A court in Ecuador has fined US oil giant Chevron $8.6bn (£5.3bn) for polluting a large part of the country’s Amazon region.

The oil firm Texaco, which merged with Chevron in 2001, was accused of dumping billions of gallons of toxic materials into unlined pits and Amazon rivers.

Campaigners say crops were damaged and farm animals killed, and that local cancer rates increased.

Condemning the ruling as fraudulent, Chevron said it would appeal.

The company will also have to pay a 10% legally mandated reparations fee, bringing the total penalty to $9.5bn (£5.9bn).

Pablo Fajardo, lawyer for the plaintiffs, described the court ruling as ‘a triumph of justice over Chevron’s crime and economic power’.

‘This is an important step but we’re going to appeal this sentence because we think that the damages awarded are not enough considering the environmental damage caused by Chevron here in Ecuador,’ he told the BBC World Service.

A Chevron statement said the firm would appeal, and called the ruling ‘illegitimate and unenforceable’.

The lawsuit was brought on behalf of 30,000 Ecuadoreans, in a case which dragged on for nearly two decades.
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The plaintiffs said the company’s activities had destroyed large areas of rainforest and also led to an increased risk of cancer […]