We will use your email address only for sending you newsletters. Please see our Privacy Notice for details of your data protection rights.

Sign up fornow and never miss the top politics stories again.

The Waorani people of Pastaza are an indigenous tribe from the Ecuadorian Amazon and have lived in the Rainforest for generation on generation. Although the Amazon fires currently burning away are in Paraguay, thousands of miles away from Ecuador, many are linking a burgeoning trend that may well end up in more forestry being destroyed across the nine countries that the Amazon spans. According to Reuters, the tribe had been battling an on-going court case concerning the selling of sacred Amazonian lands to oil companies. The lands were originally auctioned off and approved to do so by the Ecuadorian government, much to the dismay of the indigenous tribe.

A court decision ruled that the 2,000 strong tribe had not been properly consulted before the lands were sold off.

The government appealed the decision, but ultimately lost when the three-judge panel of the Pastas provincial Court upheld the ruling that the tribe had not been properly consulted, ending the years-long legal battle over the land.

The decision, made in July, saw half a million acres of ancestral land protected from being mined for oil drilling by oil corporations.

The victory set a precedent for the protection of the Amazon Rainforest, yet, many are arguing that the fires that have been burning for more than two weeks are the beginning of something more sinister, with one Twitter user seeming to link the lawsuit and the fires, tweeting: "A little fiery conspiracy for this cold morning... fishy".

Another said: "I seen recently that a group of indigenous people had won a court case so they can keep their land in the Amazon forest, and now it’s just weird how the forest is caught in fire!!

"Hmmm seems sus, that’s my theory!"

A third wrote: "It all starting to make sense now. The Amazon tribe wins the lawsuit against the Big Oil. After this happened, the rain forest caught on fire. This starting to look like a huge conspiracy. Hmm."

There is no evidence to suggest the link as of yet.

READ MORE: Amazon rainforest fire: Horror video shows blaze engulf rainforest