A new Amnesty International report published on Monday revealed that gas flares in the Amazon pose an imminent threat to human rights. The report focuses on the Ecuadorian government’s failure to address the issue and stop activities such as flaring, which are harmful to the environment and the need to protect affected communities.

The report, titled “The Amazon is burning, the future is burning!,” depicts nine affected young Ecuadorian environmental activists’ struggle to defend human rights with the support of the Union of People Affected by Texaco’s Oil Operations (UDAPT) or “Unión de Afectados por las Operaciones Petroleras de Texaco.” The UDAPT and the activists brought an injunction against government institutions for authorizing gas flare operations in Sucumbíos and Orellana, two Amazonian provinces under threat from the oil industry.

In a 2021 ruling, the Provincial Court of Justice of Sucumbíos found that the Ecuadorian government overlooked the applicants’ right to ” live in a healthy and ecologically balanced environment,” in addition to having breached the right to health and its failure to abide by international obligations in regards to climate change mitigation. The court ordered the government to provide reparations to the affected communities and the “gradual and progressive elimination of the gas flares, prioritizing the removal of those near populated areas.”

However, Amnesty found in its report that the Ecuadorian government did not comply with the court’s ruling. Amnesty stressed that the government’s actions violate the activists’ and the Amazonian communities’ right to “adequate, effective and prompt reparation.” The organization highlights that gas flares not only threaten the quality of life of those communities, stripping them of the right to a clean and healthy environment, but also by operating harmful activities near populations engender social inequality. It further added that Ecuador is failing its international obligation to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

In July 2024, the young activists called for an international movement to eliminate oil extradition and gas flares in the Amazon and around the world, protect their communities and their rights and achieve climate justice, inviting people globally to sign a manifesto to push the Ecuadorian government to comply with the court ruling.

Amnesty International Americas director Ana Piquer highlighted that the Ecuadorian Amazon is principally a “large oil sacrifice zone” as the region never benefitted from “oil wealth” and urges Ecuadorian authorities to:

act decisively and promptly to urgently implement the ruling in the gas flares case brought by the nine girls and young women plaintiffs and UDAPT. Complying with this ruling is an act of climate, environmental and racial justice. The Ecuadorian state must put an end to the routine burning of gas in flares, a practice that is today endangering the Amazon, the world and the future of the children who will inherit the planet.

Gas flaring is an activity practised during oil extraction and involves the burning of natural gas and participates in the emission of pollutants such as methane or black carbon and therefore accelerates global warming. During the COP26 climate summit in 2021, the European Union and the US launched the Global Methane Pledge, an initiative towards cutting down methane emissions. The pledge was joined by 158 countries, including Ecuador.