The role of European lenders in backing the trade came under scrutiny in August, when a report by advocacy groups Stand.earth and Amazon Watch named six European banks as major financiers of Ecuadorean oil exports to U.S. refineries.Indigenous leaders battling to prevent further oil exploration in their territory said the banks’ role had made them complicit in oil spills, violations of land rights and the destruction of rainforest by Ecuador’s oil industry.“The banks’ commitment is a milestone,” Marlon Vargas, president of the Confederation of Indigenous Nationalities of the Ecuadorian Amazon, told Reuters. “The banks should finance other forms of economic development, but not oil extraction.”The August report had named the three banks alongside France’s Natixis, Switzerland’s UBS and Dutch bank Rabobank as the main backers of the shipment of about $10 billion of Ecuadorean oil to the United States over the past decade.Campaigners had accused the banks of using double standards for making climate change pledges while backing trade in oil from Ecuador, where the industry plans to drill hundreds of wells in the Yasuni National Park, a UNESCO World Heritage site.
Source: European lenders exit Amazon oil trade after scrutiny by campaigners | Reuters
