Oil is the burning issue
of our time. Plan Colombia, Alaska nature reserves, Kyoto protocol, Arizona
forest fires and invasions of Iraq are all best understood as pieces in
the petroleum puzzle. North America consumes as much of this precious
substance as Africa, Central and South America and Asia (excluding Japan)
combined. With just 6% of the world’s population, we consume 30%
of its oil and our economy is intricately linked to a guaranteed affordable
source of black gold. We complain bitterly when the price at the pumps
goes up and our society is immobilized when there are shortages - remember
the 1973 oil crisis that resulted from the formation of OPEC? That crisis
forced us to rethink 8-cylinder gas guzzlers and impose mileage restrictions
on auto makers. But they evaded the restrictions and lured us back to
gas gluttony with Sport Utility Vehicles - the latest addition to the
pantheon of symbols of Life, Liberty and the American Way of Life.
For the sake of oil, we will tolerate such unseemly and undemocratic allies
as Saddam Hussein (before the Gulf War) and the Saudi Royal family who
together hold 36% of the world’s proven reserves. For the sake of
oil and the profits it generates, we will ransom the future of the planet
by refusing to acknowledge the damage done by burning fossil fuels - this,
even when our own forests burn down and towns flood due to global warming
and climate change. In short, for the sake of our extravagant lifestyle,
we are prepared to put up with any abuse of human rights or the planet
we depend on.
The Other Side of the Coin
Oil has a different significance for those who have the misfortune to
live in a ‘developing’ oil-producing country. In the small
South American country of Ecuador, a consortium of international companies,
including Los Angeles based Occidental Petroleum, is building a second
oil pipeline from the Amazon Basin to the Pacific Coast. This pipeline,
known as the OCP (Heavy Crude Pipeline), is causing widespread social
disruption and will result in a massive assault on the remaining forests
of Ecuador’s Amazon region.
The OCP was born in 2000 when President Noboa of Ecuador accepted the
terms of an IMF loan that his country desperately needed. Ecuador’s
existing pipeline was built by Texaco in 1972 and became state property
in 1992. Private oil companies, like Occidental and Kerr McGee, had to
pay the state a shipping fee to use the pipeline and they had long wanted
to avoid this cost by constructing their own pipeline. The argument was
made that the state would lose the shipping fee but would gain from job
creation (52,000 jobs promised) and future revenue from increased oil
production to fill the new pipeline. Under IMF pressure, Ecuador finally
agreed to the deal and construction began in 2001.
Ecuadorians Protest
Along the route of the pipeline, Ecuadorians are resisting the immoral
tactics of the OCP consortium. Amazonas Platform is the storage and pumping
station in Sucumbíos province where heavy crude will be heated
and treated for shipment down the pipe. The platform is located just 600m
from the city of Lago Agrio and directly in the path of the city’s
expansion. Máximo Abad, twice-elected mayor of Lago, has opposed
the location of the platform since day one, “this installation will
be a source of constant noise and chemical pollution and presents a clear
risk to the population of this city.” The OCP argues that its decision
was based solely on ‘technical merit.’ Abad fears that it
was chosen so that the people of his city would form a “human shield”
against possible terrorist attack and he wants the OCP to pay a higher
price for this luxury in the form of much-needed social services.
In February, residents of Sucumbíos and Orellana, the provinces
that produce the majority of Ecuador’s oil, went on strike. The
people here are tired of “living like beggars in a bag of gold.”
They have insufficient potable water, electricity cuts for up to eight
hours a day (from diesel burning generators) and few paved roads while
oil supplies 45% of national revenues. Protestors blocked roads and pressured
oil workers to shut down facilities. President Noboa declared a state
of emergency, ordering the army to quell the protest. Three civilians
died – two of them children who were asphyxiated in teargas attacks.
At kilometres 6 and 8, just outside Lago Agrio, members of peasant cooperatives
blocked OCP construction equipment in January 2002 to protest the way
the OCP handled purchasing rights-of-way through their lands. One of the
organizers, Jaime Cevallos explains, “They [OCP] never met with
us as a community. They only met with our former leader and offered him
a bribe to approve the right-of-way. They knew that we wanted more to
make it worthwhile to live with this environmental and health hazard.
Now we are asking not for more money but for a commitment to build a school
and a health center but they won’t talk.” The former president
of one cooperative took the money and ran leaving the people with nothing.
The OCP says it has already paid and the peasants are just greedy.
Defending Nature
High up in the Western Andes, the OCP crosses the Mindo Nambillo Cloudforest
Reserve where concerned citizens are trying to divert it. Many national
and international environmental organizations do not oppose the pipeline,
but argue that it should have gone south around Quito, the capital city,
to avoid Mindo. The Director of Environment and Community Relations for
OCP, Ray Kohut, says “the southern route is impossible and also
impacts the Important Bird Area of which Mindo is a part.” What
Mr. Kohut does not say is that the southern region is mostly deforested
and not considered critical by conservationists. In contrast, Mindo lies
within the Choco forest, one of the world’s most biodiverse areas
and home to 450 species of birds, ten of which are globally threatened.
Ian Davidson, Head of the Americas Division of Birdlife International,
points out that the OCP Environmental Impact Assessment only properly
evaluated the northern route. “This isn’t normal,” he
says, “you usually analyze 2 or 3 routes in a project of this type
before deciding on the best one. This process would not be acceptable
in North America where some of the consortium members reside.”
Citizens of Mindo depend on nature tourism to make a living. In January,
they occupied the ridge where the pipeline will do the most damage, hoping
to form a human shield against the earth movers waiting below. Their campaign
was successful for a few months because the rains prevented construction
anyway. Then in late March, 60 soldiers raided the camp and took 17 protestors
to jail. The arrest and jail sentence were declared unconstitutional and
the protestors released on April 1. In a powerful plea for justice, the
lawyer for their case, Julio Cesar Trujillo said “these young people
were defending the patrimony of the human race against a company whose
only interest is money.” The Mindo route shortens the pipeline and
allows the company to avoid constructing an expensive pumping station.
Williams International originally bid to construct the pipeline and offered
to take a southern route for half the cost.
Assault on the Amazon
The new pipeline will only be worthwhile if there is oil to fill it.
Private companies will have to double or triple their current production
to do this. They are already doing seismic testing and drilling in Amazonian
nature reserves and soon they will be constructing miles of feeder pipeline
and oil rigs in these areas. Some indigenous groups, like the Shuar in
Ecuador’s southern Amazon, have vowed to fight oil development with
violence if necessary. They do not want their forest homes to be destroyed
the way Texaco destroyed the northern Amazon. Juan Bosco, a Shuar spokesperson
says “we know how oil works. It makes or breaks presidents here
and it kills nature and people. We say ‘atsaá,’ ‘no’
in our language. We will go to the UN to demand our independence from
Ecuador if we have to but the oil companies will not drill here.”
Sadly, it is unlikely that Ecuador’s indigenous people will be able
to resist the pressure of the insatiable demand for oil beyond their borders.
Some sobering facts
The combined volume of both pipelines working to capacity is 900,000 bpd.
The state says the country has proven reserves of nearly 4 billion barrels
and possible reserves of 6 billion barrels. That means that Ecuador will
run out of oil in 12 to 18 years – two years short of when the OCP
becomes Ecuadorian property. Only 3000 jobs have been created by the OCP
and once construction is finished, only about 200 will remain - no where
near the promised 52,000. Once the oil is gone, what will Ecuador have
left of its natural and cultural heritage? How many Ecuadorians will have
to kill their fellow citizens to protect our oil interests?
Bumper to bumper, one person to a car, we sit in endless traffic jams cursing one another. Meanwhile, we continue to design cities where cars are essential and underfund more efficient forms of transportation. I have to ask myself whether this abuse of resources is worth the lives of innocent people or the destruction of the planet we depend on?
Published in Response Magazine, New York in November 2002.
© Dr. Leslie Jermyn and the
The Global Aware Cooperative
Contact cooperative@globalaware.org
