Amazon Watch an earlier court's dismissal on the basis of "forum non conveniens." Thus, legal proceedings were started in Ecuador in 2003. Amazon Watch supports the Ecuadorian plaintiffs by publishing a press kit alleging that Chevron (corporate successor to Texaco) should be held accountable for the dumping of of toxic waste water into a region of Ecuador's Amazon rainforest inhabited by more than 30,000 people – purported to be one of the largest oil related contaminations ever, far exceeding that of the Exxon Valdez disaster. A 2011 decision in Ecuador ordered Chevron to pay $9.5 billion. Ecuador's Supreme Court in 2013 affirmed
Indigenous peoples in Ecuador the case left by Texaco and was said to be required to pay 9 billion dollars in damages. This is known to be one of the largest environmental lawsuits award recorded. Ethnic Wage Gap in Ecuador Ecuador has a history of Spanish colonization of indigenous people that were enslaved, abused, and exploited. Eventually the country adapted the French Neo-Lamarck ideology leading to “mestizaje.” This “mestizaje” began in the sixteenth century where white colonizers began to mix with indigenous to “improve” the indigenous race. Ecuador’s historical background has left the country with a very stratified social environment. This is the nucleus