The South American country has begun exploration in its Atlantic waters, with experts warning it is endangering livelihoods, marine life and climate goals

When he hears the news, the only words that fisher Francisco Méndez can use are those of war. “What they are planning to do is like dropping a bomb – and when you drop the bomb, everything dies,” says the 41-year-old father of five.

For 22 years, Méndez has sailed into the Atlantic Ocean, fishing for brotula and striped weakfish alongside his father, brothers and uncles. He is also joined, occasionally, by dolphins and whales, curious about his white and orange vessel. But now Méndez fears his family’s way of life and livelihood are under threat.

Populations have been falling for decades, even in tracts of forest undamaged by humans. Experts have spent two decades trying to understand what is going on

Something was happening to the birds at Tiputini. The biodiversity research centre, buried deep in the Ecuadorian Amazon, has always been special. It is astonishingly remote: a tiny scattering of research cabins in 1.7m hectares (4.2m acres) of virgin forest. For scientists, it comes about as close as you can to observing rainforest wildlife in a world untouched by human industry.

Almost every year since his arrival in 2000, ecologist John G Blake had been there to count the birds. Rising before the sun, he would record the density and variety of the dawn chorus. Slowly walking the perimeter of the plots, he noted every species he saw. And for one day every year, he and other researchers would cast huge “mist” nets that caught flying birds in their weave, where they would be counted, untangled and freed.