Bolivia transforms Amazon Park in Oil Zone

In later October 2010, Bolivian government approved the Supreme Decree 0676, which extends the gas and oil frontier of the country, affecting directly many protected areas. Two of them are the Madidi National Park and the Biosphere Reserve and Indigenous land called Pilón Lajas, both with a recognized environmental and cultural richness to the country and to the world, located in the middle of Bolivian Amazon, in the oil zone called Subandino Norte.

The Supreme Decree was justified with the statement that “it is necessary to increase (the granted oil areas) due to the existence of structures and the great quantity of information about each of the selected areas”. This way 56 oil zones were granted to Yacimientos Petrolíferos Fiscales Bolivianos (YPFB) – a state oil company – in traditional zones and non traditional zones to hydrocarbon exploration. These million zones of hectares are inside the Madidi Park and other protected areas of the country, adding almost 1,5 million of protected hectares offered to oil companies.

According to a statement from the league of the Defense of the Environment (LIDEMA), these Decree “comes essentially to validate the intention of the current Government to expand the current oil and gas frontier all over the country, so as to affect in a permanently way various protected zones of great social-environmental importance”.

Madidi Park and the Oil

The Madidi National Park is a Marvel of nature. In its almost two millions hectares, it is home to a rich biodiversity, both as flora and fauna, present since the perpetual snows (5700 meters above sea level) until the Amazon lowlands. It also brings huge cultural diversity, with the presence of ethnic groups that live in the ancestral region, and even groups non contacted, as the Toromona. The Madidi was declared by the National Geographic magazine as one of the most biodiversity zones of the planet and one of the 20 places with most touristic interest worldwide.

However, this same wealth brings headaches to the park, to its population and it neighbor. Even more when there is oil envolved. Thre is an increasing interesting by the natural resources of the forests of the Madidi Park. There have been oil companies Total (French) and Petrobras (Brazilian), that conducted seismic exploration and then withdrew, “because certainly there wasn´t a quantity of oil that justified the investments”, explains Teresa Flores, from Associação Prodefesa da Natureza (Prodena). However, Bolivian Government´s interest of exploring the oil in the region has not stopped there.

In 2007, Evo Morales visited Maravilhas, on the Banks of the Tuichi river, in Madidi region, where he observed a well from which flowed oil. Then his eyes brightened. Right after this “tour” to the park, Morales said: “I went to Madidi and saw that that oil was gushing”. However, as Teresa Flores says, “the fact that there are outcrops of oil, does not mean that there is quantity enough to justify it exploration”, and even less, that it has the necessary quality.

There were signs of government´s intentions to explore the existent oil, along with the foreign oil companies and also national, as the Venezuelan PDVSA, PETROBRAS, TOTAL e PETROANDINA. For this, the government was creating tools that facilitated the entrance of companies and their work in the region, through Supreme Decrees that were extending the oil border. The last was the Supreme Decree 0676, declared that 690 thousand hectares of Madidi Park as destined area to oil exploration, and nearly 36% of its 1.895.740 hectares, including one covering part of its nuclear zone, the greater need for protection. But the threat does not stop there as the measure can also affect the indigenous groups Mosetén, Leco-Larecaja, Tsimane, Quechua-Tacana, Tacana, Ese Ejja, Toromona and Leco-Apolo.

The so valuable oil was found gushing in many points of the region:: Maravilhas, Kerosén, Bandera Roja, Zapallos and Río Hondo, where it is believed that the oil companies will invest at least 600 million of dollars to explore and determine the energetic potential. As some zone community members comment, in the places where oil gushes there is a strong gas smell, and the liquid soon mixes with the river water, where it disappears. It is the same liquid that is used for lighting fires and cook, or illuminate the night.

Park Protection

Madidi National Park is managed by Service National Protected Areas (SERNAP), a decentralized Institution from Bolivia dependent from the Water and Environment Ministry. SERNAP is responsible for the enforcement of the environmental laws inside the protected areas of the country, and also for fighting for the respect to the richness and its importance, both nationally and worldwide.

In this context, SERNAP recognizes the importance of the oil activity in the country, although it also recognizes that the protected areas of the country are seriously threatened by the existent richness in its subsoil. This way, the existence of nascent oil policies, gaps and conflicts of laws and legal regulations, protected areas as Madidi and Pilón Lajas are pressured every day.

These gaps make it difficult to the Sernap to participate in the assessment of environmental impacts processes, control of quality and other mechanisms in exploratory projects inside the protected areas. According to the director of the Environmental Monitoring of SERNAP, José Coello, until now only one seismic exploration was conducted in the Liquimuni field, neighbor to Madidi Park, therefore out of the protected area. He also says that there was not any requirement or presentation of studies of environmental impact by oil projects inside the Park, obligatory requirement to undertake a project of these characteristics inside of a protected area.

As one former employee of Sernap who prefers to remain anonymous, the theme of exploitation both in Madidi park and in neighboring Pilon Lajas, "is a time bomb (...), it's complicated." In both areas live Indigenous communities, which until now were not consulted in the process of socialization and validation that establishes the Hydrocarbons Law.

Madidi Without Oil Initiative

OPERATIONS OF GREAT RISK FROM 2010 ON •    YPFB-PDVSA (PETROANDINA – SAM)) is expected to triple the activity of oil drilling exploration in the region of North Subandino (Departments of La Paz and Beni) •    PETROANDINA Petroandina has provided entry into the Liquimuni block with drillings explorations. The PETROANDINA operations will be 3D in each of the seven blocks (an average of 300 km2 each) and 14 wells will be drilled, two per block, with a total investment of approximately U.S. $ 646 million. •    Exploration provided by PETROBRAS-TOTAL and REPSOL YPF on the high protection zones (núcleo zone) of the Madidi National Park and zones of community use of Biosphere Reserve of Pilón Lajas. There is a fear of an affectation to these natural assets, besides the affectation of the livelihoods of many indigenous communities and also it is predicted the entry of these companies into the Chepite, Chispani e Sécure zones.

The campaign Madidi Without Oil Initiative was started by PRODEN in Bolivia last year, following the example of what was done in Ecuador, when it was decided not to explore about 20% of the country's oil reserves, located in Yasuni National Park, in exchange for a contribution of the international community as a compensation for emissions that would be avoided.

The campaign is based on the idea that not exploiting the oil in Madidi would avoid carbon emissions, saving the planet of millions of tons of oil in the combustion, and maintaining the capacity of the jungles of Madidi to store that carbon. It proposes an international compensation for non-exploitation, protecting the park's imminent destruction and conserving their essentially important resources of biodiversity.

According to Teresa Flores, the big difference between Yasuní and Madidi is that in Maddid there aren´t quantified reserves; therefore it is impossible to establish a monetary value of deposits of Madid Park. “There is no doubt that avoiding its exploration is important to prevent future emissions of carbon, but also by multiple environmental and climatic services that it provides to the area”, says Flores.

The risks

According to the League of Defense of the Environment (LIDEMA), there is concern about oil exploration in the area of Subandino, where's Madidi, for it is an area of high sensitivity and fragility, for its topographical and geological carachteristics, and high pluviosity. In the park there are located the headwaters of basins, where were born a series of Amazonian rivers, susceptible areas of landslides.

The oil activities can have serious ecological consequences, reducing the capacity and potential of offering environmental services that protect the basins and control the flow, and thereby affect with more intensity the sediments in the rivers, and damage the land of the community people.

Other unfavorable conditions will be the construction of paths to explore, which will trigger processes of disordered occupation, illegal logging and hunting, with the consequent violation of indigenous spaces and loss of biological resources. Not to mention the impacts on the tourism potential of the region, says LIDEMA.

It becomes clear the threat and risk, not only to the Madidi National Park, but also for the Amazon forest, for indigenous populations, to the rich biodiversity, and also for the clean development of the region. With so much wealth in the Bolivian Amazon, which is already one of the biggest tourist attractions in the country, one might think that campaigns such as Oil without Madidi, along with policies and incentives to promote eco-tourism, become a part of the solution.