ECUADOR:Unprotected Protected Areas
Oil activity in Ecuador has been and continues to be a permanent threat to protected areas. Please respond to this Action Request about the activities of Vintage Oil and the City Investing oil company.
Oil activity in Ecuador has been, and continues to be, a permanent threat to protected areas. Unfortunately, and much against our wishes, we now find ourselves obliged to end the old millennium and to begin the new with the announcement of two terrible pieces of news related to oil:
The first refers to Yasuni National Park and the North American oil company, Vintage Oil Ecuador S.A.. Vintage is the inheritor of the infrastructure and operations of the French company Elf Aquitaine , which transferred its operations and rights to block 14 in October of this year, has made its debut with its first oil spill. With this event which we can begin to perceive the environmental management methods which lie in wait both for this protected area and the peoples which live in the surrounding areas. The spill occurred on the 17th of December of 1999 due to a break in the pipeline, and polluted a stretch of approximately 100 metres of a 10 metres wide stream which flows into the Tiputini river. The Tiputini crosses Yasuni National Park and later discharges into the Napo river and subsequently into the Amazon.
During its 12 years of operation, Elf made a negative mark on the zone: affecting primary forest within the park, and thus making a mockery of the idea of a protected area; affecting the hunting area of the Huaorani people; building infrastructure and roads which have become the gateway to the devastation of the forest, from which timber such as Caoba, Cedro and Guayacan is illegally taken for sale in Colombia. Game animals such as Monkeys, Armadillos, Danta, and Guanta also are taken from the area and sold as meat in the city of Coca.
Elf operated in this area with polluting technology, did not re-inject the formation water and produced frequent spills from the pipelines. The same practices are operative today. However, the most paradoxical and irrational thing is that besides all this damage, the company produces only 4,500 barrels of oil a day (1.5% of national production). This implies that for the production to be profitable and for the company to stay operational, the Ecuadorian government has to subsidise it, as it has been shown to do with all the trans-national oil companies. Thus leading to the absurd situation in which the Ecuadorian Government is actually subsidising the destruction of the protected areas in the country.
The second piece of news is that this month , the City Investing oil company entered the Cuyabeno Animal reserve in order to carry out seismic prospecting . This leads us to wonder about the interests or reasons which motivated the adoption by the Ministry of the Environment of a resolution authorising oil activity in the Reserve and Siona ancestral territory. This resolution flies in the face of the environmental conservation discourse of the Minster, Yolanda Kakabadze, who is also the President of the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN).
The most astounding part of this is that precisely at the beginning of the year, by means of an Presidential decree, the government declared two zones within Yasuni National Park and Cuyabeno Animal Reserve to be off limits to oil, timber and mining activities in perpetuity. We ask ourselves once again, How will it be possible to protect an area while at the same time it is being destroyed.?
The threat to these areas is even greater if we consider the danger posed by the much heralded concession of the Ishpingo Tambacocha Tiputini project within Yasuni National Park, and the construction of a new heavy oil pipeline which will come out of these same areas.
We call on all people and organisations who receive this message send letters demanding that the companies involved, together with the Ecuadorian government, stop these events and the threats to protected areas. We are attaching a sample letter which you can use.
In solidarity,
Alexandra Almeida
CAMPAÑA AMAZONIA POR LA VIDA
ACCION ECOLOGICA
Letter to Ecuador's Government
: A sample was given for a letter to Minister Yolanda Kakabadse. However it was deleted because it was in Spanish. Please use the info above and the points in the sample letter to Chase Manhattan to write a courteous letter to the minister. Send your letter to:
Sra.
Yolanda Kakabadse
MINISTRA DEL AMBIENTE
Quito, Ecuador
Fax: (593 2) 564 037
2nd. model: opposition letter to Chase Manhattan BankWe have recently learned of Chase Manhattan Bank's involvement with the construction of Heavy Oil Pipeline in Ecuador.
The undersigned wish to express in the strongest terms their opposition to the construction of this new pipeline in Ecuador because:
1. SOCIAL & LEGAL ISSUES: The Heavy Oil Pipeline will encounter social and legal opposition, as Ecuador has developed specific laws governing. If the pipeline is constructed it will be necessary to increase national production by 250,000 barrels per day. Oil that will come from new concessions located in indigenous territory and protected areas. The indigenous people who live in these territories have told the national government of Ecuador, and the oil companies themselves, that they will not permit the exploration for, and exploitation of oil. They have declared their territories as intangible areas and have made this public both on a national and international level.
In Ecuador, the national government has signed international treaties such as Convention 169 of the International Labour Organisation, Collective Rights have been enshrined in the Constitution, and specific laws have been passed. All of that prohibit the carrying out of projects which cause or can affect the environment or our rights.
2. POLITICAL RISK: to guarantee the operation of the heavy oil pipeline it will be necessary to exploit the Ishpingo Tambacocha Tiputini (ITT). The ITT has faced significant political risks that have caused companies such as Shell and BP to withdraw. The ITT project is located in the heart of Yasuní National Park, which has been declared a Biosphere Reserve by UNESCO and which is also part of the traditional territory of the Huaorani people.
The whole world has expressed its opposition to the possible exploitation of these oil fields, due to their location in one of the most fragile and diverse zones on the planet.
A number of campaigns have been carried out in defence of Yasuní National Park , for which reason companies which were initially interested, such as Shell and BP, have been forced to withdraw. In the latter case, BP was obliged to sell the oil projects of ARCO before the two companies were merged.
3. NOT FINANCIALLY VIABLE: It is also necessary to mention that the Heavy Oil Pipeline project may NOT be financially viable, because it relies on the success of the ITT project, a drilling operation based on overestimated oil reserves and facing significal political opposition.
The Heavy Oil Pipeline faces significant downside risk associated with the environmental and social controversies surrounding the pipeline and the ITT project. The undersigned groups strongly oppose the Heavy Oil Pipeline and request thet Chase Manhattan Bank avoid or cease all financial involvement in this project.
SIGNED,
Send it, please, to the follow adresses:
William B. Harrison
PRESIDENT AND CHIEF EXECUTIVE OFFICER
CHASE MANHATTAN BANK
270 Park Avenue
New York, NY 10017-2070
Fax: 212-270-1882
Walter Shipley
Chairman
CHASE MANHATTAN BANK
270 Park Avenue
New York, NY 10017-2070
Fax: 212-270-1882
James Lee
Vice Chairman
Global Investment Banking
CHASE MANHATTAN BANK
270 Park Avenue
New York, NY 10017-2070
Fax: 212-270-1882
Carter Booth
Managing Director
CHASE MANHATTAN BANK
270 Park Avenue
New York, NY 10017-2070
Fax: 212-270-1882
Dod A. Fraser
Managing Director
Corporate Finance, Global Oil & Gas
CHASE MANHATTAN BANK
270 Park Avenue
New York, NY 10017-2070
Fax: 212-270-1882
With copy to:
Teodoro Abdo
MINISTRO DE ENERGIA Y MINAS
Quito, Ecuador
Fax: (593 2) 571228
Yolanda Kakabadse
MINISTRA DEL AMBIENTE
Quito, Ecuador
Fax: (593 2) 564 037
Source: Accion Ecologica Wed, 29 Dec 1999