Amazon Watch supports lowland indigenous organizations in their struggle to defend their land and cultures from the expansion of Bolivia's gas pipeline network. After recent discoveries of huge Bolivian gas fields, ambitious plans are in progress to export gas to U.S. West Coast markets that could undermine California's clean energy programs for decades to come.

Years of gas development have brought little economic gain to Bolivia's forest communities who bear the grievous social and environmental costs of gas operations. Now the scramble for profits from the new gas bonanza is driving energy giants such as BP, Enron and Shell to embark on massive new pipeline projects with little thought for the well-being of the nation's poorest peoples.

Mega projects we are monitoring:

• The Expansion of Bolivia's Gas Pipeline Network (April 2002)
  Amazon Watch is monitoring new gas pipeline projects such as the massive Pacific LNG project to export gas to the United States via a pipeline from Bolivia to a coastal port in either Chile or Peru. Amazon Watch continues to fight the use of U.S. taxpayer dollars to finance Bolivian gas expansion projects that jeopardize fragile forest ecosystems and indigenous communities.    more »
  
  
• Enron / Shell Cuiaba Gas Pipeline (July 2000)
  Enron and Shell drove the huge Bolivia - Cuiab· pipeline through the heart of the globally renowned Chiquitano forest causing devastating long-term impacts. Indigenous communities are now staring down the barrel of rapidly encroaching development spawned by the pipeline. In 1998, Amazon Watch joined local groups in opposition to this project and continues to support their struggle for accountability from Enron and Shell, after the U.S. government agency OPIC cancelled a $200 million loan for the project in early 2002.    more »
  
  
• Bolivia-Brazil Gas Pipeline (March 1999)
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