Gas flaring in the Amazon sparks legal and environmental battle

Indigenous girls are leading legal action against the Ecuadorian state for authorizing gas flaring near their homes. Currently, this harmful practice is permitted as close as 100 metres from residential areas.

A group of nine Amazonian girls and young women from Ecuador are worried about the public health impact of gas flaring very near their houses and are bringing legal action against the state of Ecuador for the authorisation of gas flaring in the communities.

The oil sector is responsible for a large proportion of the greenhouse gases (GHGs) that have contributed and continue to contribute to the worsening of the climate crisis. The extraction of oil can also have serious local impact, such as the routine burning of the gas associated with the extraction of crude oil in gas flares. Although it is well-known that this practice is harmful for health and the environment and contributes to climate change, many companies and oil-producing states continue to refuse to eliminate flares. This is especially common in socially and environmentally vulnerable areas, known as “sacrifice zones”, where marginalisation and poverty are compounded by the environmental degradation caused by oil extraction. This is the case for the Ecuadorian Amazon, where gas flaring could pose dangerous levels of environmental pollution, in an injustice identified by Amnesty International as “creating conditions that perpetuate the social inequality inherent in the Amazonian communities as sacrifice zones of the oil industry”

In 2020, a group of nine Amazonian girls and young women from Ecuador, together with Union of People Affected by Texaco’s Oil Operations - UDAPT, brought a legal action, known as an injunction (against the state authorisation that allows the operation of gas flares in their Amazonian regions. In their lawsuit, they claimed that the flares have caused damage to the health of the area's inhabitants and that flaring poses a serious threat to human rights in the Ecuadorian Amazon. On 29 July 2021, the Provincial Court of Justice of Sucumbíos ruled that the Ecuadorian state had disregarded the plaintiffs’ right to live in a healthy and ecologically balanced environment, violated the right to health and failed to comply with its international obligations on climate change mitigation. The ruling orders oil companies to ‘close all gas flaring sites that are near populated centres within 18 months since the issuance of the judgment, and within 2030 for the remaining ones.

However, the Ministry of Energy and Mines and the state oil company Petroecuador keep the flares operating near communities. Amnesty International found in a report in August 2024 that the Ecuadorian state has refused to fully comply with the ruling to eliminate gas flares and had not removed those located near population centres. The ruling had not defined the concepts of “adjacent” and “populated centre”. Shortly after receiving the ruling in January 2021, the Sucumbíos Court was asked to define both concepts, because they were open to multiple interpretations. The Court denied the request. In October of that same year, they filed an extraordinary protection action in the Constitutional Court, which was admitted in December, but so far, the high court has not clarified these concepts either. Finally, on 28 March 2023, during the judicial hearing to verify the ongoing process, the Ministry of Energy and Mines of Ecuador approved a regulation that arbitrarily defined these concepts. The Ministry of Energy and Mines and Petroecuador, chose a definition of “near or adjacent” as less than 100 meters away and “populated centres” needed to be 20 houses in the radius of 100 m from a flare. And this is where the criticism begins, says Alexandra Almeida, coordinator of the Petroleum Area of ​​Acción Ecológica, an organisation that has supported the campaign to extinguish flares.

The narrow definition closed very few, if any, gas flares. According to the Republic of Ecuador, practically none of the gas flares were “adjacent” to “population centres”, so they continue to burn gas as usual. The 486 gas flares in the Ecuadorian Amazon lies in the heart of indigenous territory and many are in residential areas with no protection for exposed families. Some of the gases emitted by gas flares, such as nitrogen oxides, carbon monoxide, and benzene, which are all considered harmful according to WHO, and with the latter potentially carcinogenic. Flares also emit volatile organic compounds, polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs), and fine particulate matter (PM2.5). Nitrogen dioxide (NO2) have been linked to the prevalence of asthma, respiratory diseases and mortality. Respirable particulate matter (PM2.5) causes effects similar to NO₂, and has been linked to premature births, lung cancer and low birth weight.

Hydrogen sulphide (H₂S) is associated with irritation to the eyes and respiratory system, and several PAHs are considered linked to cancer. To date, there are a lack of health effect studies in the region. But there have been some studies that have indicated an increased risk for childhood leukemia in areas with oil extraction as compared to other Amazon areas (Coronel Vargas et al. 2020). In oil-producing countries such as Norway, the routine burning of gas through flaring has been banned because of the scientific consensus on the impacts. Routine gas flaring is no longer necessary, as technologies have been developed that make it possible to eliminate this practice.

The 100-meter distance definition set by Petroecuador and Ministry of Energy and Mines was based on a Canadian document on how far the flames could be from other site properties and most likely based on fire-safety than air pollution and health. Thus, the distance set by the Ministry of Energy and Mines is not based on a standard that would technically ensure the safety of a population centre located at that distance (Amnesty, 2024). In 2020, regulations were implemented in the State of Colorado (USA) to increase the distance between wells and gas flares with respect to educational institutions and residential facilities, from 500 feet (152.4m) to a minimum distance of 2000 feet (609.6m). A 2020 study shows that the polluting impacts of gas flares extend over a radius of up to 5km from the point of emission. A 2002 study showed that the pollutant benzene can be found in concentrations posing a risk to humans up to a distance of 5km from the flare. Two studies from 2020 and 2021 show that the risk of premature birth among women living within 5km of a flare increases substantially. CATF, cited by the Ministry in its reports as an organisation supporting the preparation of its own Regulation, published a study in 2023 that shows that gas flares located up to 5km from populated areas are more likely to cause negative health outcomes (Amnesty, 2024).

AirClim went to the area a few months ago to support the community with air pollution measurements in houses located at different distances from the gas flare. We are now waiting for the analyses of PAHs and heavy metals, but our preliminary results for PM2.5 showed similar levels at 100m and 1 km from the gas flare. This would represent a significant environmental pollution risk for the populations, particularly the indigenous communities, living near to these gas flares, above and beyond what the Court has defined as “adjacent”. Significant health, and environment, effects are posed to these communities, at a time when drastic action is needed both on air pollution and on the climate crisis.

Amnesty report: The Amazon is burning, August 12, 2024, Index Number: AMR 28/8280/2024
Coronel Vargas G, Au WW, Izzotti A. Public health issues from crude-oil production in the Ecuadorian Amazon territories. Sci Total Environ. 2020 Jun 1;719:134647.

The eight girls when the case was launched in 2020.