U.S.-based attorneys suing Texaco over oil drilling damage in the Ecuadorian Amazon plan to appeal a New York federal judge’s decision to dismiss the case, originally filed in 1994. New York federal judge Jed Rakoff ruled last month that the case against Texaco doesn’t belong in a U.S. court and should instead be litigated in Ecuador. Attorneys representing rainforest Indians who claim Texaco damaged their lands had argued that Ecuador’s legal system is corrupt and ill-prepared to handle a complex environmental lawsuit. The suit alleged that from 1972 to 1992, Texaco improperly dumped oil drilling wastes in unlined pits rather than using the standard industry practice of reinjection, or pumping the wastes deep underground into emptied wells. The wastes fouled the region’s air...
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A right-wing paramilitary group reportedly kidnapped the principal spokesman for the Emberá Katio Indians on June 2, outraging the rainforest tribe and triggering an international campaign for his release. Kimi Domico, the son of a shaman and figurehead of the 2,500 Emberás’ decade-long struggle against the Urrá hydroelectric plant, was kidnapped by three armed men on motorcycles near the tribe’s headquarters in Tierralta, Córdoba. The men put a pistol to his head, handcuffed him and drove him towards territory controlled by the right-wing Self-Defense Forces of Colombia (AUC), witnesses say. Over the last two years, the paramilitaries and their enemies in the communist Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (Farc) have killed 10 members of the Emberá tribe, including a tribal governor...
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Environmentalists say a company’s plans to search for oil and gas in a Bolivian national park threaten to damage the highly biodiverse area. Last November, Petrolera Andina of Santa Cruz, Bolivia asked the government for permission to carry out seismic testing for hydrocarbons in an area straddling part of Amboro National Park, its Natural Area of Integrated Management (Anmi) and nearby private property. According to Petrolera Andina, 29.2% of the area affected would be within the park, 13.3% in the Anmi and 57.5% on private land. But environmentalists say most work would occur in the park. Opponents of the project were encouraged this month when sustainable-development officials stated that they were in negotiations to give Andina another piece of land in exchange for canceling...
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When Bolivia’s indigenous farmers paralyzed highways last year to protest free-market policies, among their demands was that local testing and importation of genetically modified organisms (GMOs) be halted. The government obliged. Last October, it decreed that all uses of transgenic seeds and products be suspended until a “biodiversity commission,” consisting of six government representatives and five NGO members, studied the issue and made recommendations. So it came as a surprise last month when Agriculture Minister Hugo Carvajal announced a “flexibilization” of the GMO restrictions. Speaking to local media, Carvajal said that starting Jan. 1, the government will allow ”the selective importation of GMO products.” Carvajal explained that the decision was made because most of the food aid it receives comes from the U.S. government’s...
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