History Repeats Itself in the Brazilian Amazon

history repeats itself in the brazilian amazon

dangerous plans for petrobas pipeline

andré muggiati, foe brazilian amazon


Plans for a new pipeline through the Brazilian Amazon will feed energy to a city, and benefit a fast-growing US-based power generation company. But if past history is any lesson, the pipeline's route through one of Brazil's most pristine wilderness areas will provoke deforestation and ravage indigenous peoples' resources and social fabric. Polluted water, poisoned fish and child prostitution are just part of this story.

petrobas company to profit
Petrobas is a government-owned company with plans to build a 550-kilometre gas pipeline through the Brazilian Amazon, 700 kilometres from Manaus. Part of a plan to increase production of the Urucu oil and gas reserves, the pipeline will transport natural gas to electricity generating plants in Rondonia state. The Houston, USA-based international energy company El Paso is majority shareholder of the generating plants. El Paso already controls more than 76 percent of the electricity generated in Amazonas state, and is becoming a leader in Rondonia's energy production too. El Paso is also a shareholder of the planned pipeline.

earlier pipeline's disastrous impact
In 1998, Petrobras constructed the first phase of the gas pipeline, to link the Urucu reserve to the city of Coari.

Along its 280 kilometre trajectory, the pipeline has had a disastrous impact on local communities and the forest. Some communities had their water polluted. Fish, their main economic resource, vanished. The city of Coari became a centre for child prostitution.

Other major infrastructure projects have had similar negative impacts. The Juma indigenous people were devastated by the construction of the Transamazonica highway in the 1970s, for example. Now there are only seven survivors of this ethnic group.

huge, risky and little-known project
This new pipeline project is one of the twenty largest infrastructural projects in the country. It is also one of the riskiest and least publicized schemes of the Avança Brasil (Advance Brazil) programme.

One of two planned extensions, the pipeline would link Urucu and Porto Velho, the capital of Rondonia state. Rondonia has been subject to intense colonization since the 1970s. It is one of the most devastated regions in the Brazilian Amazon, and large portions of forest have been replaced by pasture.

The gas pipeline could open the door to loggers, miners, farmers and agriculturalists from Rondonia to intact areas in the south-western Amazon. This could deforest one of the Amazon's most preserved sites, inhabited by extremely isolated and vulnerable indigenous groups such as the Apurinã, Paumari, Deni and Juma.

By opening up this fragile region to colonization, Petrobas could inaugurate a new decade of destruction in Amazonia, the likes of which have not been seen since the Transamazonica highway was built.

environmental licensing sought
This new pipeline project is now undergoing environmental licensing by Ibama, Brazil's environmental authority.

The Environmental Impact Study presented by Petrobas has been criticized by NGOs, led by Friends of the Earth Brazilian Amazon. The company undertook only two field campaigns over 27 days to complete the study. This was clearly not enough time to accurately describe the 550 kilometres to be crossed. Some indigenous groups who may be affected were not even visited. Some potential impacts were simply denied by the company, or underplayed in an effort to avoid dealing with them.

During public meetings about the project held in January and February 2002, local riverine populations and indigenous groups in the six affected municipalities had a strong negative reaction to the plans of Petrobas. One criticism was the lack of adequate studies of alternatives to the pipeline for Porto Velho's energy needs.

en route people – no gains, only losses
It was also made clear that this type of development benefits the big cities of the region, but not the people on the pipeline route. For them, there are only the drawbacks, the likes of which have been amply demonstrated by previous mega projects.