On an airplane heading to the city of Talara on the north coast of Perú, dry mountains filled the view of my small airplane window. I asked my colleague Ricardo if the area used to be covered in some sort of forest or greenery. It was in the past, he said: forests acclimated in this region used to exist. But now, due to warming and the pervasiveness of extractive industries like oil, only an arid landscape remains.

As the plane circled to land, I was able to make out a figure in the distance that juxtaposed the vast Pacific Ocean: a gigantic structure, with infinite pillars and pipes and spewing black smoke. The large, dystopian structure was ostensibly bigger than the surrounding city, which paled in comparison in size. That looming figure was Petroperú’s Talara refinery.

As a finance campaigner for the past year, one of my main roles has been to support our End Amazon Crude campaign, and work on stopping new finance for state-run oil company, Petroperú. This was my first time ever visiting Perú.