The Inter-American Development Bank (IADB) has approved a US$132m loan to Transredes, the transmission company that is owned by Enron and Shell, for the expansion of the Yacimientos-Bolivian Gulf (Yabog) pipeline. The loan was approved despite protests by environmental organisations, including Amazon Watch and Friends of the Earth. The groups had urged the IADB to bear in mind what they consider to be the two companies’ poor social and environmental track record in Bolivia, which is a reference to the Bolivia-Cuiaba (Brazil) pipeline that runs through the sensitive Chiquitano Dry Tropical Forest, and which received funding from the US’s Overseas Private Investment Corporation (OPIC), despite protests from Bolivian and US indigenous and environmental groups, and the fact that OPIC’s own environmental policy prohibited it from supporting any infrastructure project located in primary tropical forests (see Bolivia: 18 November 2002: IADB Urged Not to Back Expansion of Yabog Pipeline in Bolivia).
IADB Approves Loan for Bolivian Pipeline
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