Oil
Inside Climate News
https://insideclimatenews.org/news/10082023/amazon-nations-debate-ending-oil-exploration/
The oil industry is another destructive force in the Amazon. While the direct habitat destruction from drilling sites is relatively small, the infrastructure built to support extraction—such as roads, pipelines, and processing stations leads to far more extensive environmental damage. These roads open previously inaccessible areas of rainforest, facilitating agriculture and accelerating deforestation.
Another major concern is climate change. Oil extraction contributes to it in two key ways: directly, through methane emissions, and indirectly, through the eventual burning of the extracted oil products like gasoline.
A third issue is noise pollution, which can disrupt wildlife behavior and stress sensitive species. However, the biggest environmental threat from oil extraction in the Amazon is chemical pollution especially from oil spills and the dumping of toxic waste products.
Most of the oil production in the Amazon occurs in the western part of the region, with Ecuador being the leading producer. The state-run company PetroEcuador, is the main player (Killeen, 2023). The top consumer of Amazonian oil is the United States—specifically, the state of California (Schneider, 2021).
The “Amazon Chernobyl”
One of the worst environmental disasters in Amazonian history began in 1964 with a joint venture between Texaco and PetroEcuador. When operations ended in 1992, over 30 billion gallons of toxic oil waste had been dumped in the rainforest, contaminating waterways, harming wildlife, and causing cancer and birth defects among indigenous communities (Renegade Inc.).
In 2001, Chevron bought Texaco, and in 2002, affected indigenous people sued Chevron. In 2011, an Ecuadorian court issued a $9.5 billion judgment against the company. Chevron responded by pulling all its assets out of Ecuador and refusing to pay (European Greens, 2013).
Chevron then went on the offensive. In 2012, it filed a civil RICO lawsuit against Steven Donziger, one of the attorneys who helped win the Ecuadorian judgment, accusing him of obtaining the verdict through fraud and bribery. In 2014, U.S. Judge Lewis Kaplan ruled in Chevron’s favor and blocked enforcement of the Ecuadorian judgment in the United States (Woods, 2025). He also ordered Donziger to pay $800,000 (Krauss, 2018).
Donziger accused Kaplan of bias, pointing out that he was a member of the Federalist Society an organization that Chevron has supported financially (The Hill, 2021). Kaplan ordered Donziger to turn over his laptop to a forensic expert. Donziger refused, citing attorney-client privilege, and was found in contempt of court (Chevron Corp. v. Donziger). Donziger says the order would have given Chevron direct access to confidential material (The Hill, 2020).
Judge Loretta Preska, another Federalist Society member, presided over the contempt trial. Donziger was placed under house arrest for nearly two years as pretrial detention and sentenced to an additional six months in 2022 (Democracy Now!, 2022). Chevron created a website called The Amazon Post to present its side of the story, but it fails to cite sources and falsely claims the contamination was fully remediated.
References:
Killeen Timothy J.(2023) A Perfect Storm in the Amazon Wilderness Second Edition
Schneider, Victoria. (December 20, 2021) California is the world’s number one importer of Amazonian oil, report finds Mongabay
Sharife, Khadija. (February 12, 2021) Chevron’s “Amazon Chernobyl” Disaster in Ecuador: Lessons from the Frontlines Poynter Seminar
https://globaljustice.yale.edu/news/chevrons-amazon-chernobyl-disaster-ecuador-lessons-frontlines
The Amazon Chernobyl Renegade Inc
https://medium.com/@renegadeinc/the-amazon-chernobyl-6309a19c27b7
(November 10, 2013) Chevron-Texaco and the environmental disaster in the Amazon European Greens
https://europeangreens.eu/resolutions/chevrontexaco-and-environmental-disaster-amazon/
Woods, Cat. (February 26, 2025) Chevron’s pursuit of US lawyer Steven Donziger Law Society Journal
https://lsj.com.au/articles/chevrons-pursuit-of-us-lawyer-steven-donziger/
Krauss, Michael I. (March 16, 2018) The Ecuador Saga Continues: Steven Donziger now owes Chevron more than $800,000 Forbes
(June 8, 2021) Steven Donziger: MSM Ignoring MAJOR Human Rights Violations, Here’s WHY The Hill
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zygw5SvhJkw
(August 2014) Chevron Corp. v. Donziger UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE SECOND CIRCUIT
(September 6, 2020) Steven Donziger: Case Against Me Is Designed To Silence Corporate Accountability The Hill
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CpQuuEc_u-Y&t=31s
(April 26, 2022) Free After 993 Days: Steven Donziger on Leaving House Arrest & His Fight with Chevron Democracy Now!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OZ2CC25AG1k&t=13s
The Amazon Post
https://theamazonpost.com/truth-o-meter-learn-the-facts-behind-the-fraud-of-the-century/