Bolivia-Brazil Gas Line Draws Protests; Nature Groups Cite US Role
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Title: Gas line draws protests; Nature groups cite U.S. role
Source: The Miami Herald
Status: Copyright 2000, contact source for permission to reprint
Date: January 3, 2000
Byline: JIMMY LANGMAN
SANTA CRUZ, Bolivia -- In violation of Clinton administration
policies, U.S. taxpayer dollars are being used to finance a gas
pipeline through a globally rare forest ecosystem, environmental
groups say.
U.S. energy giants Enron and Shell, along with the Bolivian
consortium Transredes, are scurrying to complete the 243-mile
pipeline, which will extend from an existing gas pipeline near this
city in eastern Bolivia to Cuiaba, Brazil.
To lay the underground pipeline, the companies have dug a 90-foot-
wide trench through the Chiquitano dry forest, listed among the
Earth's 200 most sensitive eco-regions, and are digging through the
Pantanal wetlands of Brazil, one of the world's richest wildlife
habitats.
The $570 million Cuiaba Integrated Energy Project is set to be
completed by March, financed in part by a $200 million loan from the
Overseas Private Investment Corp., a U.S. government agency that
helps U.S. companies with business projects in less-developed
countries.
Many environmental groups are claiming, however, that approval of the
loan violated the investment agency's own regulations, which bar it
from financing ``infrastructure projects in primary tropical
forests.''
``OPIC is doing just what the U.S. government pledged it would no
longer do,'' said Jon Sohn, an international policy analyst at
Friends of the Earth.
The World Wildlife Fund, in an Oct. 1 letter to Vice President Al
Gore, called for the U.S. government to withdraw financing by the
Overseas Private Investment Corp., urging that he ``work to ensure
that taxpayers dollars are not used to support this project.''
PROBE SOUGHT
Friends of the Earth, Amazon Watch and other U.S. environmental
groups are also seeking a congressional investigation into the
investment agency's handling of the Cuiaba pipeline project.
An environmental assessment carried out in May by the World Wildlife
Fund, the Missouri Botanical Garden, the Wildlife Conservation
Society, Noel Kempff Museum and Bolivian environmental group Friends
of Nature said the Chiquitano forest is a primary tropical ecosystem
of global importance.
Scientists say the 15-million-acre forest in eastern Bolivia is the
last large and intact tropical dry forest in the world. The World
Wildlife Fund calls it ``one of the richest, rarest and most
biologically outstanding habitats on Earth.''
The assessment also said the pipeline will be tantamount to a
superhighway -- providing access to the forest for loggers, hunters,
colonizers, farmers and cattle ranchers as well as increasing the
danger of forest fires.
Enron, Shell, Transredes and the Overseas Private Investment Corp.
rejected a recommendation from the environmental groups that they
reroute the pipeline around the forest. They argue that the area
crossed by the pipeline is not a primary forest and that the pipeline
will not have a negative impact.
`MOST FEASIBLE ROUTE'
``This route is very good and has the least impact on the Chiquitano
and Pantanal. This is the most feasible route,'' said Eduardo Jose
Cordi, director of operations for Gas Oriente Boliviano, the company
set up to manage the Cuiaba pipeline.
Larry Spinelli, communications director of the Overseas Private
Investment Corp., said, ``There is evidence of human intervention
around the section of the forest containing the pipeline.''
But according to Jon Sohn of the Friends of the Earth, ``Saying the
Chiquitano dry forest isn't a tropical primary forest is like saying
the Earth is flat.''
Patricia Caffrey, director of World Wildlife Fund-Bolivia, said 90
percent of the Chiquitano forest has had little intervention and that
the investment agency and the companies did not consider secondary
impacts on the entire forest and wetlands. She says they chose their
route using economic criteria.
``We know their decision did not take into account environmental or
social criteria. They took the cheapest route -- a straight line,''
said Caffrey.
Nevertheless, in a controversial move that has sharply divided
environmentalists, the five organizations that produced the
independent assessment have signed an agreement in which they
withdrew opposition to the pipeline route -- and to financing by the
U.S. investment agency -- in exchange for $20 million for
conservation projects in the forest.
MANAGEMENT GROUP
A new organization, the Chiquitano Forest Conservation Program, has
been set up to spend the money. The group's board of directors is
made up of representatives of the participating energy companies and
the environmental groups that produced the independent assessment.
The agreement has re-fueled opposition. The World Wildlife Fund has
since withdrawn from the agreement, citing concerns over conflict of
interest and a lack of local control in the forest conservation
program. Bolivian environmental and indigenous groups not party to
the settlement remain opposed to the pipeline route. They also charge
that numerous violations of Bolivian environmental and indigenous
laws have occurred during the current construction.
The critics include Neisa Roca, Bolivia's minister of environment and
natural resources, who said she has sent two letters of complaint to
the Overseas Private Investment Corp. since July but has received no
reply.
``They did their business among themselves. They are going to use the
land to put the pipe in. They are going to see that the environment
will not be hurt. They are judge and jury,'' said Roca.
``This is my country. Those are my natural resources, and I am in
charge of them. And now we are going to give responsibility to third
persons?''