near the oil fields can no longer safely drink from local rivers and must buy water because of contamination and health fears.
“Seeing this makes me want to cry,” she said, noting that rivers in her southern Amazon territory are still drinkable.
The women — representing communities from across Ecuador’s Amazon — gathered in Nueva Loja for several days of workshops to share experiences and discuss the growing threat of oil expansion. Nueva Loja, widely known as Lago Agrio, became the center of Ecuador’s early Amazon oil boom after Texaco workers named it after the Texas oil town of Sour Lake.
The group visited the Libertador oil field, operated by state oil company Petroecuador. They made banners reading “Amazon free from oil and mining” and quietly entered parts of the oil-producing area to witness the impacts firsthand. Polluted streams ran near pipelines and well sites, vegetation appeared contaminated, and wildlife was notably absent.
Salome Aranda, 43, from the Kichwa community of Morete Cocha in Pastaza province, wore elaborate face paint as she observed the damage.
“In our area we are not allowed to enter,” Aranda said. Seeing the contamination up close confirmed her concerns about oil activity near her community.
“The animals are disappearing and the crops no longer grow the same,” she said.
After the tour, the women returned to Nueva Loja for hours of workshops and group discussions, reflecting on what they had seen and sharing experiences from their own territories. By the end of the meetings, they had begun outlining strategies to strengthen resistance to potential new oil concessions.
The visit comes as Ecuador’s government unveiled a sweeping “hydrocarbon road map” last year, proposing a major expansion of the country’s oil and gas sector worth about $47 billion, including new licensing rounds for exploration blocks in the Amazon and other regions. Many of the blocks are located in Pastaza and Napo provinces, where Indigenous communities live.
Officials say the plan is designed to modernize the industry, attract foreign investment, and boost oil production. But environmental groups and Indigenous leaders warn that the projects could open large areas of rainforest to drilling, pipelines, and gas flaring. They also say many communities have not given the free, prior and informed consent required under Ecuador’s constitution and international human rights agreements.
The debate over fossil fuel expansion in the Amazon is expected to feature at an international conference in Santa Marta, Colombia, in April, bringing together governments, Indigenous leaders, and civil society groups to discuss pathways to transition away from oil, gas, and coal following last year’s U.N. climate summit in Belem, Brazil.
For some women on the tour, the visit reinforced battles they are already fighting 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.
“Our forest is our mother,” said Nango, who has received death threats for her advocacy. “That’s why we protect it.”
The Waorani have already fought major oil developments in Ecuador’s Amazon. In 2019, Indigenous leaders won a landmark court ruling that blocked oil drilling in Block 22 in Pastaza after judges found the government had failed to properly consult communities as required under Ecuadorian law. In a separate decision in 2023, Ecuadorian voters approved a referendum to halt oil drilling in Block 43 inside Yasuní National Park, an area that overlaps with Waorani ancestral territory.
After seeing the pollution in Sucumbios, Nango said she fears her community could face similar consequences if new projects move forward.
“We don’t want to live the same story that our brothers and sisters are living here,” she said.
Toa Alvarado, 30, a Kichwa leader from Pastaza province, said the visit also strengthened her determination to protect her territory. She recalled how her late father, a longtime community leader, once stood in the middle of a road holding a spear to stop a group of gold miners from entering their land.
“He told me our generation may be the last with the chance to protect our territories from contamination,” she said.
The following day, many of the women who joined the toxitour gathered in the Amazon city of Puyo for International Women’s Day demonstrations.
“Today is about reporting to the world about the violation of rights that us Indigenous women have to endure — specifically the rights of nature,” said Ruth Peñafiel, 59, from a Kichwa community in Ecuador’s northern Amazon.
“We want to live in a healthy environment and in harmony with the forest,” she said.
For Chumbi, the visit to Sucumbios reinforced the message she plans to bring home to her Shuar community.
“What we are going to do is fight,” she said, referring to the possibility of oil drilling in her territory. “Even if it costs us our lives.”