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Exploitation of oil in two of the most famous national parks in Bolivia
The Madidi National Park and the Pilón Lajas Biosphere Reserve-indigenous territory are threatened by the exploration for oil. The Amazon Fund supports solutions to prevent unneccesary damage.
Areas where oil exploration is planned. Exploration has already started.
(Four oil companies are involved)
"The protected areas should provide opportunities for local communities. Conservation makes no sense if it does not generate benefits for society as a whole. "We need more analysis. It may be that some areas allow for this kind of hydrocarbons activity and others do not," says Juan Pablo Ramos Morales, the vice-minister who has been leading discussions on Madidi.
In the region of the Madidi Park, Pilón Lajas Biosphere Reserve-indigenous territory and the tourist town of Rurrenabaque, most of the people live from tourism, subsistence hunting and fishing, collection of forest products and agriculture. Some successful community-owned tour companies have areas protected just for tourism activity alone and completely different ones for hunting. www.chalalan.com, http://www.mapajo.com, www.sanmigueldelbala.com. The local indiginous populations are small, and hunting or collecting forest products doesn’t cause a big impact on the large forests of these parks. The majority of the population in the parks is indigenous and mestizos.
What happens in other countries and what happened before:
Oil burns, Yasuni, Equador
A scan from the monthy Bolivian newspaper "Propio Energia" (our own energy) of the YPFB, the state petroleum company. The map shows the total areas that will be opened to exploration
The International Labor Organization (ILO) Convention (No. 169) concerning Indigenous and Tribal Peoples in Independent Countries, ratified as a Bolivian law, establishes in the article 6 that the Governments shall:
- Consult the peoples concerned, through appropriate procedures and in particular through their representative institutions, whenever consideration is being given to legislative or administrative measures which may affect them directly;
- Establish means by which these peoples can freely participate, to at least the same extent as other sectors of the population, at all levels of decision-making in elective institutions and administrative and other bodies responsible for policies and programmes which concern them;
Also the Hidrocarbons law and other regulations have been violated in the process of the Environmental Impact Study.
Mal formation due to oil exploitation in Yasuni, Equador
Exploration outside these parks already started. The People have not been informed of the real impacts of oil prospection and drilling and there have been no consultations with the communities and the government approved an environmental license granted in favor of YPFB Petroandina SAM (The Bolivian state company associated with the Venezuelan PDVSA. This attitude of the Bolivian government doesn’t respond to a democratic indigenous government. This should not happen again in Madidi and Pilón Lajas otherwise the following stories could be repeated in pristine natural areas:
Oil exploitation in the region would not only affect the pristine nature of the Madidi Park and Pilón Lajas but the subsistence of the indigenous people living there. Bolivian indigenous communities have bad experiences with oil companies. In many cases the local population is only used only to help clear the forest. The companies have their own worker and technicians, so oil drilling doesn’t create jobs locally. After the clearings of the forests, usually settlers and loggers arrive at the area to contribute further to the destruction.
Oil drilling in the region would also destroy the tourism industry, the culture of local communities and their means of subsistence. The Bolivian government is also not considering the environmental services provided by the parks, such as:
- Drought, fire and flood prevention, and water provision and conservation
- Microclimate for agriculture
- Carbon capture
- Medicines and chemical components with healing potential and all the vast indigenous knowledge about them
- Forest products provision of income to local communities and wildlife as the main sources of subsistence.
Amazon Fund, 2009
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Donations Europe
Bank: ING Rekeningnummer: 4919775
Under the name of: Stichting Amazon Fund, Beegden, The Netherlands
IBAN: NL16PSTB00049
BIC: PSTBNL21
PayPal:
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Donations USA go through:
http://ihcenter.org/groups/amazonfundinternational.html
Amazon Fund International is a project of International Humanities Center, a nonprofit organization under Section 501(c)(3) of the IRS Code.
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Sources and Links:
http://www.ipieca.org/activities/biodiversity/downloads/case_studies/Total_Bolivia.pdf
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/6260928.stm
http://www.csmonitor.com/2009/0108/p04s04-woam.html
http://www.eldeber.com.bo/2007/2007-10-23/vernotaeconomia.php?id=071022203623
http://www.amazonwatch.org/amazon/BO
http://www.cnnexpansion.com/negocios/2007/7/27/pdvsa-invertira-1-000-mdd-en-bolivia
Report of the CPILAP (Indigenous Central of La Paz, 23 October 2008
http://botany.si.edu/projects/cpd/sa/sa36.htm
http://www.rainforestportal.org
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