Bolivia-Brazil Gas Line Draws Protests; Nature Groups Cite US Role http://forests.org/archive/samerica/06790210.htm Bolivia-Brazil Gas Line Draws Protests; Nature Groups Cite US Role ******************************* RELAYED TEXT STARTS HERE: Title: Gas line draws protests; Nature groups cite U.S. role Source: The Miami Herald Date: January 3, 2000 Byline: JIMMY LANGMAN 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?'' Viewing and/or downloading of this information on these terms only. See the Forest Conservation Portal at http://forests.org/ Networked by Forests.org, Inc., gbarry@forests.org -- **************** Yours in struggle, ****************