Big Oil Causes Big Mess in Ecuador

January 2, 2009 by Katie Bezrouch · Comment
Filed under: Ecopolitics 

The Ecuadorian rain forests are suffering, and so are its inhabitants. Texaco (currently owned by Chevron Corporation) began prospecting for oil in Ecuador in 1964. They found what they were looking for, and built the invasive petroleum extraction infrastructure that still oppresses the local indigenous people and the Amazon.

Chevron insists that their involvement ends there. They refuse to take any responsibility for ominous environmental disaster that plagues the region that Texaco once profited from, and instead point their finger at PetroEcuador, a state-owned Ecuadorian oil company.

Ecuadorian citizens seem to disagree with the American company. A class action law suit was filed against Chevron in 1993 on behalf of 30,000 Amazon residents for polluting their environment. Read more