TEXACO

Texaco in the Ecuadorian Amazon

Texaco in the Ecuadorian Amazon

Given the fact that Texaco operated in partnership with the Ecuadorian government, is Texaco's activity in the Amazon morally justifiable? Explain.

From 1972 until 1992, the U.S.-based Texaco Corporation spearheaded oil output undertakings in the Ecuadorian Amazon. They guided exploration activities, built roads and a trans-Ecuadorian pipeline, which sprints from the oil town of Lago Agrio to the port city of Esmeraldas. These two decades of oil extraction and production have produced in grades of ecological contamination and destruction which are shocking even to a generation accustomed to hearing about the acts of atrocity and imperialism committed by U.S. and multinational corporations throughout the world. After exploiting the majority of Ecuador's oil reserves, Texaco intentionally left behind an environment contaminated by over three hundred unlined oil pits, which are full of toxic and carcinogenic wastes. These pits-and the commonplace occurrence of oil spills-were directed to contaminate rivers, streams, and ground water. They furthermore left an entire population ridden with chronic and acute illnesses, encompassing cancer, in a population where it was previously nonexistent, and children born with genetic deformities. For all of this, Texaco has refused to claim any responsibility (Steven, 2004).

The Ecuadorian Amazon is a sparsely populated region that comprises roughly half of all Ecuadorian territory. The people who reside there are nearly solely indigenous and colonos-colonists who shifted to the Oriente throughout the oil boom. Colonos pattern a universally poor and formerly landless population that has come from other regions of Ecuador. Following the failed land reform endeavors of 1964, the first try to reform Ecuador's feudal land-labor relations, colonos were granted tracts of land in exchange for colonization, in a policy similar to the American Homestead Act of 1861. The Ecuadorian government's motives for doing this lay in colonizing the land by civilizing or pushing the indigenous groups who dwelled there deeper into the forest thereby providing a labor supply for the oil industry and, in general, making the area safe for oil extraction activities.

Until the oil boom years of the early 1970s, the Ecuadorian Amazon was effectively impenetrable. The first sustained foreign presence in the region occurred at the turn of the 20th century throughout the rubber boom. At that time, rubber barons brought Quechua peoples down from the hills to work as slaves, indentured laborers, and to assist the encomienda system. The biggest indigenous community of the Ecuadorian Amazon are now the lowland Quechua (Roos, 2000).

Does it have a moral obligation to provide medical care for the residents of the Amazon region who are suffering from the effects of the pollution? Explain.

Communities affected by Chevron's contamination in the Ecuadorian Amazon tallied a major and historic victory in April 2008. As part of the final phase of the trial, the court in Lago Agrio had appointed an independent expert to review the scientific evidence, assess the causes and span of environmental damage, and outline the measures needed to conduct a thorough remediation (Mendez, ...