He worked first in an African palm plantation and later on for an oil company, an experience which he says led him to witness social injustice and environmental degradation first hand.
Various studies have shown that the people in the town have cancer rates 3 times higher than other localities in the country, and Fajardo claimed that this was due to the 1,000 unlined toxic waste pits were built throughout the region.
In 2002, the case was transferred from New York to Ecuador, and in 2003, Fajardo’s legal team filed a new lawsuit against Chevron for the environmental damage to the Amazon.
[5] Chevron ended up liquidating all of its assets in Ecuador over the 20-yearlong litigation, but the corporation has refused to pay the judgement claiming that the decision was “illegitimate and inapplicable”.
[6] Chevron continued to operate in Argentina, Brazil, and Canada, where Fajardo’s team sued to enforce the Ecuadorian court judgement.
In March 2014, a federal judge in the US concluded that Fajardo’s co-counsel, Steven Donzinger, and his team had submitted false evidence in Ecuador.
The UDAPT is the sole organization representing the indigenous people and farmers who started the lawsuit against Chevron, as affirmed by the at-the-time president of the Amazon Defense Coalition, Luis Yanza, and among others.
For this reason, in 2005, the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights of the Organization of American States issued precautionary measures for Fajardo and Luis Yanza in an effort to protect their lives.