It began with a little play on one of the most famous literary devices in the history of the written word. For a number of years, this site was dedicated to journalism in the Amazonian region of Ecuador. There were also a few detours to different topics such as antiques trafficking from the Valdivia civilization and a viral photoessay on police violence in Medellin but it almost always returned to mining conflicts, land rights, and environmental damage caused by transnationals. The website has also been under a sustained years-long cyberattack by Advanced Persistent Threats (APTs) ever since publishing on assassinations of tribal leaders and massacres in the Ecuadorian Amazon that may reach the threshold of genocide due to the vulnerability of the region’s indigenous peoples. Of special note, my English translation of the most important revelations in the brilliant book A Hidden Trargedy which included Attorney-General Galo Chiriboga complaining about helicopter drops of poisoned meat on uncontacted tribes in the Yasuni before it was hushed up in the media.
Learning to defend against sophisticated cyberattacks meant the editor of this journalism blog began a storied career in cybersecurity and currently helps Mexican journalists at Cancun News and Maya News protect their comms from organised crime. The editor is also writing a book on the militarization of the jungle region of the Maya Zone on the Yucatán peninsula due to the construction of the Maya Train on a new frontline in the Mexican Drug War. Reach out and contact jacob for information on the Ecuadorian Amazon.