Financial Times – An Amazonian publicity battle

In 2003, Silvia Garrigo, then a US lawyer for Chevron, was preparing to go into the Ecuadorian rainforest to collect soil samples for testing. She was accompanied by plaintiffs accusing the US’s second biggest oil company of having left a swathe of environmental destruction when it left the country in 1992.

“The plaintiffs’ entire technical team showed up in moon suits, with gas masks, put up red tape and said it was a dangerous zone,’’ recalls Ms Garrigo, now Chevron’s manager for global issues and policy.