Good Day Kossacks.
Today a great study has been published on the online scientific journal PLos One (Public Library of Science) that looks in detail at oil development in the Western Amazon, and it's effects on the region's indigenous peoples and biodiversity.
Ok, I may be prejudiced about it being a great study - as I am one of the authors - but read on because, well, it actually is pretty good, and what's going on in the Western Amazon is alarming.
The Western Amazon - which includes parts of Bolivia, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru and Western Brazil - is one of the most biodiverse areas of the planet. It is also home to a whole bunch of indigenous peoples, including some of the last peoples living in voluntary isolation. What's happening there is a crime.
According to a new study, published today in the open-access journal PLoS ONE, 688,000 sqaure kilometers of the Western Amazon has been leased out for oil and gas development.
Tracking 180 oil and gas projects in the region, the authors of the study - from Save America's Forests, Land is Life and Duke University - put together a map of hydrocarbon concessions in the region.
There is a race on in the Amazon, to see who can get the rights to what's left of the area's oil reserves. China, as well as oil companies from all over the world, are staking their claims. If this race goes on unchecked, we all lose.
"We found that oil and gas blocks overlap perfectly with the most biodiverse parts of the Amazon.." said study co-author Dr. Clinton Jenkins of Duke University.
Not only do they overlap the most biodiverse areas of the Amazon, many blocks also overlap the territories of the region's indigenous peoples, including some of the last peoples living in voluntary isolation. In Peru, for example, there are 64 oil blocks, which cover about 72% of the Peruvian Amazon.
At least 58 of the 64 blocks overlay lands titled to indigenous peoples. Further, 17 blocks overlap areas that have proposed or created reserves for indigenous groups in voluntary isolation.
In Ecuador, the situation is not much better, with over 2/3 of the Ecuadorian Amazon divided up into oil blocks, many of them in territories titled to Kichwa, Waorani, Zapara, Achuar, Shuar and other indigenous peoples.
In Western Brazil and Bolivia less of the Amazon has already been carved up, but oil and gas exploration is increasing rapidly. In Colombia, because of the war, less than 1/10th of the area has been leased.
Oil development is causing widespread contamination and conflict. Biodiversity is disappearing, and the people who depend upon the Amazon forest for their sustenance are drinking contaminated water and finding it harder and harder to get food. They are suffering from cancers and other diseases.
The national representative organizations of indigenous peoples in Ecuador (CONAIE) and the Peruvian Amazon (AIDESEP) have opposed new oil and gas projects, citing the widespread contamination from previous and current oil projects [33–34]. In both countries, local residents and indigenous peoples have taken legal actions against U.S. oil companies for allegedly dumping billions of gallons of toxic waste into the forests [35–37].
Even recent projects, which promised to be done in environmentally friendly way and with the latest technology, are causing massive contamination.
Even the much newer Camisea pipeling, which began operations in the fall of 2004, had five major spills in its first 18 months of operation.
The situation is critical. Most of it is also illegal.
"The way that oil development is being pursued in the Western Amazon is a gross violation of the rights of the indigenous peoples of the region." said Brian Keane of the organization Land is Life, "International agreements and Inter-American human rights law recognize that indigenous peoples have rights to their lands, and explicitly prohibit the granting of concessions to exploit natural resources in their territories without their free, prior and informed consent"."
To make matters worse, some of these oil companies are actively looking to contact the peoples who are living in voluntary isolation. They are taking peoples lives in their hands, as first contacts in the Amazon typically result in the death of about 50% of the contacted people (no resistance to outsiders' diseases, and all in the pursuit of profit.
The big picture
That the Western Amazon remains protected is necessary not only for the survival and continuity of area's indigenous peoples, but also to help maintain global climatic stability.
The region maintains large tracts of intact tropical moist forest and has a high probability of stable climatic conditions in the face of global warming [8].
If development in the region continues in this direction we'll all be feeling it very soon.
So, what can be done?
First, where oil development goes forward there should be no new roads.
"The elimination of new oil access roads could significantly reduce the impacts of most projects" - said Matt Finer, lead author of the study.
Roads means settlers, and settlers burn forest, hunt animals to eat and sell as meat, and they cause hardship and conflict with the indigenous peoples whose lands they occupy.
Second, strict environmental regulations must be put in place (including re-injection of waste water), and projects need to be closely monitored to ensure that pollution is not being dumped into the environment.
Third, as these countries are dependent on oil revenue, the international community must work with the countries and indigenous peoples of the region to come up with and implement alternative development options; options that protect this critical ecosystems. There is one interesting proposal on the table.
Ecuador has proposed an innovative opportunity [66] for the world to share in the responsibiity of protecting the Amazon. In April 2007, the President of Ecuador, Rafael Correa, announced that the government's preferred option for the largest untapped oil reserve, located beneath Ecuador's principal Amazonian national park (Yasuni), is to leave it permanently underground in exchange for compensation from the international community.
This is an interesting proposal, and the international community should look for ways to support it. However, Ecuador says that if they do not get 4 billion dollars they will drill in the area, so I would remind Mr. Correa that this is Waorani territory and there are uncontacted people living in this area. I would also remind him that their rights must be respected, and that he cannot put a price on their survival.
Lastly, and most important, governments and oil companies must recognize and respect the rights of the region's indigenous peoples. You cannot separate cultural diversity and biological diversity. It is no accident that the world's biodiversity hotspots are in areas where indigenous peoples have managed to maintain control of their lands.
The future of the Amazon is in the hands of the indigenous people who have lived there for millennia. Their fates are intertwined.
In my humble opinion, there should be a moratorium on new oil exploration and development in the Amazon until the territories of the indigenous peoples who live there have been legalized and demarcated, and legal mechanisms are set up in each country to ensure that their rights to self-determination and free, prior and informed consent are recognized and respected.
To read the entire study click here (you can also get a pdf version there)