Through community dialogue, the Green Heart Project responds to needs of groups that face risks due to petroleum contamination exposure such as cancer, birth defects, and miscarriages. In 1993 as a response to the devastating social and environmental effects, residents of the Sucumbios region of Ecuador united to form what is known as the Union of People Affected by Chevron-Texaco (UDAPT). They represent over 30,000 locals fighting for justice, jobs, health, and a livable environment throughout the affected region. UDAPT created the first Environmental Reparation Committee (ERC) to implement capacity building programs for community leaders to thoroughly respond to historical pollution and ongoing pollution.

The first assembly brought over 80 people out of their villages and communities to unite as the first Environmental Reparations Committee (ERC) in the Sucumbios province of the Ecuadorian Amazon, where decades of petroleum contamination has detrimentally impacted the health of local ecosystem and communities. Indigenous chiefs and colonial farmers collaborated for the first time with a team of bioremediation specialists and educators to discuss:

• Introduction to responsible remediation technologies and methods and their applicability to dealing with oil contamination in Sucumbios, Ecuador
• Types of contamination in water and soil and their environmental and human health impacts in communities
• Traditional eco-knowledge for environmental monitoring and bioremediation
• Using field tools for soil and water analysis without the needs of laboratories
• The voting of ecological remediation curriculum for UDAPT and the larger community