ACTION
ALERT
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WORLDWIDE
FOREST/BIODIVERSITY CAMPAIGN NEWS
Ecuador's
Unprotected Protected Areas
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Forest Networking a Project of Forests.org
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1/4/00
OVERVIEW
& COMMENTARY
Oil
activity in Ecuador has been and continues to be a permanent
threat
to protected areas. Please respond to this Action Request about
the
activities of Vintage Oil and the City Investing oil company.
g.b.
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TEXT STARTS HERE:
Title: ECUADOR: Unprotected Protected Areas
Source: CAMPA„A AMAZONIA POR LA VIDA ACCION ECOLOGICA
via Rainforest
Information Centre's web site at
http://forests.org/ric/
Status: Copyright 1999, contact source for
permission to reprint
Date: January 2, 1999
Oil
activity in Ecuador has been, and continues to be, a permanent
threat
to protected areas. Unfortunately, and much against our wishes,
we now
find ourselves obliged to end the old millennium and to begin
the new
with the announcement of two terrible pieces of news related
to oil:
The
first refers to Yasuni National Park and the North American oil
company,
Vintage Oil Ecuador S.A. Vintage is the
inheritor of the
infrastructure
and operations of the French company Elf Aquitaine,
which
transferred its operations and rights to block 14 in October of
this
year, has made its debut with its first oil spill. With this
event
which we can begin to perceive the environmental management
methods
which lie in wait both for this protected area and the peoples
which
live in the surrounding areas. The spill occurred on the 17th of
December
of 1999 due to a break in the pipeline, and polluted a
stretch
of approximately 100 metres of a 10 metres wide stream which
flows
into the Tiputini river. The Tiputini crosses Yasuni National
Park
and later discharges into the Napo river and subsequently into
the
Amazon.
During
its 12 years of operation, Elf made a negative mark on the
zone:
affecting primary forest within the park, and thus making a
mockery
of the idea of a protected area; affecting the hunting area of
the
Huaorani people; building infrastructure and roads which have
become
the gateway to the devastation of the forest, from which timber
such as
Caoba, Cedro and Guayacan is illegally taken for sale in
Colombia.
Game animals such as Monkeys, Armadillos, Danta, and Guanta
also
are taken from the area and sold as meat in the city of Coca.
Elf
operated in this area with polluting technology, did not re-inject
the
formation water and produced frequent spills from the pipelines.
The
same practices are operative today. However, the most paradoxical
and
irrational thing is that besides all this damage, the company
produces
only 4,500 barrels of oil a day (1.5% of national
production).
This implies that for the production to be profitable and
for the
company to stay operational, the Ecuadorian government has to
subsidise
it, as it has been shown to do with all the trans-national
oil
companies. Thus leading to the absurd situation in which the
Ecuadorian
Government is actually subsidising the destruction of the
protected
areas in the country.
The
second piece of news is that this month, the City Investing oil
company
entered the Cuyabeno Animal reserve in order to carry out
seismic
prospecting. This leads us to wonder about the interests or
reasons
which motivated the adoption by the Ministry of the
Environment
of a resolution authorising oil activity in the Reserve
and
Siona ancestral territory. This resolution flies in the face of
the
environmental conservation discourse of the Minster, Yolanda
Kakabadze,
who is also the President of the International Union for
the
Conservation of Nature (IUCN).
The
most astounding part of this is that precisely at the beginning of
the
year, by means of an Presidential decree, the government declared
two
zones within Yasuni National Park and Cuyabeno Animal Reserve to
be off
limits to oil, timber and mining activities in perpetuity. We
ask
ourselves once again, how will it be possible to protect an area
while
at the same time it is being destroyed.?
The
threat to these areas is even greater if we consider the danger
posed
by the much heralded concession of the Ishpingo Tambacocha
Tiputini
project within Yasuni National Park, and the construction of
a new
heavy oil pipeline which will come out of these same areas.
We call
on all people and organisations who receive this message send
letters
demanding that the companies involved, together with the
Ecuadorian
government, stop these events and the threats to protected
areas.
We are attaching a sample letter which you can use.
In
solidarity,
Alexandra
Almeida
CAMPA„A
AMAZONIA POR LA VIDA
ACCION
ECOLOGICA
First
Letter: opposition letter to Chase Manhattan Bank
We have
recently learned of Chase Manhattan Bank's involvement with
the
construction of Heavy Oil Pipeline in Ecuador.
The
undersigned wish to express in the strongest terms their
opposition
to the construction of this new pipeline in Ecuador
because:
1. SOCIAL
& LEGAL ISSUES: The Heavy Oil Pipeline will encounter social
and
legal opposition, as Ecuador has developed specific laws
governing.
If the pipeline is constructed it will be necessary to
increase
national production by 250,000 barrels per day. Oil that will
come
from new concessions located in indigenous territory and
protected
areas. The indigenous people who live
in these territories
have
told the national government of Ecuador, and the oil companies
themselves,
that they will not permit the exploration for, and
exploitation
of oil. They have declared their
territories as
intangible
areas and have made this public both on a national and
international
level.
In
Ecuador, the national government has signed international treaties
such as
Convention 169 of the International Labour Organisation,
Collective
Rights have been enshrined in the Constitution, and
specific
laws have been passed. All of that prohibit the carrying out
of
projects which cause or can affect the environment or our rights.
2.
POLITICAL RISK: to guarantee the operation of the heavy oil
pipeline
it will be necessary to exploit the Ishpingo Tambacocha
Tiputini
(ITT). The ITT has faced significant political risks that
have
caused companies such as Shell and BP to withdraw. The ITT
project
is located in the heart of YasunĄ National Park, which has
been
declared a Biosphere Reserve by UNESCO and which is also part of
the
traditional territory of the Huaorani people.
The
whole world has expressed its opposition to the possible
exploitation
of these oil fields, due to their location in one of the
most
fragile and diverse zones on the planet.
A
number of campaigns have been carried out in defence of YasunĄ
National
Park , for which reason companies which were initially
interested,
such as Shell and BP, have been forced to withdraw. In the
latter
case, BP was obliged to sell the oil projects of ARCO before
the two
companies were merged.
3. NOT
FINANCIALLY VIABLE: It is also necessary to mention that the
Heavy
Oil Pipeline project may NOT be financially viable, because it
relies
on the success of the ITT project, a drilling operation based
on
overestimated oil reserves and facing significant political
opposition.
The
Heavy Oil Pipeline faces significant downside risk associated
with
the environmental and social controversies surrounding the
pipeline
and the ITT project. The undersigned groups strongly oppose
the
Heavy Oil Pipeline and request that Chase Manhattan Bank avoid or
cease
all financial involvement in this project.
SIGNED,
Send
it, please, to the follow addressees:
William
B. Harrison
PRESIDENT
AND CHIEF EXECUTIVE OFFICER
CHASE
MANHATTAN BANK
270
Park Avenue
New
York, NY 10017-2070
Fax:
212-270-1882
And at
the same address:
Walter
Shipley
Chairman
CHASE
MANHATTAN BANK
James
Lee
Vice
Chairman
Global
Investment Banking
CHASE
MANHATTAN BANK
Carter
Booth
Managing
Director
CHASE
MANHATTAN BANK
Dod A.
Fraser
Managing
Director
Corporate
Finance, Global Oil & Gas
CHASE
MANHATTAN BANK
Second
Letter: to Ecuador's Government
Please
use the introductory information above and the points in the
sample
letter to Chase Manhattan to write a courteous letter to the
environment
minister. Send your letter to:
Sra.
Yolanda
Kakabadse
MINISTRA
DEL AMBIENTE
Quito,
Ecuador
Fax:
(593 2) 564 037
With
copy to:
Teodoro
Abdo
MINISTRO
DE ENERGIA Y MINAS
Quito,
Ecuador
Fax:
(593 2) 571228
Source:
Accion Ecologica Wed, 29 Dec 1999
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