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22 may 2001
help save ecuador's last remaining amazon
jungles
Support foe's campaign against the
construction of a heavy crude oil
pipeline
The Ecuadorian Government has approved the
OCP consortium's bid for the construction of
a pipeline that will cross over the country
from East to West, seriously affecting areas
of high environmental fragility and of great
ecological and agricultural importance for
the country.
This 500 kilometre pipeline will be used
for the transportation of bad quality heavy
crude oil. The majority of the transported
crude will come from the YasunÌ National
Park, from the last petroleum block that the
oil industry has not yet bid for. Thus it is
the last unspoilt corner of the most
important National Park in Continental
Ecuador, which is in turn the home of the
Huaorani tribe.
Additionally, it will expand the petroleum
frontier in the Amazon forests in South
Ecuador, which until now have had little
disturbance from the outside, in the Quichua,
Shuar and Achuar indigenous territories.
OCP Ecuador is a partnership formed by
AGIP, Alberta, Kerr McGee, Occidental, YPF,
Perez Company and Techint. The constructing
company will be the Argentinean company
Techint, which has a abominable environmental
history. The cost is higher than US$1
billion. According to various sources, this
price is overvalued as the price of the same
pipeline in 1999 was US$400 million. The
difference in price - on a long term basis -
will be paid by the country.
The pipeline route was approved without an
environmental impact study, as is required by
the country's Environmental Management Law.
There was also no consultation process with
the affected people, as required by the
national Constitution. After the project was
approved, the consultancy firm ENTRIX had
only two months to fulfill an environmental
impact assessment on a route that will pass
through extremely complex ecosystems.
The pipeline goes across all of Ecuador's
fault lines, a total of 94 , and various
active volcanoes are in the route, including
the Reventador, Antisana, Complejo Volcanico
of Chacama, Guagua Pichincha and Pululahua.
Of special concern at the present time is the
Guagua Pichincha, which recently entered a
process of eruption. A violent eruption will
risk exposure of the pipeline to ashes,
landslide and pyroplastic material.
The route of the pipeline goes across
vulnerable lands with danger of erosion; in
regions of high rainfall with frequent
landslides . A section of the pipeline
crosses over an area of fragile lands with a
high concentration of schools, putting
children at risk.
The pipeline will also pass through other
fragile areas of great ecological importance,
cutting through areas where streams and
rivers begin, top-quality agricultural areas,
places with unsteady lands and seismic
activity, primary tropical forests, and so
forth. Almost 40 towns will be affected by
the pipeline.
The proposed pipeline route also cuts
through the Mindo Valley, which many
ornithologists consider as the capital of the
bird world as it is an area that has the
greatest concentration of birds in South
America. The pipeline will destroy important
faunal corridors, affecting local fauna.
Local people depend on subsistence income
from livestock and tourism, and both
activities will be seriously affected by the
construction and future functioning of the
pipeline.
The pipeline also goes through other
protected areas and parks that prevent
erosion in the Andean foothills.
The proximity of Colombia adds an
additional risk to the OCP, considering that
more than 760 threats to this country's
pipeline have occurred over the last 10
years. With the participation of Ecuador in
Plan Colombia and the worsening of violence
in that country, the pipeline could
constitute an important military target. In
fact, during the last year four threats to
the Trans-Ecuadorean Pipeline System - SOTE -
have occurred.
Ecuador has suffered the impacts of poorly
planned pipelines such as SOTE, built 30
years ago by Texaco, which has collapsed
several times, causing deaths due to fires
along its route.
AcciÛn EcolÛgica/FoE Ecuador has promoted
the moratorium to the expansion of the
petroleum frontier in the tropics for several
years, and the crude oil that will be
transported by this pipeline will be
extracted from the last bastion of virgin
Amazonian tropical rainforest in Ecuador.
We call the upon people and organizations
that believe that the Amazon should survive
to support this campaign against the
construction of this pipeline, and the
expansion of the last virgin jungles of the
Ecuadorean Amazonia.
Support this campaign!.
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