Kofan, the people

Emergildo is a member of the Kofán nation who witnessed drastic changes in his people’s territory and way of life with the arrival o...

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Ceibo Alliance is an indigenous organization composed of members of the Siona, Siekopai, A’i Kofan and Waorani nations, working t...n.

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Amazon Frontlines works directly with indigenous communities to defend their rights to land, life and cultural survival in the upper Am...

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The community of Morete Cocha is located in the region of Pastaza Province in the Amazon region of Ecuador. Like many other communities Morete Cocha is under threat by interest of oil companies seeking to exploit crude in the communities land.  This is the story of community’s search for environmental and cultural preservation. The phrase […]

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Emergildo Criollo (Kofan nation) was just a child when the oil company Texaco arrived by helicopter in his peoples’ ancestral territory in the Ecuadorian Amazon. The ensuing decades of oil extraction and deliberate contamination dramatically altered the landscape of the region, impacting the Kofan people’s culture and resulting in a public health crisis. Emergildo fought […]

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The Secoya, or Siekopai people, known as the People of Many Colors, have lived for countless generations along the rivers and streams of the Amazon Rainforest, along the border of Ecuador and Peru. Hernan Payaguaje, a young Secoya leader, learned to fish in these rivers from his grandfather Delfin, who recalls a time when the […]

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Nemonte Nenquimo is a young Waorani woman leader whose grandfather, Piyemo, was a legendary Waorani warrior who lived and hunted in what is today known as Yasuni National park. Now, Nemonte is returning to her grandfather’s homeland—a land transformed by oil companies and contamination—to bring clean water to the Waorani communities living in a dire […]

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The Kofan community of Sinangoe is situated in the pristine, and highly biodiverse headwaters of the Aguarico River in Ecuador, an important tributary of the Amazon River. The community has organized a land patrol, and are using mapping technology, camera traps, drones and legal strategies to defend their ancestral territory from a gold-mining boom that […]

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