© Rainforest Action Network, 2001
October 24, 2001

San Francisco, CA – At noon today, environmental and human rights activists in San Francisco join their counter parts around the world in protesting the financial backers of a controversial new heavy crude pipeline running from the Ecuadorian Amazon to the refinery town of Esmeraldas on the Pacific Coast. The project threatens dozens of communities and fragile ecosystems along the proposed route and will double the country's oil production from the Amazon region--home to hundreds of isolated indigenous communities and pristine rainforest.

In San Francisco, groups are spotlighting Citibank (Citi), the largest bank in the world and top funder of destructive fossil fuel projects. Activists call upon Citi, a financial backer of the OCP consortium, to use its influence to stop the OCP pipeline and to cease funding of all environmentally and socially destructive projects in endangered ecosystems. "The pipeline affects 11 protected areas in Ecuador and is a threat to endangered species and critical rainforest ecosystems of global significance," said Ilyse Hogue, global finance campaigner for Rainforest Action Network. "We hold Citi responsible for the ecological devastation this project leaves in its wake." International groups are also targeting WestLB, Germany's largest publicly held bank and lead arranger for nearly $900 million in financing for the billion-dollar project. Demonstrations and media events were held today in Los Angeles, Quito, Washington DC, Barcelona, London, Munster, Dusseldorf, Munich, Milan, Zurich, Warsaw, Sydney and Canberra. Groups are urging the investors to walk away from financing this harmful project and instead invest in clean energy alternatives.

Last week, dozens began peaceful blockades to stop construction along a segment through the Mindo Nambillo Cloud Forest Reserve - home to some 450 species of birds. In the city of Esmeraldas where work was halted by the city council for failure to follow environmental regulations, Afro-Ecuadorian communities also protesting the new pipeline that would double the amount of crude processed there. The communities suffer some of the country's highest rates of cancers and skin ailments resulting from the chronic contamination of the adjacent refinery. "We stand in solidarity with the communities in Ecuador resisting this pipeline. After thirty years of oil exploitation, it's strikingly clear that oil has brought ecological, social, and economic ruin," said Kevin Koenig, Oil Campaigner with Amazon Watch. "Oil has trapped the country in a downward spiral of debt and dependency"

Prominent Ecuadorian and international environmental and human rights organizations are calling for the cancellation of the OCP project and a moratorium on all new oil exploration in the country's ecologically and culturally sensitive areas.Press Contacts:

Ilyse Hogue, Rainforest Action Network (415) 398-4404

Kevin Koenig, Amazon Watch (202) 256-9795

Gopal Dayeneni, Project Underground (510) 705-8981 Error: Unable to read footer file.