Chapter 5 inquires how the rainforests of Ecuador turned into a profoundly contaminated landscape between the 1970s and 1990s. Recurrent oil spills, discharges of toxic water into rivers, the burning of crude oil and of natural gas, and the use of simple earthen waste pits all contributed to a toxic metamorphosis of the Amazon region. An analysis of Texaco’s internal communication about environmental contamination from 1972 to 1980 gives insights into the intentionality of the company’s handling of hazardous waste. The toxic metamorphosis was the result of practices of externalization in the production and disposal of hazardous waste in the Ecuadorean oil industry. This chapter develops the concept of the toxic ghost acre as a mechanism of the externalization of costs onto the environment and the public health of local populations. The notion of toxic ghost acreage is useful to uncover the transnational and socio-ecological dynamics that turned the Amazon into a cheap sink for hazardous waste. The chapter ends by shedding light on the perpetuation of the toxic ghost acres in Ecuador through Texaco’s insufficient remediation programs in the 1990s.

Chapter 3 argues that the metamorphosis of the Ecuadorean Amazon started with the successful exploration activities by Texaco between the 1960s and 1980s. Starting from the assumption that oil as a resource does not simply exist out there awaiting its extraction but is the result of a process of social construction, the chapter explores how discourses, policies, technologies, and material infrastructures intersected to transform the Amazon into a “resource environment.” This involved a process of making sense of, systematizing, and appropriating nature – both physically and mentally. The combination of exploration technologies with geophysical knowledge and indigenous guides enabled Texaco to locate oil reserves in its concession area. Exploration changed forever how the region was perceived: the Amazon was reduced to the prospect of oil through different processes of abstraction, such as the issuing of concessions. These early confrontations of the oil business with the rainforest also caused temporary and long-term environmental impacts beyond the conceptual metamorphosis of the Amazon.