Update on Ecuadorian Oil Crisis

If you are reading this you have probably read my first blog post. If not HERE is a link to it you should read it to get background info on the topic. My previous blog post talked about four major things.  I first talked about how the geography of Ecuador and how it affects its economy. I also focused on how important oil is to the Ecuadorian economy. Once that topic was established, I connected it to how oil companies were leaving the country in shambles as they left.

After I did my first piece on this topic, I felt even more compelled to study and explore this topic. To achieve learning more about the Ecuadorian oil crisis I did two things. The first was fully watch and annotate the 2009 documentary “Crudo”. If you do not know, “Crudo” is a documentary that follows an Ecuadorian lawyer named Pablo Fajardo, fighting against oil companies such a Chevron. This documentary showed me two points of view of the fight against oil companies in Ecuador. I got to see the legal perspective from Pablo. He showed us how he interviewed hundreds of people to get the case as strong as possible. On top of this, he documented him and an Ecuadorian native preparing to go to court in New York.

                                        Here  is a photo of Pablo Fajardo testifiing aginst Chevron

The next perspective I got to see this wonderful documentary was the native perspective. Hearing from real people that were living in the Ecuadorian Amazon really puts everything into perspective. The stories that were told on camera where heart-wrenching. The sad thing is the people that were interviewed are most likely dead now, due to cancer and other complications caused by the oils toxins.

  Here is a Crudo add

I also learned an amazing fact from this documentary. I found out that the 18 million gallons spilled in oil spilled in Ecuador is actually bigger  than the Exxon Valdes Spill which was 11   million gallons. Putting all the oil spilled in Ecuador as the second largest oil based catastrophes when compared to US oils spills, and around the 15th biggest oil catastrophe in the entire world. Now, remember every other oil spill on this list happened in a matter of days and was eventually cleaned up. The oil spilling in Ecuador has been spiling for 30 years and there has been barely any plans to clean up the mess.

                       Here   is a photo of the Exxon Valdes spill                           

Once the sheer size of this was brought to my attention I knew what my original research had to be. I decided to interview my Grandfather who is an Ecuadorian native.  He was the best candidate because he is actually in Ecuador and I would be able to see the state of this crisis in 2018. The interview with my grandfather was wonderful. I was able to learn some new ideas from this interview. I have decided to share the most important quote from the interview  “We do need fundamental reforms immediately...We are all waiting for this president, that is backed by most of the country to make decisions that are beneficial to this Country.”. I feel like this summarizes many peoples feeling in Ecuador.

Once I strengthened my knowledge about the Oil Crisis, I had to find what my agent of change project could be. After some thinking, I decided that I might do a screening of “Crudo”. I will get in contact with the Crudo organization and see if they accept donations. If so I will sell tickets for a small amount of money and all proceeds will go to the fund. I have decided that a screening of the documentary would help bring attention to the Oil spills.

I hope you have enjoyed reading my post and that you learned something. HERE  is the link to my annotated bibliography