The oil slick flowed downstream for more than 80 km until reaching the Pacific Ocean, where it left at least nine beaches heavily polluted. Photo: Pontificia Universidad Católica Sede Esmeraldas (PUCESE), used with their permission.

This story is part of the “Environmental Defenders” series, co-published by Latin America Bureau and Global Voices. It was translated from Spanish by Piotr Kozak.

First, they were hit by the smell, like a bad omen no one wants to recognize. Alejandro Bone, a community leader in El Roto, Esmeraldas, was playing football when Franklin Obando and a neighbour from the village of Chucaple roared up on a motorbike. “Can’t you smell the diesel?” they yelled.

It was around 8:30 in the evening, as they made their way down to the Caple River and suddenly froze at the sight: the water was utterly black. They jumped back on the motorbike, flashlight cutting through the darkness, and followed the river’s path. As they passed the El Achiote settlement, they suspected that it had all come from an old sinkhole, well known for its landslides. When they reached it, there was no doubt.

The owner of a nearby farm stood in silence, eyes locked on the scene before him. From the ruptured pipeline, “a geyser of oil nearly 17 meters high shot into the sky,” Bone recalled. It was March 2025.

Just 15 minutes from the epicentre in the Quinindé district, the first reports of the spill began to reach people. María José Pacho, an environmental activist, learned of it not only through social media, but also by the sudden arrival of numerous alarmed families.

People were coming from El Roto, where the river ran black. That same watercourse, along with the Viche and Caple tributaries, would soon turn anoxic — completely devoid of oxygen — leading to the immediate death of fish and other aquatic life. “We felt a burning sensation in our chests,” they explained, “and we quickly got up to see what was happening.”

The oil slick flowed downstream for more than 80 km until reaching the Pacific Ocean, where it left at least nine beaches heavily polluted. Photo: PUCESE, used with their permission.

Around ten families arrived in Quinindé that same night, carrying only their backpacks. Their faces were marked by fear and the gnawing uncertainty of whether the water they relied on for everything — washing, cooking, drinking — was still safe to use.

Their uncertainty reflected the scale of the spill: the slick flowed downstream for more than 80 km to the Pacific Ocean, where it heavily polluted at least nine beaches, three of them needing to be closed to the public due to the sheer volume of crude oil. “They had never seen anything like it before,” remarked Pacho. Uncertainty, like the oil itself, spread fast.

For more than 50 years, the pipeline that slices across Ecuador has left deep scars on Esmeraldas. Excluding this March 13 spill, more than 138,000 barrels of crude have been accidentally discharged within the province.

In 1998, the Balao Maritime Terminal — the port in Esmeraldas from where part of Ecuador’s oil is exported — witnessed one of the country’s worst environmental disasters, when almost 44,000 barrels spilled into the surrounding coastal waters. Just one barrel contains almost 160 litres of oil.

Yet, once again, the true figures were slow to surface this year. The Minister of Energy first announced that 4,000 barrels had been spilled. Petroecuador later admitted it had been closer to 25,000. The official numbers were then readjusted, but the seed of distrust had already been sown. The scale of the disaster — and the delay in acknowledging it — cemented Esmeraldas’ place as the third most affected province for pipeline ruptures.

A subsequent United Nations report acknowledged that more than 300 hectares of farmland had been affected, with around 60 lost completely, and that over 4,500 fishers saw their main source of income vanish.

In total, excluding the spill of 13 March 2025, more than 138,000 barrels of oil have been spilled in this province alone. Photo: PUCESE, used with their permission.

At a public meeting held to discuss the spillage, Bone insisted that there had been a landslide, which was later confirmed by Petroecuador.

Two days after the incident, on March 15, President Daniel Noboa made a reference to the oil spill on his X account, stating that he would order the state oil company to take full responsibility in terms of an environmental clean-up and compensation for affected families.

Networks come together

SOS Esmeraldas, a local network of environmental defenders that responded to the disaster, had been formed just a few months earlier, in December 2024, following one of the area's most shocking crimes in recent years. In the midst of the “state of internal armed conflict” declared during newly re-elected President Daniel Noboa’s first term in office, four young Afro-Ecuadorians, who had last been seen in the Las Malvinas neighborhood south of Guayaquil, were detained by an armed-forces patrol.

Just over three weeks later, the incinerated corpses of the teenagers were found, showing clear signs of torture. Outrage swept the country, but in Esmeraldas it was felt even more deeply: these youngsters could have been their own children.

Impunity sparked a sense of urgency. In response, four groups — Esmeraldas Libre, the Somos Foundation, Cofesme, and Afrored – formed a non-hierarchical alliance. They had no funding, but were driven by a collective feeling of exhaustion and deep affection for a land constantly under siege.

Once the March 13 oil spill occurred, the network didn’t wait for official confirmation; they opened seven collection hubs in cities that included Riobamba, Cuenca, Esmeraldas, Quinindé, and Quito. Geovanna Pozo, coordinator of the Esmeraldas Libre (Free Esmeraldas) collective, recalled witnessing a 24-ton truck set off from Riobamba loaded with water, supplies and filters.

Each truckload was the result of bonds woven long before — teachers, translators, cultural administrators, and neighbours offering their homes, energy and time to help those who needed it most. Their efforts not only supported displaced families, but also defended an essential community asset under serious threat: water. “We’re young people doing the best we can with few resources,” Pozo explained.

One of these networks sprang into action in the town of Quinindé, where Pacho, who identifies as an Afro-descendant, transformed her arts centre into a vibrant hub of resistance and collective solidarity. There, she received donations and, together with other volunteers, coordinated their distribution. Two trucks packed with bottled water, toilet paper and toiletries, rice, salt, and more, rumbled off towards affected areas, where many communities were still waiting for government assistance. “The river was no longer fit for washing or cooking,” explained Pacho. “It was dead.”

 

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The aid went way beyond basic supplies — water dispensers were installed in rural schools, serving as lifelines for children, adults, and the elderly alike — and the work was undertaken without any fanfare, but on a remarkable scale.

In total, five major consignments were sent to the disaster zone, with multiple deliveries across Esmeraldas and Quinindé. The effort, the activists agree, was guided by an attitude of concern and unity. This was no act of charity: it was a political intervention rooted in community; quotidian environmental resistance.

The active response of local science

Eduardo Rebolledo, an environmental defender, researcher, and professor at the Pontificia Universidad Católica Sede Esmeraldas (PUCESE), was in Quito attending a forum on river quality when his phone rang: “Eduardo, there’s been a massive spill; what shall we do?”

The next morning, Rebolledo and his students were already taking unauthorized samples. He knew that if they waited for official permission, the oil would have outpaced the Ministry of Environment’s sluggish bureaucracy, commenting sarcastically, “You have to ask for authorization just to comb your hair before heading into the field.”

Eduardo Rebolledo and Freddy Quiroz Ponce take samples. Photo: PUCESE, used with their permission.

Experience made Rebolledo well aware of what to look for. In 2016 and 2023, he had responded to oil spills in Esmeraldas, advising citizen watchdog groups and gathering biological samples. This time, the preliminary findings were much more serious: polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons like phenanthrene and anthracene — highly toxic chemical compounds — were trapped in the still waters of isolated estuaries.

The threat extended beyond freshwater sources. At the Esmeraldas River Estuary Mangrove Wildlife Refuge, a 242-hectare protected area at the river’s mouth, crude oil coated the channels, suffocating the vegetation, poisoning aquatic life, and contaminating the sediments.

The refuge is home to three different species of mangrove trees, alongside hundreds of species of fish, birds and mammals, including the South American coati (Nasua nasua), a member of the raccoon family, and the blue land crab (Cardisoma crassum), both of which hold significant cultural and economic value for the region.

South American Coati (Nasua nausa) female crossing the road. Photo: Bernard Dupont under CC BY-SA 2.0

While PUCESE had freshly-gathered evidence to work on, the late arrival of the authorities meant the opposite. Petroecuador hired the LABCESTTA laboratory, whose analyses — carried out on samples gathered more than 10 days after the spill — found no traces of contamination.

According to Rebolledo, water sampling tests are error-prone and tend to produce false negatives; Ecuador doesn’t have the laboratory resources needed to detect such compounds within fish or sediments. What troubled him most, however, was the institutional silence: neither the Ministry of Environment nor its Health counterpart issued sanitary alerts, despite the toxic risks still present in the water. Their silence stood in stark contrast with scientific projections, which anticipated that in small rivers, the effects could linger for up to three years, even if rains helped dilute the crude oil.

Environmental activist Víctor Arroyo, who is based at the Luis Vargas Torres Technical University, faced the same silence. As a forestry engineer and the president of Esmeraldas’ Natural Resource Professionals Association (COPRENA), he led the on-the-ground response, visiting riverside areas while oil still floated on the water. Investigators documented what the government refused to acknowledge: there were more than a hundred affected families in Chucaple alone, not to mention damaged crops and livestock, a decimated local fishing industry, and entire communities brought to a standstill.

Arroyo stressed that these were not barren lands: the precise spot at which the pipeline ruptured and oil surged out lay in the middle of a cacao plantation — a vital cash crop on which many families depend for their main income.

This was far from being an isolated incident. Through COPRENA, Arroyo had heard reports from colleagues working at the Balao oil terminal confirming that, in recent years, other spills had taken place, many of them concealed from public scrutiny. Some were contained before causing major impacts, but others reached beaches like Las Palmas, Camarones, and Tonsupa, leaving behind dead fish and coastlines saturated with oil.

More than 4,500 fishers saw their immediate livelihoods wiped out after the spill. Photo: PUCESE, used with their permission.

When the Ministry of Environment opened a public tender to clean up the Esmeraldas River Estuary Mangrove Wildlife Refuge, Arroyo’s university responded without hesitation. Dozens of students and teachers signed up on the official website. After the initial enthusiasm, however, silence returned. The university received no response regarding the volunteer sign-ups. No one explained who had carried out the clean-up, or what methods were used.

Bureaucratic language as impenetrable as an oil slick

From its office in Quito, Petroecuador confirmed what people on the ground already knew: the pipeline rupture had been caused by a landslide. Yet, the company presented no publicly available technical report. They also admitted that events such as El Vergel, deemed “small-scale” and occurring outside of the pipeline’s right of way, are not detectable by their regular monitoring systems.

An interview with an institutional spokesperson was requested, but Petroecuador chose to respond in writing. The reply took three weeks to arrive. By then, the disaster had dragged on for almost three months without any clear explanations for the affected communities, despite the fact that on March 26, the Provincial Emergency Operations Committee of Esmeraldas had declared a state of disaster due to environmental contamination.

In its written response, the state oil company reported that it had used biodegradable surfactants and oil-absorbing materials for the clean-up, which would later be transported and disposed of as hazardous waste. However, no final destination was specified, nor was this information shared with local communities — only with the workers who had been hired to carry out the operation.

Regarding compensation, Petroecuador referred to the Organic Environmental Code and spoke of an investment of more than USD 4 million, without specifying how many people or communities would be assisted, or how the funds would be distributed. 

Jesús Alberto Caicedo, a student from PUCESE taking water samples. Photo: PUCESE, used with their permission.

Similarly, when in good faith, Arroyo and his colleagues answered the Ministry of Environment’s public tender to help clean the wildlife refuge, their enthusiasm was quickly snuffed out. The Ministry later admitted that participation was low, but never explained why those who did respond were excluded from the process.

When the state’s environmental emergency fund was activated, only USD 5,000 was actually allocated. After that, financial responsibility was shifted to Petroecuador under the “polluter pays” principle — but to this day, students and faculty members still don’t know who actually cleaned up the mangrove, or what was left buried, given the institutional silence.

Not only does this lack of information — and resources — ignore their social contribution; it also prevents local communities from implementing any long-term monitoring or environmental protection, as they lack both technical supplies and reliable knowledge of the ecosystem’s true condition.

What the territory tells us, beyond the numbers

It wasn’t the official reports that revealed the true state of the river, but the patient fieldwork of environmental defender Alexandra Almeida and her team. A biochemist with more than 30 years’ experience working with the Quito-based environmental NGO Acción Ecológica, she retraced the same 80 km stretch of river that Petroecuador had divided into “intervention zones.”

At El Vergel, ground zero of the spill, they found what no report had disclosed: the presence of abandoned pipes, overturned earth, and oil deposits that the rains continued to wash downstream. The communities, Almeida stressed, insist that the water is still unfit for drinking or fishing; that banana, cassava, cacao, and coffee crops have been lost; and that livestock have died after drinking the water.

The promised USD 4 million compensation announced by Petroecuador never reached all those affected. Some complained of favoritism; others said they were handed cheques that bounced. Doubts linger about the chemicals used in the clean-up: rather than removing the crude, they may simply have sunk it deeper and out of sight. To this day, these and other questions remain unanswered.

Since last May, local residents have come together to form the Union of People Affected by Oil and Diesel Spills in Esmeraldas, an organization that now represents more than 2,000 people from districts such as Quinindé and Esmeraldas.

The Union was set up as a response to repeated neglect: spills in 2008, 2018, 2023 and now, 2025. According to its legal director, Joselito Ceballos, Petroecuador has failed both to fully clean up the territory and to deliver on either community compensation or individual reparations. Residents are demanding comprehensive reparation — not simply cleaning the river, but also community interventions and long-term measures — since the damage, Ceballos warned, will not be washed away in just a few months. Anticipating they won’t get a response, the group is already preparing a criminal complaint against Petroecuador for environmental crimes and damage to nature.

For Ceballos, such abandonment is cyclical: while electoral and media pressure was high in March during campaigns for the second round of presidential elections, the authorities showed up; when it eased, the territory was once more forsaken.

This type of absence is also familiar to Bone, the community leader from El Roto, who recalls how, in the first days of the disaster, the area was swarming with ministers and government officials, summoned by the emergency and by presidential orders.

The electoral calendar also set the timing of the response. After April 9, on the eve of the presidential runoff, the state withdrew, according to local organizations. No more medical emergency teams; no more potable water; no more food distribution. In Chirigüile, Bone pointed out, a community just 2.5 km across the river, about 60 families were left stranded, with no shops nearby and no boat to cross waters that remain contaminated to the present day.

It’s not just neglect; there are also structural issues. As Pozo points out, in Esmeraldas it is not only oil that spills – there is deeply entrenched environmental racism. Had the disaster struck in Quito or Guayaquil, she surmised, the response would have been very different: faster, more visible, much more effective. Instead, it happened in a historically impoverished and racially segregated area, making the spill no longer merely ecological, but also social, economic, and racial — and it continues to seep not only through the rivers, but through the silence of institutions, and decisions that criminally neglect both people and the natural environment.

Environmental Defenders Series

This article series, in collaboration with Latin America Bureau (LAB), documents the work of environmental defenders in different Latin American and Caribbean countries, highlighting both the dangers they face and their achievements in defending their habitats and communities.