Resisting the Pipeline in Ecuador

resisting the pipeline in ecuador

chronicle of a disaster in the making

ivonne yánez, acción ecológica/foe ecuador

If the Oleoducto de Crudos Pesados (OCP) proceeds as planned, an international consortium will build a heavy crude pipeline from East to West through Ecuador. Not only will it endanger populations and water supplies, it will also violate protected nature reserves, including Mindo, site of the highest bird densities in the South America. FoE Ecuador/Acción Ecológica is intensifying its resistance against the project, and challenging the pipeline proponents' mounting efforts to silence opposition.

ecuadorians familiar with pipeline fallout
Oil pipeline construction has severe negative consequences for natural areas. Deforestation, subsequent loss of biodiversity and interrupted water flow are well-known pipeline impacts which, in turn, affect agriculture and produce social conflict.

Ecuador rests on thousands of fault lines and has abundant volcanoes. This makes it difficult to map a secure route for pipelines. Oil leaks and spills from a pipeline built 30 years ago by Texaco, called the SOTE (the Spanish acronym for Trans-Ecuadorian Pipeline System), have contaminated rivers, especially in the Andes. This contamination has threatened food security. Leaks, fires and explosions from pipelines are not just theoretical risks in Ecuador -- they are part of daily life. Poor planning and management of the SOTE has contributed to its collapse on several occasions, causing fires with human casualties.

through paradise, through cities too
The new 500-kilometre pipeline the Ecuadorian government has granted OCP Limited a license to build will cross the country from East to West. On the way, it will pass through 11 protected areas and almost 40 populated areas, including several cities. A part of the pipeline will pass through an area with many elementary and high schools, endangering children and youth. It will transport heavy crude, most of it from Yasuní National Park, a UNESCO International Biosphere Reserve and home to the Huaorani indigenous people. Building the OCP will mean opening up Amazon forest in southern Ecuador, including the territories of indigenous groups such as the Quichua, Shuar and Achuar.

volcanic & vulnerable route
The pipeline will pass over almost one hundred geologically-active fault lines and several active volcanoes, including Reventador, Antisana, the Chacama volcanic complex, Guagua Pichincha and Pululahua. Guagua Pichincha's recent eruptions make this route especially worrisome. A violent eruption could expose the pipeline to ash, mudslides and fire.

The planned pipeline will pass through almost all of Ecuador's ecological niches, including regions of high rainfall, and soils vulnerable to erosion and frequent mudslides. It will go through fragile areas of extreme ecological and agricultural importance, including the headwaters of rivers and streams, high-quality agricultural areas and primary tropical rainforest.

“bird capital of world” to be affected
The route will pass through the Mindo valley, considered by avid bird watchers to be the world's bird capital because it contains the highest concentration of birds in South America. The pipeline will also damage important faunal corridors there. The local people of this area, who live off tourism and livestock, will find both of these activities seriously affected by the pipeline's construction and future function.

The pipeline's proximity to Colombia is another risk factor. Colombian pipelines have sustained more than 760 attacks in the last 10 years. Ecuador's participation in Plan Colombia and the increase of violence in this country could make the pipeline an important target. Ecuador's SOTE pipeline has sustained four attacks in the past year.

the usual suspects
OCP Ecuador is a consortium of the following transnationals: Agip, Alberta, Occidental, REPSOL/YPF, Perez Companc and Techint. Kerr McGee was part of the consortium until earlier this year. The Argentinean company Techint will construct the pipeline at a cost of more than US$1.1 billion. Most of the pipeline's financing is coming from a banking consortium headed by the German bank West LB, whose principle owner is the North Rhine-Westphalia state government.

no assessment, no consultation
The route for the pipeline was approved without any environmental impact study, and the process completely ignored Ecuador's national Environmental Law. No consultation took place with the people to be affected by its construction, even though Ecuador's constitution demands such a process. It was only after the project's approval that the consulting agency ENTRIX studied the environmental impacts of the pipeline's 500-kilometre route through extremely complex ecosystems, and they completed their work in only two months.

campaign uses every strategy
For almost a year, Acción Ecológica/FoE Ecuador has been supporting communities along the pipeline route, including the indigenous communities of the Ecuadorian Amazon who oppose the pipeline's construction. The campaign has worked locally, nationally and internationally and collaborated with numerous organizations. However, from the start, OCP opponents have been the targets of accusations and threats from the consortium authorities.

One important campaign strategy has focused on halting West LB's financing. This bank's decision to finance the OCP consortium was made with the understanding that the project would follow World Bank guidelines . However, several independent reports and a communiqué from the World Bank indicate that this has not been the case.

The FoE Ecuador campaign has also consisted of workshops in communities, publications, media outreach, international missions, direct action -- any tactic of possible assistance to the communities. Local populations have protested by carrying out provincial strikes and by occupying machinery. The campaign has received considerable media attention, with almost 100 articles in the press and dozens of interviews on television and radio. Despite all this, pipeline plans continue on their pre-established route.

tree action ends in arrests, charges
In a bid to stop the pipeline, a group of young people took over the Guarumos forest in Mindo on 2 January 2002. Attaching themselves to trees, they made their homes in the canopy to stop the pipeline construction. This “Tree Action” had enormous support from numerous regions of Ecuador, and internationally as well.

The occupation lasted almost two months, until the OCP secured a court order to have the activists detained. Twenty of the activists were then removed from the site and illegally detained. The 14 foreigners among them were immediately deported. After a long battle, the remaining detainees were granted an Habeas Corpus and allowed to go free. However, several of them still face legal penalties, accused of sabotage and destruction of private property. Not only was the detainment illegal, but these alleged crimes have no basis in fact, nor any legal substance.

The OCP is using all its power to derail rising opposition to the pipeline's construction. Many of those taking part in the OCP resistance have been threatened by pipeline authorities. The Ecuadorian government is complicit in these human rights violations.

research to aid resistance
Acción Ecológica/FoE Ecuador has commissioned a study on the environmental and social impacts suffered to date in the OCP's construction. The study covers the more than 120 kilometres of the route over which pipeline construction has already begun. It demonstrates that the OCP construction is threatening the environment and the rights of populations along its route, and that the construction does not comply with the norms stipulated in the environmental impact study.

The study has already been presented to the Fiscal Commission of the National Congress of Ecuador. But it will also be used to reinforce our campaign at the national and international levels, by aiding in our quest for new partners to detain the pipeline's construction, and to protest and cancel West LB's financing. The study will further be used as evidence when affected populations testify before judges against the OCP consortium and the West LB Bank in Germany, for damage done to Ecuador's lands and natural resources.

More information: amazonia@accionecologica.org