Amazon Watch
Amazon Watch was founded in 1996 to defend the Amazon by investigating, publicizing, and challenging new industrial mega-projects in pristine forest frontiers. Amazon Watch is working in partnership with nearly forty South American indigenous and environmental groups to protect Amazonian ecosystems and indigenous lands. Amazon Communications Team works to strengthen the capacity of indigenous and environmental organizations in remote rainforest areas of Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, Bolivia, and Brazil. Team members provide technical and communications training and equipment as well as public relations and fundraising assistance. Amazon Watch enhances the communications capacity of indigenous and local partner groups-especially those in remote regions. In response to requests for capacity-building assistance from forest communities under threat, the Amazon Communications Team distributes vital technology resources (e.g. audio and video recorders, laptop computers, two-way radios), provide media and communications training, and transfer telecommunications expertise. In particular, we will enable our local partners to: · Publicize their opposition in mainstream and alternative media · Document specific examples of egregious forest destruction or human rights violations · Directly communicate their concerns and demands to decision-makers · Maintain their communities' unity in the face of divisive tactics by improving internal communication (via radio and email networks). This strategy will reduce injustice by shifting power to local stakeholders and ensuring that investors, developers, and governments are held accountable for their actions in the Amazon. Our Video Advocacy Program Amazon Watch conducts video training program to enable our partner groups to document incidents of egregious forest destruction and human rights abuses including oil spills that poison river ecosystems and contaminate community water supplies; unauthorized forest destruction by oil companies or loggers; and forced contact of isolated and sometimes even un-contacted indigenous populations by oil workers or logging crews. To maximize the impact of footage gathered by our partner groups, Amazon Watch works jointly with these groups to produce short educational videos for such audiences as the news media, international allies, government institutions, investors, and the communities themselves. The videos are also be posted to our web site as part of online advocacy campaigns to win support world wide for the defense of pristine rainforests and traditional indigenous communities in Peru.