Brazil's President Luiz Inácio "Lula" da Silva has signed a contract allowing the construction of the hugely controversial Belo Monte mega-dam on the Amazonian Xingu River to go ahead. Lula said, "I think this is a victory for Brazil's energy sector." Belo Monte, if built, will be the third largest dam in the world. It will devastate the local environment and threaten the lives of the thousands of indigenous people living in the area, whose land and food sources will be seriously damaged.

Ecuador announced Aug. 17 it will renegotiate contracts with foreign oil companies, seeking up to 90% of revenues for the state. The OPEC member has 33 foreign oil contracts, and the largest ones—with Spanish-Argentine YPF and Chile's Enap—will be the first to be reworked, Non-Renewable Resources Minister Wilson Pastor told a press conference. President Rafael Correa's government on July 26 signed a legal reform under which the state is 100% owner of crude oil resources. Under the new contracts, foreign firms will no longer own what they pump, but will have to purchase it from the state. The new contracts are to be ironed out by Jan. 23, 2011, Pastor said. Ecuador currently produces 472,000 barrels per day. (AFP, Aug. 17)

President Evo Morales declared a state of emergency Aug. 19 in Bolivia's Santa Cruz department, one of four in the nation where wildfires are consuming the eastern rainforests. Firefighters are reportedly battling some 25,000 separate blazes across the country. The fires have burned more than 3.7 million acres (1.5 million hectares) in the past weeks and are advancing "dangerously" in the departments of Pando, Beni and La Paz. Some 20 airport ahve been closed due to lack of visibility. The fires were set by peasants clearing land in the forests, but have spread by high winds and arid conditions following a drought. The Environment and Water Ministry asked the farmers and herders to stop the annual practice of burning undergrowth. (AlJazeera, CNN, Aug. 20)

In a deal signed in Quito Aug. 3, the government of Ecuador and the UN Development Programme agreed to establish a trust fund to protect Yasuni National Park from oil development in exchange for payments in compensation for foregone revenue. Proponents say the accord will prevent the discharge into the atmosphere of more than 400 million tons of carbon dioxide that would have resulted from burning oil from the Ishpingo-Tambococha-Tiputini (ITT) fields in the area.

Various river ports have been blocked for the past week by some 2,000 indigenous protesters in Peru's northern region of Loreto, effectively cutting off traffic on the Tigre and Corrientes rivers, to press demands for the titling of native lands and payment to local communities for use of the waterways by oil companies. Local commissioners from the Defensoría del Pueblo (rights ombudsman) have been dispatched to the caserío (settlement) of Paraíso to negotiate with the protesters, who are led by the Federation of Indigenous Communities of Bajo Tigre (FECONABAT). Pluspetrol, Talismán, ConocoPhilips, Cares Perú and Perupetro are among the companies with operations in the area. (Diario La Primera, Lima, July 29)

On July 27, the eve of Peru's Independence Day, much of the southern regions of Cusco, Puno, Madre de Dios and Apurímac were paralyzed by a paro, or general strike, to call a halt to the export of natural gas from the Camisea field in the rainforest of Cusco region. Called by peasant and indigenous groups organized in regional Defense Fronts, and supported by many local municipalities, it is the second general strike in as many months to halt traffic and business in Peru's Southern Macro-Region—and this time the strike has been declared open-ended. Violence was reported at various locales around Cusco region on the strike's opening day, as National Police used horses, clubs and tear gas to disperse protesters and clear roadblocks. Attacks were also reported on local residents who refused to observe the strike.

Brazilian indigenous rainforest dwellers are occupying the site of the Dardanelos hydroelectric plant on the Aripuana River in Mato Grosso state, demanding that they be compensated for the damage caused to their lands by the dam, and an end to further destructive hydro development in the region. Around 300 Indians from eleven tribes, including about 50 from the Enawene Nawe people, arrived July 25 at the dam site, and more are continuing to join the occupation.

On July 1 the Peruvian government notified Father Paul McAuley, an environmental activist in the northern Amazonian department of Loreto, that the Interior Ministry is rescinding his residency, which he has held since 2006. The order to expel the British priest, who has called Peru home for the past 20 years, comes on the heels of his efforts to ensure accountability for the massive June 19 PlusPetrol oil spill, which contaminated several rainforest communities.