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Chevron is up for a huge award this month and we need your votes (VOTE HERE)  to help them win this much-deserved award. Each year ten corporations are (dis)honored by being named as finalists in the “Corporate Hall of Shame”.  This year Corporate Accountability International has deemed Chevron worthy of their final list because of the company’s toxic legacy of pollution in the Ecuadorean rainforest. It will surely be a close race as Chevron is up against some stiff competition:

Monsanto – “for mass-producing cancer causing chemicals, aggressively running small farms out of business and for recklessly promoting genetically engineered seeds that threaten food scarcity globally.”

McDonlads – “for influence peddling and predatory marketing to children that is driving the deadly epidemic of diet-related disease now devastating communities globally and leading to the breakdown of the entire food system.”

BP – do I really have to explain?

Nestle – “for undermining the human right to water and aggressively expanding its environmentally destructive water bottling operations over the objections of communities globally.”

However, Chevron is responsible for one of the largest oil disasters on Earth. Chevron is responsible for over 17 billion gallon of toxic wastewater and 15 million gallons of crude oil dumped in Ecuadorean communities. It is because of this unprecedented, and tragic, example of Chevron’s corporate culture that they are a deserving winner of this year’s award. I’m voting for them to be inducted into 2010’s Corporate Hall of Shame, and you should too!

We promise, if Chevron wins, to come up with a creative way to deliver the company the award!

To learn more about the campaign to hold Chevron accountable visit changechevron.org

On Tuesday, June 29 Houma and Grand Bayou American Indian leaders showed Ecuadorean leaders the impact of BP’s oil disaster on their coastal communities. The boat left from Port Sulphur and visited devastated wetlands, oil soaked wildlife, and the Grand Bayou village.

The Indigenous Ecuadorean leaders are in the Gulf coast to meet with American Indian tribes in the Gulf region and share their experiences coping with decades of Chevron’s massive oil contamination in their home.

Emergildo Criollo (right) is a leader of the Cofan tribe in Ecuador’s Amazon Rainforest. Humberto Piaguaje (left) is the representative of the Secoya people to the Assembly of Delegates of Communities Affected by Chevron/Texaco.

Michael Dardar, Vice Principal Chief of the United Houma Nation sits with Emergildo Criollo, Humberto Piaguaje, Mariana Jimenez as they take a boat trip into the marshland to see BP’s oil disaster.

Local resident Philip Simmons takes Houma and Ecuadorean leaders in his boat to see BP’s oil disaster.

Mariana Jimenez on the boat ride leaving from Port Sulphur heading out to Bay Baptiste. She is a 71-year old grandmother from near Lago Agrio, Ecuador. Her home was soon surrounded by oil spills and contamination. Her husband, who worked for Texaco (now Chevron), and her sister, both died of cancer.

Oil contaminates the wetlands in Louisiana’s Bay Baptiste.

An oil boom laying in the marshland grass with oil on both sides.

Thick brown oil covers marshland grass while oil sheen floats on top.

Mariana inspects the oil spill saying the smell and feel of the oil reminds her of the oil contamination left by Chevon (formally Texaco) in her Amazon home.

Mariana’s oil coated hand after picking a blade of grass from the mash.

Humberto Piaguaje inspects BP’s oil disaster in the marshlands.

Rosina Phillipe of Grand Bayou village welcomes Ecuadorean leaders to here home on the water.

Rosina Phillipe and the delegation share stories and lessons learned from living with oil contamination. (From left: Rosina Phillipe, Maria Ramos, Matiana Jiminez, Mitch Anderson, Humberto Piaguaje, Emergildo Criollo)

Emergildo Criollo in the boat leaving Grand Bayou Village.

See all the photo from the Gulf Coast trip in the Rainforest Action Network Flickr set

This document was been prepared by the Asamblea de Afectados por Texaco (The Assembly of Communities Affected by Chevron/Texaco) to be presented to Gulf Coast communities affected by the recent BP oil disaster.

In confronting their own oil disaster, Indigenous Ecuadoreans have learned many lessons about cultural survival and what it takes to hold a company accountable for harms it has caused. Included in the document are 10 lessons communities in Ecuador have compiled from their experiences living with Chevron’s billions of gallons of oil contamination for the past 30 years.

Click to download the PDF file (2.2mb)
Descargar el informe en español (2.2mb)

Last night, four Indigenous and community leaders from Ecuador arrived in very steamy New Orleans to share their experiences with the long-term impacts of oil pollution with communities dealing with the tragic BP oil spill that continues to gush into the Gulf of Mexico. (more…)

Wednesday, Chevron opened it’s annual Shareholder meeting in Houston. Inside CEO John Watson, in his first shareholder meeting since assuming the position in January, described Chevron as a “good neighbor. However outside at the very moment John Watson uttered those words he was having global community leaders, all with legal proxies to attend the meeting, removed from the entrance of the building after being refused entry to the meeting. After traveling from as far as Australia, Burma, Nigeria, Ecuador and Alaska, community leaders were rebuffed and outwardly disrespected by Chevron CEO John Watson.

27 people from around the world traveled to Houston for Chevron’s 2010 Annual Shareholders meeting. Of the 27 only 7 were allowed to enter the meeting. One of the people that was refused entry to the shareholder meeting was Guillermo Grafa, an Indigenous leader from Ecuador. “We don’t need empathy from Chevron, we need them to accept full responsibility for the pain and suffering they have caused our people and clean up Ecuador now,” said Grafta.

In response to Chevron’s actions, four people took part in a sit-in at the entrance of the shareholder meeting while other blocked the outside exit. The 4 who refused to leave Chevron property after they were denied access to the meeting were arrested on trespassing charges and hauled to waiting police vans.

The four arrested at the entrance were Juan Parras a long time environmental justice activist in Houston and founder of TEJAS, an EJ group fighting refineries on the Texas Gulf Coast; Rev. Jerome Davis a livelong civil rights hero who marched in Selma and has long fought for environmental justice in Richmond, CA; and Mitch Anderson and Han Shan from Amazon Watch, an organization working in solidarity with Indigenous communities fighting Chevron in Ecuador.

In addition to the four arrested, Antonia Juhasz of the Chevron Program at Global Exchange was also arrested inside the meeting. She was forcefully removed from the meeting after calling in

Han Shan of Amazon Watch summed up Chevron’s intention for the day while being taken to an awaiting police van

“This is the way Chevron operates everywhere around the world–silencing people who raise concerns about its operations. Shame on Chevron!”

Unfortunately for Chevron it looks like the calls for accountability are getting louder and louder, and They won’t be silenced ant time soon.

You can see more Photos from the day HERE

Note: all arrested have been released and await their hearing on June 6.

Kate Moser
The Recorder
May 14, 2010

A California federal judge threw out eight of nine claims (pdf) in Chevron’s malicious prosecution case against a Massachusetts lawyer on Wednesday.

But while she granted most of the lawyer’s anti-SLAPP motion, U.S. District Judge Claudia Wilken left the door open a crack for Chevron to try to prove one claim that Cristobal Bonifaz maliciously sued the energy giant.

(more…)