Central America & the Caribbean

Pablo Fajardo is the David to the oil Goliath Chevron Texaco. He represents about 30,000 Ecuadorians in a class action suit trying to clean up the oily mess in their part of the Amazon. The case, filed in 1993, goes back as far as 1964, when the U.S. company Texaco began oil exploration there. The suit alleges that Texaco dumped 18.5 billion gallons of 'produced water' -- which can contain dissolved inorganic salts, dispersed oil droplets and dissolved oil; treatment and workover chemicals; dissolved gases, particularly hydrogen sulfide and carbon dioxide; and bacteria and other living organisms.

"The island of Bonaire is somewhat of an anomaly in the Caribbean due to its remarkably preserved coral reefs."