Valentine’s Day Rainforest Love Put on Hold
Posted under: On February 14th, 2011, known to many as Valentine’s Day, the Ecuadorian Rainforest was finally shown some love.
Credit : Creative Commons
In a small coutroom in Eastern Ecuador, a provincial judge ordered Chevron to pay $18.1 billion for the benefit of Donziger’s clients,. Who were these clients?
They were the thousands (30,000 +) of Amazon villagers who blamed the U.S. company’s predecessor (Texaco) for pollution which was created by their extensive oil drilling in the rainforest. These damages were awarded because, as locals alleged, Texaco had dumped more than 18 billion gallons of toxic waste into unlined pits and rivers in the Amazon between the years of 1964 to 1992. One of the most shocking incidents was in August of 1992, when a pipeline rupture was the cause of a 275,000-gallon spill which caused the Rio Napo river to run black for days and days. BOTH Peru and Brazil had to declare national states of emergency for these regions.
Not only was the environment absolutely wrecked, but in a medical study of the village of San Carlos, a village nearby a Chevron-Texaco oil well, scientists found 130 % higher cancer rates in the area compared with the rest of the country.
When this judgment was awarded, in favor of the Ecuadorian people affected, it was a very positive sign that courts were willing to take a stand against corporations whose unsustainable practices would no longer be tolerated. If we look at the “all-time record” for recoveries in environmental lawsuits, this judgement (if Chevron actually does pay up) would come in only second to BP’s $20 billion fund earmarked for compensating the victims of the 2010 Gulf of Mexico oil spill
Credit: Rainforest Action Network – Caroline Bennett / Creative Commons – Crude oil in an open toxic oil waste pit abandoned by Chevron in the Ecuadorean Amazon Rainforest near Lago Agrio.
So what’s the hold up? Chevron has now officially announced that they are appealing this judgment because they believe the plaintiffs — more specifically, the indigenous Amazon Indians and other residents – have been running a campaign “to pressure judges to rule in their favor, corrupt expert reports and manufacture evidence.” Not only that, but they’ve accused their lawyers of presenting “falsified data and pressured scientific experts to find contamination where none existed.”
So what does an “appeal” mean for this historical judgment? It basically means no payments will be made to the Ecuadorian people until these legal questions can be answered. And unfortunately, this process could very likely go on for years.
And now, what happens next? We wait to see how this appeal plays out. If the appeal is denied, and Chevron finally starts taking responsibility for their outrageous enviromental crimes, this could be a great precedent for corporations to be held accountable for the negative impacts of, what they call “business as usual” on the environment.
But for now we wait….
