Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
of the oil feeding this pipeline comes from projects in sensitive areas, such as Yasuní
National Park. In Peru, American, Canadian, European, and Chinese companies drive
the exploration and exploitation of the Amazon.
Ecuador has proposed an innovative opportunity [66] for the world to share in the
responsibility of protecting the Amazon. In April, 2007, the President of Ecuador, Ra-
fael Correa, announced that the government's preferred option for the largest untapped
oil reserve, located beneath Ecuador's principal Amazonian national park (Yasuní), is
to leave it permanently underground in exchange for compensation from the interna-
tional community. The oil fi elds, known as Ishpingo-Tiputini-Tambococha (ITT), are
within one of the most remote and intact parts of Yasuní National Park, and are part of
the ancestral territory of the Waorani.
While the history of oil and gas extraction in the western Amazon is one of mas-
sive ecological and social disruption, the future need not repeat the past. Roadless
extraction would greatly reduce environmental and social impacts. Proper attention to
the rights of indigenous peoples and the outright protection of lands of peoples living
in voluntary isolation, who, by defi nition cannot give informed consent, would bring
exploration within widely accepted international norms of social justice. Disinterest-
ed, regional scale SEA would prevent piecemeal damage across large areas. Finally,
the international community can play a role in widening the options available to the
region's nations and its indigenous peoples.
MATERIALS AND METHODS
Most data on oil blocks and pipelines are from government sources and were pub-
licly available online at the time of submission. These include Colombia's Agencia
Nacional de Hidrocarburos (http://www.anh.gov.co), Ecuador's Ministerio de Minas
y Petróleos (http://www.menergia.gov.ec), Peru's Perupetro (http://www.perupetro.
com.pe) and Ministerio de Energía y Minas (http://www.minem.gob.pe/hidrocarbu-
ros/index.asp), Bolivia's Ministerio de Hidrocarburos y Energía (http://www.hidro-
carburos.gov.bo), and Brazil's Agência Nacional do Petróleo, Gás Natural e Biocom-
bustíveis (http://www.anp.gov.br). When necessary, downloaded maps of boundaries
of oil blocks and their attributes were digitized using ArcGIS 9.2.
We also collected information from major newspapers of the region, particularly
El Comercio in Ecuador and La Razon in Bolivia.
Boundaries of protected areas are from the World Database of Protected Areas
[67]. We digitized the boundaries of Parque Nacional Ichigkat Muja--Cordillera Del
Condor, Santiago - Comaina, and Sierra del Divisor from maps available from the
Instituto Nacional de Recursos Naturales (http://www.inrena.gob.pe). We divided pro-
tected areas into strictly (I-III) and less strictly (IV-VI) protected groups according
to the IUCN categories for protected areas [68]. These categories range from I to VI,
with lower numbers representing management to maintain natural ecosystems and
processes, while higher numbers represent management oriented towards human rec-
reation and sustainable resource extraction.
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