In 1960, the military dictatorship granted Texaco millions of hectares to explore and exploit oil in Oriente. Those were the times when wood in the concession area was given to oil companies for free and they were allowed to do whatever they wanted. One of the things Texaco did was damage the environment, causing serious health problems for residents. Hence the dispute that they won here, but the all-powerful company, now Chevron, managed to turn it around abroad.

This is not the only case where these big corporations are trying to kill people. In January 2023, Science magazine revealed that ExxonMobil scientists had been predicting that the planet would warm due to greenhouse gases since the 1970s, while the company publicly denied this. In Ecuador, Perenco also caused damage to the environment, and because of this, the ICSID arbitration court, so inclined to favor transnational companies, ordered it to pay $54,400,000.

Doubts and discussions about turning off the lighter five days after the expiration of the legal deadline given to Petroecuador

Petroecuador threw out 112 lighters in Orellana and Sucumbíos in 14 months

For more than half a century, Ecuadorian public and foreign private companies, in the provinces of Orellana, Sucumbíos, Napo and Pastaza, have burned and released gases into the atmosphere from more than 447 burners that are lit day and night, which spread and reach people living in the surrounding area . In the last five years, 442 cases of cancer were documented in that area, 72% of which were women; an index that increases the closer they are hit to the lighters, since the gases have at least 100 toxic elements. In 2012, the Office of the Ombudsman recommended to the Ministry of Health the implementation of urgent diagnostics of the health of the population in order to determine the injuries that occur and their connection to contamination. In 2019, the MSP admitted that it had not conducted such a study. In other words, the state is absent from its obligations and, moreover, contributes to causing damage. It was accused that the oil industry did not allow the investigation, that samples were taken from lighters. And civil society had to make these analyses.

In 2020, some of the girls, represented by their parents, filed a lawsuit for protection, alleging a violation of their constitutional rights. After the evidence was presented, it was declared that the state had neglected the claimants’ right to live in a healthy environment, neglected their right to health in their polluting activities by not promoting ecologically clean technologies, and as a measure of compensation ordered the gradual removal of lighters, in the places surrounding the cities for 18 months, and the others until 2030. In addition, other provisions related to health and water supply. The public entities in question did not comply with the sentence, and the Constitutional Court, on the other hand, owes the girls and other residents full compensation, while the Ministry of Energy announced that it will declare null and void the tender won by the American company, which will capture the gas that is being wasted, with with which the country will be able to produce LPG, which it now imports at a high price.

Amazons are also Ecuadorians. (OR)