Washington D.C. — Today a coalition of leading environmental and human rights organizations released a letter calling on the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) to delay finalizing the loan for the controversial Camisea project in the Peruvian Amazon until the project sponsors, the Peruvian government and the IDB itself demonstrate full compliance with the social and environmental loan conditions.
In recent weeks, organizations and indigenous federations in Peru and the United States documented that the Peruvian government and companies involved with the pipeline have fallen far short of meeting dozens of protective measures and conditions required under the IDB loan. Texas-based Hunt Oil is one of the leading companies in the $2.6 billion project. Scandal-plagued Halliburton; Argentina’s PlusPetrol and Techint; and Belgium’s Tractebel are also involved. Both Hunt Oil and Halliburton are known to have close ties to the Bush administration.
Amid a firestorm of controversy, including the U.S. government’s – the IDB’s leading shareholder – abstaining and the U.S. Export-Import Bank’s rejecting the project, the IDB board approved funding the pipeline in September. Construction of the pipeline, supported with a $75 million loan from the taxpayer-supported IDB, is paving the way for the destruction of some of the world’s most pristine rainforests and threatening isolated indigenous peoples.
The project involves:
q Drilling platforms and pipelines inside a reserve established to protect nomadic indigenous peoples, who lack immunity to common illnesses and are seriously threatened by the project;
q Pipelines cutting through pristine tropical rainforests, protected areas, indigenous communities and across the Andes to the coast; and
q A fractionation plant and export loading facility next to an internationally renowned marine reserve.
Compliance concerns range from the companies’ failing to implement required social and environmental mitigation measures to not adhering to required changes in Peruvian law to protect sensitive rainforests in the case of future gas developments in the region.
The letter addressed to the IDB’s senior management expresses several serious concerns, including:
q The failure of the consortium to prevent erosion is resulting in major river sedimentation, and, according to local community members, fish catches – a key element of local peoples’ diets – have plummeted;
q The lack of effective procedures for preventing access to the pipelines’ right of way and for removing illegal settlers threatens massive colonization of indigenous lands and pristine forests;
q The negative health effects in local communities are already evident. The health post in the indigenous community of Kirigueti has recently reported 150 new cases of syphilis.
q Beyond the immediate impacts, the Peruvian government has recently signed new contracts to open nearby areas to fossil fuel development, in violation of the IDB’s loan condition. The loan condition requires that there first be legal changes to adhere to World Bank safeguards and standards for all future drilling projects with output through the Camisea pipelines.
Even though IDB President Iglesias pledged to ensure compliance with all of the IDB loan conditions prior to financial closure, there is serious concern that the IDB is rushing to finalize the loan in time for the IDB’s annual meeting in Lima at the end of March. This concern is in addition to the numerous project failures and the rampant lack of compliance with the IDB’s loan conditions.
Quotes:
“Camisea is an environmental disaster and the IDB should stop supporting this nonsense with US taxpayer dollars given the issues of non-compliance,” said Jon Sohn of Friends of the Earth.
“It is time that the Bank acknowledged that its involvement in Camisea to date has failed to produce adequate protection for the tropical forests or the indigenous communities of the Lower Urubamba,” said Atossa Soltani, Executive Director of Amazon Watch.
“There is rampant noncompliance with the environmental and social conditions that the IDB attached to the loan in order to show that its involvement in the project would have some positive impact. The IDB should not close this deal until this positive impact becomes a reality, rather than a long list of broken promises,” said Aaron Goldzimer of Environmental Defense.
The IDB is certainly going in the opposite direction at a time when other development banks are beefing up their social and environmental safeguards. Even private commercial banks are signing on to more protective principles than the IDB. The US Congress should be thinking of this the next time the IDB asks for a replenishment,” said Nadia Martinez of the Sustainable Energy & Economy Network.
“If the Bank moves ahead to finalize the Camisea project loan without ensuring that its own conditions have been met, it will send a dangerous signal to the companies, the government of Peru, and other current and future borrowers that the Bank and its shareholders are not serious about enforcing their own loan conditions or maintaining basic social and environmental standards,” the letter said.
