The hand of Donald Moncayo showing the evidence of the oil contamination around oil well Aguarico-04 (AG-04). It was abandoned several years ago and its surroundings have surface and subsoil contamination. Nueva Loja, Sucumbíos Province.

Aerial view of the town of Shell in the Pastaza Province, Ecuador. This town was named Shell by the first oil company that arrived to Ecuador in 1937. Before the arrival of the company, the region was known by its indigenous people for the presence and hunting of saíno pigs. Now it is one of the largest parishes in Pastaza with 8,000 residents, and the Airport “Amazon River” has twelve airlines of small planes for entering the Ecuadorian Amazon.

Delimitation of contaminated area due to an oil spill outside Nueva Loja, Sucumbíos Province.

Pedro is 47-years-old and has advanced cancer. Alejandra, his wife, receives $100 a month from the government as compensation for a total of three sick relatives who come. El Coca, Orellana Province.

Damián with their mother Alexandra. Damián, of 5 years of age, suffers from hydrocephalus and brain impairment of 82%. Santa Rosa neighborhood, El Coca, Orellana Province.

Don Luis has not walked for a year. He has suffered from a disease unknown to him and his relatives. There has been no official medical diagnosis. Local doctors hypothesize that it is colon cancer and muscular dystrophy. For men, colon cancer is one of the most common in the region. Sacha District, Orellana Province.

Liliana, of 15 years of age, suffers from hydrocephalus and brain impairment of has a disability of 75%. Santa Rosa neighborhood, El Coca, Orellana Province.

Marcia, 26, alone in her room. Three years ago, after she got nasopharyngeal squamous cell carcinoma, she was abandoned by her husband who took her two daughters. She had lived with them in Shushufindi, one of the most oil contaminated places in the Orellana province. Today she lives in her sister’s house in Sacha, Orellana Province.

Aerial view of the Bobonaza river in the nearby of Sarayaku territory. This territory is surrounded by thousands of acres of primary jungle, and is therefore only reachable through the air. There is no road, and it would take a person almost a week to get there by foot through muddy lands. The absence of a road is a blessing for the local people, as it enables them to control and preserve the territory, thus preventing its deforestation. Ecuadorian jungle.

July 2017: Helmut Scholz, parliamentarian of the European Union, during a visit to Ecuador related to the Chevron-Texaco case and the environmental disaster that happened, considered by as the most serious oil disaster in the history of the planet. Here, looking at a burning PetroEcuador gas flare in the town of Dureno, Sucumbíos Province.

Berta Gualinga, primary teacher in the Sarayaku Kichwa community, holding a broken earth globe.

A woman of the Sapara people looks through the window of a small plane that has just landed in the Morete community, on the Kichwa territory of the Ecuadorian Amazon. This territory is surrounded by thousands of acres of primary jungle, and is therefore only reachable through the air. There is no road, and it would take a person almost a week to get there by foot through muddy lands. The absence of a road is a blessing for the local people, as it enables them to control and preserve the territory, thus preventing its deforestation. The arrival of an airplane is a special happening, as it is the only contact with the "modern world".

On October 22nd 2018, the Kofan people of Sinangoe in the Ecuadorian Amazon won a landmark legal battle to protect the headwaters of the Aguarico River, one of Ecuador’s largest and most important rivers, and nullify 52 mining concessions that had been granted by the government in violation of the Kofan’s right to consent, freeing up more than 32, 000 hectares of primary rainforest from the devastating environmental and cultural impact of gold mining.

Group of young people Kichwas on watch during the meeting organised in order to stop the construction of the hydroelectric plant above the Rio Piatúa. The community was not consulted before the starting of the process. The Company Genefran started preliminary works which were stopped by indigenous pressure in defence of the river, their primary source of water.

Gerardo Gualinga, Chief of the Wío indigenous security group, of the Kichwa indigenous people of Sarayaku. Strategically prepared, they monitor and defend the territory, make operative rescues, take care of women, manage the entry of foreigners and strangers to the territory. Gerardo poses for the photo with a firearm, the last option for an armed confrontation in the case that there is a violent action by the military or members of an oil company.

Some of the members of the Wio Indigenous Security group of Sarayaku, over the bridge of the Bobonaza River. Wio is a small ant that inhabits the jungle. In spite of its small size, its bite produces a great deal of itching, fever and blindness if the bite is on the eye. Hence the name of the name of the security group of Sarayaku called “Wio”. Always alert and strategically located they monitor the territory constantly; they perform rescue operations, care for women, control the entry of foreigners into the territory and protect the chairman of the board of Taysajaruta (Indigenous Government of the Kichwa people).

Young Shuar volunteer, defender of the Amazon on guard in the community of Tsumtsuim.

A helicopter from the AEE Ecuatorian Army launches from the soccer field of a school in the Parish of San Juan Bosco, Province of Morona-Santiago, Ecuador. November 24, 2016. For some days, the army was installed in the school to attack people of the Shuar community of Tsumtsuim, who decided to go back to their ancestors land after the forced eviction of August 2016. According to news made official by CONAIE, the Ecuadorian army carried out a repressive operation in support of the mining company Exsa China, that will start extraction activities in the region of Nankints, Panantza sector, Province of Morona-Santiago.

Shuar indigenous guerrillas pose for a portrait in Shariant Community.

Smoke from burning tires during the demonstration in front of the Genefran bulldozers for the construction of the hydroelectric plant on the Piatúa River.

Protesting women and Police in Quito agaist in Nankints military attack. December 2016

Sapara children playing wrestling match after a swim in the Conambo river. Sapara community of Llanchama Cocha, Pastaza Province.

Franco Viteri Gualinga, 49, at the Sarayaku airstrip. He is one of eight leaders accused by the Ecuadorian government of being the leaders of an uprising against public services in Macas, in a demonstration on August 13, 2015, when indigenous Shuar and Achuar took to the streets of the city center armed with spears and confronting police forces. In May 2017, Leaders of all indigenous Nationalities of Ecuador gave their support to demand amnesty for 177 Kichwa, Shuar and Achuar, criminalized for defending their ancestral territories against mining concessions given to foreign companies and defending their indigenous rights.

Carlos Wilson Tendetza, brother of José Tendetza who was murdered two years ago for being a defender and activist against the mining company Ecuacorriente S.A. Carlos decided to continue the fight of his murdered brother. In the last eight years, the bodies of three indigenous Shuar were found; they were defenders of the Amazon and of their territory in particular, and against the activities of mining extraction on a large scale. Their murders have remained unpunished. Shuar community of Yanua, El Pangui, Zamora-Chinchipe Province.

From her home in Tsumtsuim, Gloria with her son looks out over the valley to the west of the community. In December 2016, the Shuar community of Tsumtsuim had a confrontation with the military after their men attacked the Nankints camp occupied by miners from the Chinese company for the Panantza-San Carlos project. On the third day of confrontation with the Ecuadorian military, the Tsumtsuim families had to leave their territory. In this area, the Panantza-San Carlos project has been imposed, where they plan to open two open-pit mines that will contaminate the territory with enormous quantities of toxic waste and will use millions of liters of water, affecting the rivers and other water sources. On December 14 of the same year, a State of Emergency was declared in the entire province of Morona-Santiago. The Tsumtsuim community was attacked by hundreds of soldiers who shot at the natives. The 26 families that make up this community were forced to flee and abandon their homes, entering the jungle at nightfall. Currently, 41,769 hectares of Amazon rainforest have been given in concession by the Ecuadorian government to foreign mining companies.

Berta Gualinga, Kichwa of 48 year old with her child Tzumi (5 years old) in their home in Sarayaku, Pastaza Province.

Antonio Mayancha, coordinator of Sisa Ñampi (Frontier of life) planting trees under the rain. In 20 to 40 years these trees will exceed the size of the rest, and when flowering, they will delimit the perimeter of Sarayaku’s sacred territory. Pastaza Province. The Kichwa fight for conservation of their territory began with the arrival of the Ecuadorian oil companies. Since then, the community has remained united in resistance by the defense of the jungle and the preservation of its biocultural heritage. Sarayaku, “The Midday Town”, owes its name to an ancient prophesy foretold by the old shamans. They perceived Sarayaku as a pillar for territory defense, including cultural and spiritual traditions. It is a lighthouse that shines as bright as the midday sun and the last town to resist the threat of the modern extractionist model or exploitation.

View of the Bobonaza River, from near the Sarayaku community.

A Såpara man from Llanchama walks at dawn on the airstrip that connects this remote spot in the Amazon with the town of Shell, named after the arrival of the oil company in Ecuador in 1937. To the west from here, a new oil concession threatens the life. The oil extraction would introduce pollution down the river and the end of a culture that lives in close relationship with nature.