Santa Cruz, Bolivia – In violation of Clinton administration policies,
U.S. taxpayer dollars are being used to finance a gas pipeline through a
globally rare forest ecosystem, environmental groups say.
U.S. energy giants Enron and Shell, along with the Bolivian
consortium Transredes, are scurrying to complete the 243-mile pipeline,
which will extend from an existing gas pipeline near this city in eastern
Bolivia to Cuiaba, Brazil.
To lay the underground pipeline, the companies have dug a 90-foot-wide
trench through the Chiquitano dry forest, listed among the Earth’s 200 most
sensitive eco-regions, and are digging through the Pantanal wetlands of
Brazil, one of the world’s richest wildlife habitats.
The $570 million Cuiaba Integrated Energy Project is set to be completed
by March, financed in part by a $200 million loan from the Overseas
Private Investment Corp., a U.S. government agency that helps U.S.
companies with business projects in less-developed countries.
Many environmental groups are claiming, however, that approval of the
loan violated the investment agency’s own regulations, which bar it from
financing “infrastructure projects in primary tropical forests.”
“OPIC is doing just what the U.S. government pledged it would no longer
do,” said Jon Sohn, an international policy analyst at Friends of the Earth.
The World Wildlife Fund, in an Oct. 1 letter to Vice President Al Gore,
called for the U.S. government to withdraw financing by the Overseas
Private Investment Corp., urging that he “work to ensure that taxpayers
dollars are not used to support this project.”
PROBE SOUGHT
Friends of the Earth, Amazon Watch and other U.S. environmental groups
are also seeking a congressional investigation into the investment agency’s
handling of the Cuiaba pipeline project.
An environmental assessment carried out in May by the World Wildlife Fund,
the Missouri Botanical Garden,the Wildlife Conservation Society, Noel
Kempff Museum and Bolivian environmental group Friends of Nature said the
Chiquitano forest is a primary tropical ecosystem of global importance.
Scientists say the 15-million-acre forest in eastern Bolivia is the last
large and intact tropical dry forest in the world. The World Wildlife Fund
calls it “one of the richest, rarest and most biologically outstanding
habitats on Earth.”
The assessment also said the pipeline will be tantamount to a superhighway
– providing access to the forest for loggers, hunters, colonizers, farmers
and cattle ranchers as well as increasing the danger of forest fires.
Enron, Shell, Transredes and the Overseas Private Investment Corp. rejected
a recommendation from the environmental groups that they reroute the
pipeline around the forest. They argue that the area crossed by the
pipeline is not a primary forest and that the pipeline will not have a
negative impact.
`MOST FEASIBLE ROUTE’
“This route is very good and has the least impact on the Chiquitano
and Pantanal. This is the most feasible route,” said Eduardo Jose Cordi,
director of operations for Gas Oriente Boliviano, the company set up to
manage the Cuiaba pipeline.
Larry Spinelli, communications director of the Overseas Private Investment
Corp., said, “There is evidence of human intervention around the section
of the forest containing the pipeline.”
But according to Jon Sohn of the Friends of the Earth, “Saying the
Chiquitano dry forest isn’t a tropical primary forest is like saying the
Earth is flat.”
Patricia Caffrey, director of World Wildlife Fund-Bolivia, said 90 percent
of the Chiquitano forest has had little intervention and that the
investment agency and the companies did not consider secondary impacts on
the entire forest and wetlands. She says they chose their route using
economic criteria.
“We know their decision did not take into account environmental or
social criteria. They took the cheapest route – a straight line,” said
Caffrey.
Nevertheless, in a controversial move that has sharply divided
environmentalists, the five organizations that produced the independent
assessment have signed an agreement in which they withdrew opposition to
the pipeline route – and to financing by the U.S. investment agency – in
exchange for $20 million for conservation projects in the forest.
MANAGEMENT GROUP
A new organization, the Chiquitano Forest Conservation Program, has been
set up to spend the money. The group’s board of directors is made up
of representatives of the participating energy companies and the
environmental groups that produced the independent assessment.
The agreement has re-fueled opposition. The World Wildlife Fund has
since withdrawn from the agreement, citing concerns over conflict of
interest and a lack of local control in the forest conservation program.
Bolivian environmental and indigenous groups not party to the settlement
remain opposed to the pipeline route. They also charge that numerous
violations of Bolivian environmental and indigenous laws have occurred
during the current construction.
The critics include Neisa Roca, Bolivia’s minister of environment and
natural resources, who said she has sent two letters of complaint to the
Overseas Private Investment Corp. since July but has received no reply.
“They did their business among themselves. They are going to use the land
to put the pipe in. They are going to see that the environment will not be
hurt. They are judge and jury,” said Roca.
“This is my country. Those are my natural resources, and I am in charge of
them.
And now we are going to give responsibility to third persons?”
