Ecuador: Young activists in Lago Agrio demand government action to ban the use of gas flares and to respect landmark court ruling
"In Ecuador's Amazon, youth take up the fight against oil pollution", 23 May 2022
...[I]n the ramshackle tropical town of Lago Agrio at the heart of Ecuador's oil industry...[,]...young people are leading demands for a ban on the use of flares to burn off the unwanted natural gas that escapes during crude extraction.
"We live off the land, we're farmers. The water isn't safe to drink. The Amazon and its riches are being destroyed."
There are hundreds of gas flares scattered across the northeastern Amazon provinces of Orellana, Sucumbios and Napo, which lie among forested slopes and active volcanoes.
For decades, local indigenous people, farming communities, environmental rights activists and lawyers have said flaring causes serious damage to the environment and health, contaminating the air and water supplies...
But as Ecuador's government plans to ramp up oil production, the country's courts are starting to recognize the toxic fallout of flaring...
Judges also considered Ecuador's law of "rights of nature" for rivers and ecosystems enshrined in its constitution in 2008, and ordered the Energy Ministry to issue a public apology...
...Lago Agrio residents think oil industry pollution including from flares plays a part in numerous conditions, among them cancer...