Indigenous groups challenge Ecuador’s $47 billion Amazon oil expansion plan

Seven Indigenous groups in Ecuador’s Amazon denounced the government plan to auction rights for 49 oil and gas projects worth more than $47 billion, saying it threatens ancestral lands and violates constitutional protections. The Ministry of Energy and Mines outlined the plan in August as part of a broader “hydrocarbon roadmap” to modernize the oil industry, attract foreign capital and boost production. Officials say the plan includes contract renegotiations and new licensing rounds that they say comply with existing laws. Eighteen of the proposed blocks overlap indigenous territories—an area roughly the size of Belgium.

Leaders from the Andwa, Shuar, Achuar, Kichwa, Sapara, Shiwiar and Waorani peoples said their communities were not consulted and accused the government of ignoring court rulings that struck down earlier consultations as unconstitutional. “The government is pushing ahead with plans to auction 18 oil blocks in our ancestral territories without free, prior and informed consent. That is a constitutional and international right the state is violating,” said Nemo Guiquita, a Waorani leader with the Confederation of Indigenous Nationalities of the Ecuadorian Amazon. The government has maintained that a 2012 consultation remains valid and that the hydrocarbon plan follows existing regulations.

The Noboa administration has moved to scrap Ecuador’s independent Environment Ministry and has backed a law that lets private and foreign entities co-manage conservation zones, a shift critics say weakens protections and threatens Indigenous land rights. Nadino Calapucha, a Kichwa leader, said, “The Amazon is not for sale. We have not been consulted — this is our home.” Activists say protests, lawsuits and companies withdrawing from projects have occurred before, but the current push comes as the government advances new licensing rounds and mining and oil investments.

In April 2025, international firms submitted bids for four oil blocks, and authorities said more auctions were planned in Amazon and sub-Andean regions in late 2025 and 2026. The dispute comes amid a state of emergency and a national strike over fuel prices, extractive projects and the government’s failure to honor a referendum limiting drilling in Yasuní National Park. On Tuesday, farmers, Indigenous groups and transport unions clashed with police outside the town of Tabacundo as nationwide protests entered a second day. “Ecuador already showed its will in the Yasuní referendum, when 59% voted to keep oil in the ground. Yet the government insists on imposing extraction, violating our rights,” Calapucha said.

Oil is Ecuador’s top export, accounting for about a third of government revenue in some years. The country produces around 480,000 barrels per day, though output has declined over the past decade. Successive governments have tried to lure foreign capital into the Amazon, but projects have often stalled amid legal battles and Indigenous resistance. Noboa, who took office in late 2023, has prioritized boosting resource revenues to stabilize public finances, while promoting mining investment that critics say undermines constitutional guarantees of free, prior and informed consent. “Ecuador’s plans to auction new oil blocks in the Amazon are doomed to fail,” Kevin Koenig, Amazon Watch’s director for climate, energy and extraction, said. “Indigenous resistance, civil society mobilization, and growing international pressure will continue to expose these projects as illegitimate, unlawful, and unfinanceable.”

California’s state senate recently expressed concern over imports of Amazon crude and approved a resolution to examine the state’s role as one of the world’s top buyers, underscoring how Ecuador’s oil strategy could reverberate beyond its borders.