The special project Every Last Drop is the result of a nearly year-long, cross-border, multidisciplinary investigation that has explored the Amazon to understand the past, present, and future impacts of oil exploration on the planet’s largest tropical biome.

The project brought together journalists, photographers, data analysts, designers, and scientists to conduct a comprehensive investigation. They analyzed vast databases, reviewed unpublished documents from governments and corporations, and carried out numerous interviews and field reports across five countries—Brazil, Colombia, Ecuador, Guyana, and Peru—that are home to over 80 percent of the rainforest.

For decades, Amazonian communities have been promised economic development driven by oil. Instead, many have experienced oil spills, deforestation, forced displacement, and deepening social inequalities.

In this six-part series, coordinated by InfoAmazonia in collaboration with media outlets from Amazonian countries—GK in Ecuador, Ojo Público in Peru, and Rutas del Conflicto in Colombia—we explore how the expansion of oil activities is transforming ecosystems, affecting Indigenous populations, and altering political and economic dynamics on a transnational scale.

The starting point for this investigation was the Brazilian government’s recent push to explore oil at the Amazon River’s mouth, despite repeated rejections from environmental agencies and warnings from scientists. This issue gains even more significance as Brazil prepares to host COP30 in Belém, Pará, prompting critical discussions about the balance between conservation and exploration in one of the planet’s most ecologically important regions.