Cousteau’s Granddaughter visited Amazonian contaminated areas
The granddaughter of the French oceanographer and explorer Jacques Cousteau, Alexandra, visited yesterday the Aguarico 4, in the province of Sucumbios, in Ecuador, to verify the contamination of the forest due to the operations of U.S. oil company Chevron because remediation plans were not executed before its departure.
Several communities of the Amazon in Ecuador sued Chevron for environmental damages and won a judgment of $9,500 million that the company refuses to pay and, on the contrary, has sued the Indigenous people of the Amazon and their lawyers, accusing them of extortion and involving the current government, so in response, the State initiated the campaign “the dirty hand of Chevron”, which includes bringing world figures to ascertain environmental damage.
Cousteau was impressed by the site contamination. “I’ve never seen anything like this,” said the environmental activist and commented about the case of the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, caused by the British Petroleum Company, and said that was not like the Ecuadorian situation. “Here I find it more difficult to remedy and restore nature and good health yo the communities.”
The campaign “The dirty hand of Chevron,” have joined the actor Danny Glover, the oil expert Antonia Juhasz, and the mayor of Richmond (California), Gayle McLaughlin.
“I will do everything I can to support them in their efforts to reclaim that piece of Ecuador,” said Cousteau.