paradise thrashed
peru's camisea project
corporates: halliburton [usa], hunt oil
[usa], pluspetrol [argentina]
“In the past, Shell worked here and
almost all of us died from the diseases.
[...] We know that if another company comes
here, our rivers and land will be
destroyed. The rivers will be polluted, the
fish will die and the animals will run
away. Minister, we ask you, what will we
eat when the rivers are dead and the
animals have run away? [...] We do not want
companies working here, we wan clean water
and a quiet and peaceful life
.”
Delegation of Nahua indigenous people to
the Peruvian government, from a November
2003 Amazon Watch press release.
A
traditional elder from the Shivankoreni
indigenous community, Peru.
Peru's Camisea gas project is currently
the most damaging project in the Amazon
Basin. Located in the remote Urubamba
Valley in the southeast Peruvian Amazon,
the US$1.6 billion project includes two
pipelines to the Peruvian coast that cut
through an Amazon biodiversity hotspot
considered by ecologists as “the last place
on earth” to drill for fossil fuels. Nearly
75 percent of the gas extraction operations
are located inside a state reserve for
indigenous peoples – living with little or
no contact to the outside world – who have
been forcibly contacted by the Camisea
consortia in violation of their
internationally recognized rights. The
pipeline will also cut through one of the
world’s most pristine tropical rainforests,
home to the Nahua, Kirineri, Nanti,
Machiguenga and Yine indigenous peoples. A
gas processing plant is being built on the
Peruvian coast within the buffer zone of a
marine reserve of international
significance.
The two major US companies involved in
the project are Halliburton and Hunt Oil,
both of which have longstanding ties to the
Bush- Cheney administration. For the final
phase of the project, Halliburton is in
line to build the gas processing plant, and
Texas-based Hunt Oil will construct a plant
to liquefy natural gas for export to the
United States. Half of Camisea's gas will
be shipped to the US to supply West Coast
energy markets. This flood of cheap gas
could undermine California's renewable
energy initiatives.
Awarding a concession for the project
was a prerequisite for Peru to receive
loans in the 1990s from the International
Monetary Fund. Now, the project is racing
forward to meet its August 2004 deadline
for completion. Led by Argentina’s
PlusPetrol, inexperienced companies with
poor environmental records have plowed
ahead with construction, showing neither
the will nor the ability to avoid the
serious environmental and social impacts
now affecting the entire local population.
Government oversight is weak, and project
financiers seem unable and unwilling to
implement international standards to stop
the devastation.
criticizing camisea
In a major campaign victory, the US
Export- Import Bank rejected financing for
the project in August 2003, marking the
first time that a project has ever been
turned down by Ex-Im’s Board of Directors
on environmental grounds. But just days
later, a loan from the Inter- American
Development Bank (IDB) went through,
despite the project’s failure to meet
international standards, to avoid lands of
uncontacted indigenous peoples and to
remove the proposed export terminal from
the Ramsar-protected Paracas Marine
Reserve. Along with the Export-Import Bank,
the Overseas Private Investment
Corporation’s refusal to fund Camisea and
Citigroup’s recent withdrawal as financial
advisor are further indications that the
project is financially, environmentally and
socially risky. There are already reports
that the project has caused massive erosion
and pollution and has made use of divisive
community relations tactics. International
environmental expert Dr. Robert Goodland
has suggested an investigation into
allegations that contact initiated by the
project is causing harm to isolated
indigenous groups, who lack immunity to
common respiratory and gastrointestinal
diseases.
Camisea has attracted widespread
critique, and celebrities and activists
including Sting and Bianca Jagger have
publicly taken part in the campaign to stop
public financing. Civil society will
continue to monitor the project, as well as
future attempts at development in this
pristine part of the world.
more information:
us
export-import bank
rejects camisea gas
project
press
release
: Inter-American Development
Bank blasted for backing risky Camisea
Project in Peru, rainforests, indigenous
lives and marine reserves at stake
Friends of the Earth United States:
www.foe.org/camps/intl/eca/top5.html#1
Amazon Watch:
www.amazonwatch.org/amazon/PE/camisea
Bank Information Center:
www.bicusa.org
