A triple pandemic strikes the Ecuadorian Amazon

On 7 April 2020 in the Ecuadorian Amazon, the Napo and Coca rivers flowed dark with oil and fuel.

The spill, caused by three ruptured pipelines, triggered the worst environmental disaster to hit Ecuador in the past 15 years. Some 15,000 gallons of oil and fuel spilled into the rivers, affecting 35,000 people directly and more than 120,000 indirectly, many of them Kichwa Indigenous people from 105 communities.

“We can see oil coming down the riverbed, help us report what is happening,” Olger Gallo, president of the Kichwa community of Panduyaku, told me at the time.

“The young people went out fishing in the early morning and when they returned their bodies were covered in oil. We need urgent help,” he added.

The Ecuadorian government did not immediately admit what had happened and it took several hours for it to be made official, but through our own reporting, we already knew about the oil spill in detail. Testimonies from community members allowed us to spread the word and the story was picked up by national media via our digital platforms.

Months earlier, several human-rights organizations had warned the government about a sinkhole in the San Rafael waterfall, in the upper basin of the Coca River, but their voices were given short shrift.

Experts had warned this erosion could occur on multiple occasions during the construction of the Coca Codo Sinclair hydroelectric dam. “We had been telling the Ecuadorian government that it could bring us these problems, but the government never listens to us and now here are the consequences. Now let the president tell us who is going to answer for what happened, especially when we are living through this pandemic,” said Gallo, who watched with frustration as the disaster affected the community.

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