The Pan-Amazonian Social Forum (FOSPA), held this year in Puyo, Ecuador, brings together environmental organizations, Indigenous movements, social movements, researchers, and young people.

In this regard, Fospa is organized into four working groups known as "Thematic Houses": Territories Free from Extractivism for an Amazon of Rights; Sovereignty and Self-Determination of Indigenous Peoples and Nations; Economies for Life and Climate Justice and Resistance of Women and Diverse Groups.

At the People Assembly of the "Territories Free from Extractivism" House, in which the Pororoka Collective participates, speakers opened the session by highlighting the threats of exploitation looming over the Amazon.

The debates of the event cover the multiple realities and challenges involved in the defense of the peoples and territories of the Pan-Amazon region. Photo: Pororoka Collective

Anthropologist Alfredo Wagner, coordinator of the New Social Cartography project, presented data on the expansion of the oil, gas, and mining industries in the Amazon, which is exerting pressure on Indigenous territories and environmentally protected areas.

"There is a powerful coalition of interests in the Pan-Amazon region involving the oil and gas industries. Across this entire area, these interests are financed by Canadian, British, and U.S. institutions."

Anthropologist and researcher Alfredo Wagner analyzes the pressure exerted by Global North countries on Amazonian territories and resources. Photo: Pororoka Collective

Environmental activist and human rights defender Yuvelis Morales also took part in the inauguration. Since the age of 18, she has mobilized the fight against oil exploration in the middle reaches of the Magdalena River in Colombia, where her territory is located. For her activism, she received the 2026 Goldman Environmental Prize, known as the "Green Nobel Prize."

"Today, we must continue to speak about the rights we have won—rights that others are trying to take away from us. One of them is our right to an Amazon free from fossil fuels and extractive industries."

The struggle of peoples for the right to exist in their territories without being subjected to exploitation guided the first day of debates at the 12th Fospa. Photo: Pororoka Collective

During Fospa, the group will develop the Pan-Amazonian Plan for Fossil Fuel-Free Territories. Drafting of the document began in May of this year in Santa Marta, Colombia.

The event brings together organizations from the nine Amazonian countries to coordinate the creation of tools for resistance against the expansion of oil and fossil fuel exploration in the region. Photo: Pororoka Collective

"The expansion of extractive exploitation in the Amazon is coordinated and heavily financed by the world’s largest corporations, which, in many cases, even co-opt state governments. What the Pan-Amazon Social Forum is doing, by bringing together hundreds of organizations and thousands of people from the nine Amazonian countries, is creating a coordinated action plan and a strategy for systemic resistance by its peoples in defense of life", explains João Pedro Galvão Ramalho, executive director of the Pororoka Collective.