雅思阅读材料：Chevron's dirty fight in Ecuador_雅思英语阅读

雅思阅读材料：Chevron's dirty fight in Ecuador

　　During almost 30 subsequent years of exploration, billions of gallons of waste oil and water were dumped into open pits, fouling fishing grounds, damaging crops, killing farm animals and leading to an increase in cancer cases among residents of villages in the region. So severe was the damage that the fallout has been widely described as the Amazons Chernobyl. Experts appointed by the Ecuadorean courts have calculated that the pollution from the oil wells killed at least 1,400 people.

　　When Texaco pulled out of the country, in 1992, it agreed to spend roughly $40m cleaning up some of the damage. Shortly afterwards, the first version of the current lawsuit was filed against Texaco in New York by lawyers representing 47 named residents of the region.

　　In 2001, Texaco was bought by California-based Chevron, which became Americas second-biggest oil firm but inherited the still-ongoing lawsuit in the process. In 2003, its lawyers successfully argued that the case should be heard in Ecuador. It has taken almost eight years for it to come to court. In that time, the fate of the 47 plaintiffs, who are seeking damages for 30,000 fellow members of their community, has become an international cause clbre, gaining the support of Hollywood stars such as Darryl Hannah. The lawyer who represents the residents, Pablo Fajardo, won the Goldman Environmental Prize in 2008 for his work on the case.

　　Mr Fajardo called Mondays 188-page ruling, which will roughly double the ￡5.75bn fine if Chevron does not admit wrongdoing in the next 14 days, a triumph of justice, saying he was only disappointed that the level of damages wasnt higher. Todays judgment affirms what the plaintiffs have contended for the past 18 years about Chevrons intentional and unlawful contamination of Ecuadors rainforest, he added. Rather than accept that responsibility, Chevron has launched a campaign of warfare against the Ecuadorean courts and the impoverished victims of its unfortunate practices.