Intensified Legal, Political, and Grassroots Battles Over Amazon Oil Expansion

By Umar Manzoor Shah
BOGOTÁ and SRINAGAR, India, Aug 27 2025 – A report has warned that Colombia’s push to expand oil and gas exploration in the Amazon risks undermining environmental goals, Indigenous rights, and long-term economic stability, unless the government pivots toward sustainable development pathways.

The study, “Oil and Gas Expansion in the Colombian Amazon: Navigating Risks, Economics, and Pathways to a Sustainable Future”, lays out the stakes for one of the planet’s most biodiverse and climate-critical regions.

Colombia’s Amazon region, covering nearly one-third of the country, is not only a biodiversity hotspot but also home to hundreds of indigenous communities and vast carbon-storing forests. Yet beneath its soils lie oil and gas reserves that the government and industry see as potential drivers of energy security and economic growth.

According to the report released by Earth Insight, the International Institute of Sustainable Development (IISD), and the National Organisation of Indigenous Peoples of the Colombian Amazon (OPIAC), the national government has in recent years signalled openness to further exploration and production in the Amazon, despite its public commitments to environmental protection and the global push to decarbonise.

“The Colombian Amazon is at a crossroads. The decisions taken in the next few years will either lock in a path of fossil fuel dependency and ecosystem degradation or open the door to a sustainable, diversified economy,” reads the report.

Oil and gas operations in the Amazon, the report warns, could trigger cascading ecological consequences. Roads and seismic lines fragment forests; drilling operations risk oil spills; and increased human access often accelerates deforestation and wildlife loss. “Infrastructure associated with oil and gas projects tends to create long-lasting environmental footprints that extend far beyond the drilling sites themselves,” the authors claim.

The Amazon is already under stress from illegal mining, logging, and agricultural expansion. Adding industrial petroleum activity could push ecosystems toward tipping points, including irreversible shifts in forest cover and carbon balance.

Ignacio Arroniz Velasco, Senior Associate for Nature & Climate Diplomacy at Earth Insight, told IPS news that the Amazon is an integrated ecosystem. As of 2022, according to The Amazonia 80×2025 Initiative, preserving 80 percent of the Amazon by 2025 was still possible with urgent measures to safeguard the 74 percent (629 million hectares) of the Amazon that are Intact Key Priority Areas (33 percent) and with Low Degradation (41 percent); and restoring 6 percent (54 million hectares) of land with high degradation is vital to stop the current trend.

“Although still under threat from industrial expansion, ca. 80 percent of the Colombian Amazon is preserved; however, unless other Amazon countries do the same, the whole ecosystem could collapse. This would mean a shortage of food supplies, medicine (stable forest), and water (water productivity and headwaters). As well as the regulation of floods (aquatic systems) and areas with the highest carbon stock for climate stability,” Velasco told IPS.

Proponents argue that oil and gas projects could generate royalties, jobs, and infrastructure for remote areas. But the report questions whether these benefits outweigh the long-term costs. “Global demand for fossil fuels is projected to decline as the world accelerates toward net-zero emissions. New investments in oil and gas risk becoming stranded assets before they recoup their costs,” it warns.

According to Pablo Jamioy from OPIAC, enforcing environmental protections in the Colombian Amazon in the face of armed groups and illegal economies is a major challenge that cannot be addressed solely through repressive measures, as these tend to increase local tensions and negatively affect communities, especially indigenous peoples.

“The reality is that without first guaranteeing basic conditions for well-being—such as security, access to health services, education, and legal economic opportunities—and without strengthening local governance, particularly the leadership and territorial rights of indigenous peoples, any attempt at environmental control is likely to generate conflict and resistance.”

Jamioy told IPS that from a realistic perspective, a comprehensive, long-term strategy is needed that combines effective state presence with inclusive policies that respect and empower Amazonian communities. “Only in this way can illegal economies be discouraged and the influence of armed actors reduced without exacerbating social tensions,” he said, adding that in this sense, environmental protection necessarily involves strengthening local capacities, recognising the importance of indigenous knowledge systems in conservation, and promoting sustainable development models that link the care of nature with real improvements in living conditions in the region.

The authors stress that the volatility of oil prices and the finite nature of reserves make heavy dependence on fossil fuels a risky economic bet for Colombia. They also point out that historically, resource extraction in remote regions has delivered limited lasting benefits for local communities.

Beyond economics, the expansion raises deep concerns for indigenous peoples, who have constitutionally protected rights to their lands and resources. The report documents cases where extractive projects proceeded without adequate consultation, undermining the principle of consulta previa (prior consultation) required by Colombian law and International Labour Organization Convention 169. “Indigenous territories, when respected and supported, are among the most effective barriers to deforestation. Disregarding their rights for short-term gains would be both unjust and environmentally counterproductive,” the report notes.

Communities fear that oil and gas activity will disrupt traditional livelihoods, pollute rivers, and erode cultural heritage. Many have voiced opposition, warning that once exploration begins, social and environmental change becomes difficult to reverse.

Colombia has pledged to achieve net-zero deforestation by 2030 and to reduce greenhouse gas emissions under its Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) to the Paris Agreement. Yet the licensing of new oil and gas blocks in the Amazon appears at odds with these goals.

Velasco said that Colombia has not issued new exploration licences under the current government. It has also lowered its deforestation rate to record low levels, although this latter trend was recently reversed. “Both achievements place Colombia at the very top of the world’s climate and environmental leaders. However, millions of hectares of the Colombian Amazon are still threatened by oil and gas blocks that have not been licensed to investors yet. These “available” blocks would allow future Colombian governments to undo all the hard-earned progress and issue new fossil fuel licenses in the Amazon.”

According to Velasco, to avoid this economic, social and ecological risk in the Amazon, the current Colombian government could choose to permanently remove the unlicensed blocks from its official records. He said that the report suggests different pathways to achieve this, such as via new national legislation, administrative acts grounded on Colombia’s international commitments, expanding natural protected areas or legally recognising more Indigenous territories.

The report identifies governance gaps, including insufficient enforcement of environmental safeguards, lack of transparent data on exploration plans, and inadequate inter-agency coordination. “Without coherent policy alignment, Colombia risks pursuing mutually incompatible objectives — expanding fossil fuel extraction while professing climate leadership,” the authors write.

The report goes beyond merely calling for a halt to oil and gas expansion by presenting concrete alternatives such as expanding renewable energy in non-Amazonian regions, investing in sustainable forest economies, and directing state resources toward rural development that aligns with conservation goals. Key recommendations include strengthening land tenure for indigenous and rural communities to improve forest stewardship, redirecting subsidies from fossil fuels to clean energy and low-impact livelihoods, enhancing environmental monitoring with community participation, and ensuring that all projects in indigenous territories prioritize free, prior, and informed consent.

Pablo Jamioy from OPIAC told IPS News that one of the fundamental mechanisms for strengthening free, prior, and informed consent in indigenous territories in Colombia is to guarantee the legal formalisation of territories requested for collective titling, as well as ancestral territories that have been subject to protection and recovery strategies from Amazonian indigenous peoples. These territories, according to Jamioy, must be recognised under special conservation categories and be subject to their own environmental governance systems. “In addition, it is necessary to implement and ensure the recognition and effective exercise of indigenous environmental authorities, in accordance with Decree 1275 of 2024, which recognises their environmental competencies to consolidate their own systems of administration and use of the territory based on ancestral knowledge.”

He added that it is essential to implement Decree 488 of 2025, “Which establishes the necessary fiscal regulations and others related to the functioning of indigenous territories and their coordination with other territorial entities,” a key regulation for the implementation of Indigenous Territorial Entities. “This decree strengthens their autonomy, both in the management of their systems of government and in dialogue with external actors for the implementation of public policies and the guarantee of the fundamental and collective rights of indigenous peoples.”

Colombia’s Amazon protection efforts receive significant funding from international donors, including Norway, Germany, and the United Kingdom, as well as multilateral initiatives like the Amazon Fund. The report urges these partners to condition future support on clear progress toward phasing out high-risk extractive activities in sensitive ecosystems. “International finance can catalyse progress, but it must be coupled with genuine political will and local participation to be effective,” the briefing states.

Industry representatives contend that modern drilling technologies can minimise environmental harm and that oil and gas revenues are essential for national development. They also argue that Colombia cannot yet afford to forgo these resources given fiscal pressures.

Environmental advocates counter that the country’s long-term prosperity depends on avoiding the boom-and-bust cycles of extractive industries and capitalising instead on its unparalleled natural capital.

The report has predicted that the coming years will see heightened legal, political, and grassroots battles over new oil and gas blocks in the Amazon.

IPS UN Bureau Report

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