Word: amazon
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...Texaco discovered oil in the depths of the Ecuadorian Amazon. A treasure chest of biological diversity, this area is also home to several indigenous groups, including the Huaorani, the Secoya, the Shuar and the Quichua. Under Ecuadorian law, these groups have no rights to subsurface minerals on their land, so the oil was sold by the government without their consent. When the oil company tried to enter the area, its trucks were blocked by irate local villagers. Only with the help of the military was Texaco able to begin drilling...
...passed through the pipeline. Over those 17 years, 27 spills occurred, releasing an estimated 16.8 million gallons of crude oil into one of the world's biodiversity hot spots and the traditional home of thousands of Ecuadorian natives. Judith Kimerling, a Yale-educated attorney and the author of Amazon Crude, estimates that, even today, 4.3 million gallons of untreated toxic wastes are being released into the watershed every...
Texaco transferred control of the pipeline to the Ecuador state petroleum company, Petroecuador, in 1989. In 1993, a lawsuit was filed against Texaco on behalf of 30,000 inhabitants of the Ecuadorian Amazon, seeking damages of over $1 billion for the degradation of the local environment. Elias Piyaguaje, leader of the Secoya people, described the extent of the damage: "Our rivers have been poisoned. We cannot drink. We cannot bathe. We cannot believe in the future of our existence." The lawsuit is still pending...
...region Weil cited was an indigenous, isolated village in the recesses of the Amazon jungle. The residents prepare fresh cocoa leaves every day, picking and grinding the leaves from which cocaine is derived...
...Domingo, in his new role as artistic director of the Washington Opera, means to broaden the definition. This season the company will present Manuel Penella's 1916 Spanish opera El Gato Montes as well as Antonio Carlos Gomes' 1870 Il Guarany, written, alas, in Italian but set in the Amazon. Meanwhile, the Houston Grand Opera offers the world premiere of Daniel Catan's Florencia en el Amazonas, based on stories by Gabriel Garcia Marquez...