Ecuador's government announced plans at the country's premier oil and gas summit this month to again issue a tender to drill for remote Amazon oil blocks.
The decision came about despite the government's own failure to meet an earlier timetable for a new oil exploration round and in the face of a joint declaration from Ecuador's seven Indigenous nations rejecting oil-licensing programs.
The latest objection to 14 Ronda Suroriente blocks and four Ronda Subandina blocks across separate areas of Ecuador has put multinational companies and investors on notice in regards to any plan to pursue oil extraction that involve biodiverse rainforest on the ancestral territories of the Kichwa, Shuar, Achuar, Waorani, Shiwiar, Sápara, and Andwa tribes.
The proposed two sites close to the border with Peru overlap territories of those traditional tribes, who note the government's plans have faced decades of Indigenous-led opposition amid high development costs, uncertain returns and significant legal, operational, and environmental risks.
Ecuador President Danial Noboa is hoping for $US1 billion investment in the program for the national economy.
The announcement is the latest chapter in a decades-long effort by successive governments to open the central and southern Ecuadorian Amazon to large-scale extraction - an effort that has repeatedly run up against the organised resistance from the Indigenous nations whose territories remain at stake.
The total 18 blocks cover about three million hectares, much of it in remote, roadless rainforest.
In a precedent from 2012 when a previous Ecuador government had offered 13 blocks across a similar Amazon area, Indigenous organisations mobilised efforts to protest in the capital Quito, challenging government plans to promote a drilling round during oil industry conferences in Houston, Calgary, and Paris.
Despite an international campaign to attract investors, only three of the 13 blocks received bids before not a single exploratory well was ever drilled.
"Successive governments keep repackaging essentially the same oil blocks while presenting them to investors as a new opportunity," Kevin Koenig, Climate, Energy, and Extractive Industry director of Amazon Watch, said.
"(The) announcement changes nothing on the ground.
"Indigenous nations have opposed oil extraction in these territories for decades."
The latest rounds would open the Amazon's forests to new oil extraction at a moment when its unique rainforest biome has already reached an ecological tipping point.
Environmentalists suggest new drilling and infrastructure is set to drive deforestation and forest fragmentation, increase greenhouse gas emissions, release stored carbon and weaken one of the planet's most critical carbon sinks.
Indigenous peoples have asserted their rights to self-determination under the principle of Free, Prior, and Informed Consent - an international human rights law that purposely protects Indigenous land.
The seven nations remain firm on calling for the government to cancel both proposed sites amid Indigenous-led alternatives that include a transition away from fossil fuels.
"For now, the firm and united decision is that we do not want oil in our territory, in the Amazon," Kichwa tribal leader Marcelo Mayancha, acting on behalf of the seven Indigenous nations, stated.
