Ecuador's Indigenous groups are fiercely opposing President Noboa's plan to expand oil drilling in the Amazon.
They're citing threats to ancestral lands and environmental protections.
The government faces strong resistance from communities and global allies, who warn of legal and reputational risks for investors in this controversial venture.
Tensions are mounting in Ecuador as Indigenous groups and allies rally against a sweeping new oil expansion plan announced amid a nationwide strike and deepening concerns over the rollback of hard-won environmental and civil rights protections.
On September 25, at the 2025 Annual Oil and Gas conference in Quito, the Ecuador formally presented its “Hydrocarbon Roadmap”. The government unveiling a move to open nearly 30,000 square kilometres of Amazon rainforest to new rounds of oil drilling, on land stewarded by the Andwa, Shuar, Achuar, Kichwa, Sapara, Shiwiar and Waorani nations.
None of these communities, who have inhabited the area for generations, have given their free, prior and informed consent, as required by Ecuador’s constitution and international human rights law. Instead, President Daniel Noboa’s administration has been accused of seeking to amend the constitution, potentially erasing these protections altogether.
Seven Indigenous nations have issued an urgent international appeal, describing the expansion as “a serious threat to vast areas of the Amazon, including their ancestral territories”.
This escalation comes amid a week-long paro nacional (national strike) led by the Confederation of Indigenous Peoples of Ecuador (CONAIE) in protest of rising fuel costs, worsening restrictions on civil liberties and the government’s extractivist push.
Some 10 international organisations have also issued a joint warning about Ecuador’s democratic backsliding and attacks on judicial independence as officials court private investors, including major fossil financiers like Citigroup, behind closed doors during key global meetings in Quito and New York.
The message from the rainforest is loud and clear: The Amazon is not for sale.
Government sources said the unrest has been contained, but scenes on the ground depict widespread mobilisations and blockades, underscoring the powerful and persistent opposition faced by President Noboa’s oil ambitions.
Over the past two decades, no new wells have been drilled in southeastern Ecuador’s Amazon, largely because of sustained grassroots resistance, legal victories and growing international solidarity.
The recent expansion attempt is seen as a direct challenge to the unprecedented 2023 Yasuni referendum, in which Ecuadorians voted to halt oil drilling in a vital swathe of the Amazon.
Indigenous and civil society groups warned that the roadmap represents a dangerous step backward. “Ecuador’s plans to auction new oil blocks in the Amazon are doomed to fail once again,” said Kevin Koenig, Climate, Energy, and Extractive Industry Director at Amazon Watch in a press statement released by the organisation. “Indigenous resistance, civil society mobilisation, and growing international pressure will continue to expose these projects as illegitimate, unlawful, and unfinanceable.”
In a bold new development, a transnational alliance of Indigenous nations from Ecuador and Peru announced earlier this year that they will launch a global initiative to engage potential investors, creating an additional obstacle to the government's extractive goals.
In August 2025, the California State Senate, representing one of the world’s largest economies and a significant importer of Amazon oil, unanimously passed a resolution to scrutinise and potentially phase out its Amazon crude imports.
Amazon Watch and allies have insisted through their campaigns that financiers, governments and corporations supporting Amazon oil are complicit in environmental destruction and rights abuses.