Indigenous Achuar From the Peruvian Amazon Face Off Against Occidental Petroleum Over Destruction of Pristine Rainforest, as Reported by Amazon Watch

LOS ANGELES, March 3 /PRNewswire/ -- A key hearing was held this morning in the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals in the landmark environmental and public health case brought by indigenous Peruvian Achuar and the U.S. NGO Amazon Watch against Los Angeles-based oil giant Occidental Petroleum (OXY). The appeals court's decision will likely determine whether OXY will have to defend its 30 year-old legacy of massive pollution in the northeastern Peruvian Amazon inside a Los Angeles courtroom, just miles from its world headquarters, or whether the case will move to Peru.

Whatever the outcome of this hearing today, "The plaintiffs are fully prepared to litigate this case, here in the U.S., or in Peru, and OXY will be held liable for their decades of toxic contamination and for causing the Achuar people so much harm and suffering," said Lily la Torre, Peruvian indigenous rights lawyer and the Achuar's legal advisor.

The case concerns OXY's environmental practices in the Corrientes River Basin in northern Peru. During its operations, which began in the early 1970s, OXY discharged billions of barrels of untreated wastewater into local streams, caused numerous spills and abandoned many un-remediated toxic waste sites in Achuar territory, leading to an epidemic of lead and cadmium poisoning and other ill effects on the lives and livelihoods of the indigenous people.

The Achuar case, Maynas Carijano v. Occidental Petroleum, No. CV-07-5068, was filed in May 2007.  In April of 2008, Judge Philip Gutierrez of the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California ruled that the case is more appropriately heard in Peru under the legal doctrine of forum non conveniens.  The plaintiffs and their counsel, including EarthRights International, the Venice firm Schonbrun, DeSimone, Seplow, Harris & Hoffman LLP and San Francisco lawyer Natalie Bridgeman, argued the appeal of the District Court's decision today in the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals. A Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals decision is likely to be issued in late 2010 or 2011.

SOURCE Amazon Watch