ENVIRONMENT-COLOMBIA:
Megaport vs Megadiversity
Constanza Vieira

LA PLATA, Colombia,  (IPS) - The Colombian government has chosen the pristine Malaga Bay on Colombia's Pacific coast, which draws tourists interested in whale-watching, for a new deep sea port.

The bay, located in an area of enormous biodiversity, has thus become a new scenario of the global confrontation between development and conservation. At stake is not only a relatively untouched tropical beach paradise but also one of the world's most important breeding grounds for humpback whales (Megaptera novaengliae).

Right-wing President Álvaro Uribe confirmed in late October that the bay, where as many as one-quarter of all humpback whales are born every year, will be transformed into a deep sea container port.

The spot chosen is in an area with one of the highest rainfall levels in the world. The bay receives 4.1 million cubic metres a day of fresh water from rain as well as the five main streams that run into it.

"Hub ports" are in vogue today. They are located at strategic points on the main maritime trade routes, as the "hubs" of a global network of container ports. Container shipping now accounts for 60 percent of world trade by value.

In the deep sea hub ports, containers are loaded and unloaded between large ships and smaller vessels, which operate at a regional level.

The sheltered Malaga Bay, in the western province of Valle del Cauca, is large and deep, and no rivers run into it. That saves it from a build-up of sediment, which would mean high dredging costs.

It would easily accommodate post-Panamax ships -- vessels too big to fit through the locks of the Panama Canal, which cannot dock at the Buenaventura port, 27 nautical miles south of Malaga Bay.

Buenaventura, which is also in Valle del Cauca province, handles 53 percent of Colombia's foreign trade, and 80 percent of the country's coffee exports are shipped out through that port.

The port handles 9,000 containers a day, and has little room for expansion, while Colombia's foreign trade is growing at a rate of seven percent a year, according to official figures.

The Sociedad Portuaria de Buenaventura (SPB) association estimates that the port will reach maximum capacity (10.2 million tons a year) by 2010, while demand will have climbed to between 22 and 25 million by 2020.

But according to the SPB, the Buenaventura port and surrounding area could be expanded to handle that capacity, through ambitious upgrading projects.

However, Malaga Bay has already been included in the government's 2005-2006 port expansion plan as a high-priority medium-term question, which was classified as "urgent" in May 2005.

The idea is to turn Malaga Bay into a hub port as well as a multipurpose port facility to handle all kinds of cargo, like the Buenaventura port. The first phase of the project will cost 300 million dollars, according to the Transport Ministry.

The megaproject will also include the building of a 204-km pipeline from Buga, to the east, with a capacity to transport 40,000 barrels of fuel a day, as well as an oil terminal for storing 700,000 barrels of gasoline and diesel fuel and 40,000 barrels of liquefied gas. In addition, it will involve the construction of a highway and a tourist free zone.

Admission to the global network of hub ports is not automatic, but is decided by a handful of multinational shipping companies. A World Wildlife Fund (WWF) report pointed out that in the region, there are attempts to convert three ports in Panama, Manta in Ecuador and Callao in Peru into hub ports.

But Colombia, the United States' closest ally in the region, wants its own modern deep sea port, while it spearheads a proposal to create a free trade bloc among the Latin American countries with a Pacific shoreline, from Mexico to Chile.

The question is why Malaga Bay, instead of Buenaventura?

Malaga Bay "is a militarily strategic port. Why is it more important than Buenaventura? Because they (the government forces) have military control over Malaga Bay, but not over Buenaventura which is surrounded by rural areas that are militarily uncontrollable," Jimmy Viera, an adviser to opposition Senator Piedad Córdoba, told IPS.

The military, backed by ultra-right paramilitary forces with close ties to the drug trade that recently completed a partial demobilisation process, have been fighting leftwing guerrillas in this and other regions since 1964.

On Oct. 27, 14 hours after the guerrillas staged an act of sabotage 27 km from the port, along the busy road that links Buenaventura with the rest of Colombia, IPS saw a semi-truck that was still smoking and the burned out shells of two others, along with four trucks that had all of their tires slashed, although traffic was already circulating again.

Some 2,000 members of the military and civilians live in the Pacific Naval Base, compared to 3,500 people who live in villages in the area, 90 percent of whom are black and share a common traditional culture.

If the deep sea port facilities are built, many baby whales will die in collisions with ships as maritime traffic expands. Another problem is that noise affects whales, warned biologist Patricia Falk with the Yubarta (Humpback) Foundation, which reported in October that it is investigating the cause of the deaths of six baby and one adult whale off the Colombian coast.

The humpback whale is listed by the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN) as "vulnerable," which means it is not "critically endangered or endangered but is facing a high risk of extinction in the wild in the medium-term future."

Hunting of humpback whales was banned globally in 1966. But Japan argues that the number of ship collisions with humpback whales show that the population has recovered sufficiently to resume hunting.

The impact of the new port will affect three or four generations of whales, which would later seek safer breeding grounds, said Falk.

That is the fear of Lidia Díaz, who lives in La Plata, a town on Malaga Bay that is opposed to the port. "The whales will not return, and the tourists will no longer come to watch them," she complained.

However, not all local residents are opposed to the megaproject. Young people in the beach villages of Juanchaco and Ladrilleros, which have rudimentary tourism industries, are enthusiastic about the idea, because a branch of the public University del Valle is to be built in the area.

In La Plata, men mainly work as small fishermen, as their ancestors have done for hundreds of years, while women harvest black conch (Anadara tuberculosa), a mollusc that lives in the mangroves and is a delicacy in Colombia and other Latin American countries.

But the catch, for both fishermen and black conch harvesters, has basically been cut in half in the last five years, apparently due to destruction of the mangroves and overfishing.

Locals also grow bananas, sugarcane, yucca (mandioca), chontaduro (a popular, nutritious palm fruit that is cooked and eaten with salt) and other subsistence products. "That is our food security," said Adolfo Valencia, another local resident.

"We in La Plata do not agree with the port, because if it is built, we will lose all our economic resources," Ana Paz, a 56-year-old great-grandmother, told IPS.

And although both International Labour Convention 169 and the Colombian constitution state that affected minority communities must be previously consulted on any undertaking that will affect their collectively-owned territories, which are described as inalienable and free from embargo, no one has ever asked the people of this small town, who dream of making a better living through ecotourism, about the projected port.

"Only journalists" have asked, "even though we will be the most affected," said a member of the Community Council of La Plata, which was founded in 1999 and has already sent the Environment Ministry two requests for the area to be included in the national park system.

The community's collective title to the land, which was officially recognised in 2003, covers 7,703 hectares. But the community hopes that in December it will be granted title to the entire bay -- a total of 36,600 km.

Ovidio Díaz, Lidia's brother, a 39-year-old fisherman and the Community Council's coordinator of "territorial oversight and vigilance", said "the main thing is to learn how to negotiate with the government."

"We know that a lot of fauna will disappear -- the black conch, migratory birds, etc. The highway is going to affect us," he said. The question is what will the Uribe administration offer to the local communities in exchange.