The startling implication of all this is that if we´re serious about conserving Peru´s spectacularly rich biodiversity, ensuring that traditional farmers continue their old way of life, rather than taking up industrial agriculture, is actually more important than preventing traditional farmer s from clearing more forest.  Industrial activity in the Amazon is a double-barreled gun which threatens the area´s ecosystems and biodiversity.  First of all, industrial activity itself obliterates vast swaths of forest, often contaminating huge areas with toxic waste that will remain in the soil and water for years.  Second, industrial practices displace traditional villages, and especially indigenous peoples, who are among the most politically disempowered populations in Peru.  The result is that traditional farmers give up a way of life that is relatively sustainable.  They may go to work for large companies like the ones that displaced them, or they may move to the outskirts of Iquitos where expanding slum-like communities, filling up fast with former residents of forest villages, are encroaching steadily on the rainforest.  Read More

Washington (Platts)--29Jun2009

The US Supreme Court Monday rejected Chevron's effort to require arbitration with Petroecuador over liability for environmental damage in
Ecuador's Amazon rain forest.  The high court let stand a lower US court decision that found against
Chevron.  The San Ramon, California-based company, meanwhile, is awaiting a ruling by a judge in Ecuador in a lawsuit seeking damages for Amazon residents for
what could be upward of $27 billion. A judgment is expected later this year. Read more

April 30, 2009 · A judge is preparing to render a decision in a long-running, multibillion-dollar lawsuit filed by residents of Ecuador’s Amazonian rain forest against Texaco for fouling their land.

In the lawsuit, filed in 1993, the plaintiffs charge that, throughout the 1970s and ’80s, the American oil company so polluted a swath of northern Ecuador that hundreds died of cancer. The defendant, Chevron Corp. — which bought Texaco in 2001 — denies the accusations.

But a court-appointed expert agrees with many of the plaintiffs’ charges and has assessed damages at $27 billion. Now, a judge in the small town of Lago Agrio, says he hopes to have a decision before the end of the year.  Read more at Morning Edition, NPR

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The truth about Chevron in Ecuador

Chevron Texaco Ecuador Lawsuit - Behind the Scenes