Inside a newsroom in the Ecuadorian Amazon: how Radio Sucumbíos keeps environmental news alive

In Nueva Loja, a city better known as Lago Agrio, phone signals often disappear without warning. Internet access is unstable, rivers rise, roads become inaccessible and many communities are left hours apart. Still, every morning there is one connection that does not fail: the radio. At Radio Sucumbíos, the microphones turn on.

For 34 years, this community radio station has served as a daily meeting point in a border province where six Indigenous nationalities - Siona, Secoya, Cofán, Kichwa, Shuar and Awá - live alongside Afro-Ecuadorian communities and migrant families drawn by oil activity and agricultural expansion. Here, radio is not just a means of communication. It is a common public space that unites a geographically fragmented region.

Calls to the station begin early. A parish leader wants to dispel a rumour. Residents ask about fuel supplies. A women's organisation announces a meeting. Each message competes for space in a newsroom that, today, counts just eight people, far fewer than in the past. The same journalists present, produce and verify the facts, sometimes within the same shift.

"Radio is not made in the studio," explains the director, Víctor Gómez, who has spent 15 years at the station. "The studio is for transmitting. Radio is made with the people, in the territories, in the communes, in the rural communities."

Stories emerge in municipal assemblies and through local networks, and are transformed on the airwaves into topics of public debate. Programming alternates between Spanish and Kichwa, between news bulletins and programmes dedicated to rural life, women's rights or the migration dynamics of this border region. In this routine, pluralism ceases to be an idea and becomes something concrete, audible, shared.

In the Amazon, almost every conversation leads to the environment. The station's listeners speak about contaminated water, oil infrastructure, land, deforestation and new projects decided on by people far from the rainforest where they take place. Journalists must translate the technical language of these topics into the immediate consequences: what will change for families, crops and public health. In places where national media rarely maintain a continuous presence, stations like Radio Sucumbíosare essential interpreters, explaining these territories' transformation.

Producing this information involves constant challenges. The Amazon has limited infrastructure, so travel is costly and incredibly time-consuming. The region also has limited internet connectivity. Public funding for local media is scarce, and revenue comes mainly from advertising, occasionally supplemented by international cooperation projects that are generally focused on equipment - sources of finance that do not adequately cover salaries or operational costs. Even so, audience expectations remain high because the impacts are direct and personal.

And these issues are rarely neutral. Throughout the region, economic and political interests linked to extractive industries and local power structures can impinge on journalists' space to work. Censorship rarely appears as an explicit prohibition; more often, it is the pressure of informal warnings not to enter certain areas, or knowing the risks of covering certain armed groups.

Proximity to the Colombian border adds another layer of complexity. Drug trafficking routes, informal economies and the presence of armed actors are part of daily life in this region. There are no written red lines on the studio walls, but everyone knows certain investigations demand caution.

Verifying facts is, therefore, inseparable from staying protected. Reporters cross-check information with several sources and evaluate potential consequences before going on air. In communities where everyone knows each other, credibility is vital. So is safety. Víctor Gomez sums it up without drama: "Sometimes, protecting the team means not digging deeper into a detail that could put lives at risk."

Despite the limitations, the station continues to adapt. The pandemic accelerated its online presence with streaming, social media and a website, but the airwaves remain essential for those without reliable internet. "The station has maintained a community communications editorial line focused on human rights, gender equality, interculturality, human mobility and vulnerable populations," asserts Víctor Gomez. Because what sustains the radio, above all, is its audience.