LATIN AMERICA:
Nine Roads Through the
Virgin Wilderness
By
Marcela Valente
BARILOCHE, Argentina,
(IPS) - In the name of
development and
integration, roads,
bridges, dams, gas
pipelines, ports and
other infrastructure
works are expanding in
South America. But many
of the projects are
trampling roughshod over
protected areas that
preserve unique
ecosystems and
vulnerable native
cultures.
"Historically,
colonisation had the
greatest impact on the
fringes of Latin
America, but now we are
seeing a second wave
that is aimed at the
heart of the continent,"
the Argentine
coordinator of a
symposium that analysed
the influence of
mega-projects on
protected areas and
critical ecosystems,
Jorge Cappato, told IPS.
The symposium was part
of the Second Latin
American Congress on
National Parks and other
Protected Areas, which
has drawn more than
2,000 academics,
environmentalists and
government delegates to
the ski resort town of
Bariloche, 1,500
kilometres southwest of
Buenos Aires, from Sept.
30 to Oct. 6.
At two well-attended
workshops, congress
participants presented
studies on the impact of
the infrastructure
projects, most of which
form part of the
Initiative for the
Integration of Regional
Infrastructure in South
America (IIRSA), a
programme launched at a
summit of South American
presidents in Brasilia
in 2000.
IIRSA’s aim is to
advance the physical
integration of the
region by means of
nearly 400 transport,
energy and
telecommunications
projects in 12 South
American countries, at a
cost of over 38 billion
dollars. Some of the
works are under
construction, while
others are still in the
planning stage.
Ernesto Raez Luna, of
Conservation
International Peru, said
the highway that
stretches from the
border with Brazil to
Peru’s Pacific coast
crosses areas of high
biodiversity in the
Amazon rainforest, and
affects eight protected
areas.
"Sixty-two percent of
the Tambopata National
Reserve was deforested
to make way for this
project," he said.
For his part, Alberto
Barandiarán, of the
Peruvian
non-governmental
organisation Law,
Environment and Natural
Resources (DAR), said
that 68 percent of
Peru’s Amazon region is
zoned for oil and gas
exploration and
extraction. "Twenty of
these demarcated blocs
overlap with protected
areas, and 12 of them
have been illegally
granted in concession,"
he said.
Leonardo Colombo of
Bolivia raised the issue
of the economic, social
and environmental
impacts of a highway
crossing the Madidi
National Park, the most
biodiverse area in the
country. He said the
project not only has
high environmental
costs, but is also
economically non-viable.
"But we’re not dealing
only with IIRSA now,"
said symposium
coordinator Cappato.
"Other national and
regional initiatives,
such as Brazil’s
accelerated growth
programme, contain
projects which are
skimming the surface of
environmental standards
issues so as to ensure
the go-ahead for works
that will supposedly
contribute to
development or
integration," he said.
According to Cappato,
the head of Argentina’s
Fundación Proteger,
development and
integration are
necessary "as long as
they are in harmony with
the environment, and
improve the quality of
life of local
communities." Sometimes,
however, family
agriculture and other
aspects of local
economies are destroyed,
he said.
Timothy Killeen, a U.S.
biologist living in
Bolivia who works for
Conservation
International’s Centre
for Applied Biodiversity
Science (CABS),
presented his research
report "A Perfect Storm
in the Amazon
Wilderness: Development
and Conservation in the
Context of the IIRSA",
at one of the workshops.
Killeen told IPS that
his report "avoids
making value judgments"
about IIRSA, and
describes the farming
methods used by
campesinos (small
farmers) and large-scale
agricultural and
livestock producers in
the Amazon region, many
of which are entirely
rational.
"Environmentalists tend
to demonise these
practices, when we
really ought to strive
to understand what’s
going on," he said.
"There’s a myth among
environmentalists that
agriculture and stock
raising in the Amazon
are unsustainable over
time, but that isn’t the
case. Technology allows
farmers to invest for a
return over 20 or 30
years. Deforestation
there is producing
wealth, and if we want
to promote conservation,
we have to know about
the real situation," he
said.
The Amazon region
comprises 6.6 million
square kilometres, most
of which is in Brazil,
but the region also
extends into Bolivia,
Colombia, Ecuador, Peru,
Venezuela, Guyana,
French Guiana and
Suriname. Forty-five
percent of the total
area is protected as
reserves or indigenous
territories.
Killeen’s work describes
IIRSA as "visionary, and
an eminently practical
initiative that proposes
to physically integrate
the continent." However,
it warns that many IIRSA
projects will impinge on
"ecosystems and cultures
that are extremely
vulnerable to change."
His report also points
out that environmental
impact studies conducted
by the multilateral
organisations that are
financing the projects
are incomplete, as they
only take individual
projects into account,
rather than studying the
collective impact of all
the projects jointly.
"IIRSA must incorporate
measures to avoid or
mitigate the most
dangerous of these
impacts," it says.
Of the 10 corridors
planned across the
Amazon region, nine
cross the highly
biodiverse Amazon
wilderness area, the
world’s largest intact
tropical forest, which
provides global
environmental services
such as carbon
sequestration, water
resources and climate
regulation.
Some of the areas
affected by IIRSA
projects have "an
extraordinarily large
number of species found
nowhere else on the
planet," A Perfect Storm
in the Amazon Wilderness
says.
"At stake is the
greatest tropical
wilderness area on the
planet, which provides
multiple strategic
benefits for local and
regional communities, as
well as the entire
world," it adds.
"Unfortunately, IIRSA
has been designed
without adequate
consideration of its
potential environmental
and social impacts. It
should incorporate
measures to ensure that
the region’s renewable
natural resources are
conserved and its
traditional communities
strengthened," the
report says.
Among his proposals,
Killeen advocates
programmes that reward
people who do not
deforest land, instead
of those who do.
According to his
estimates, governments
could subsidise longer
logging cycles, or
benefit from the new
market in carbon
credits.
"The largest -- and as
yet unexploited --
economic asset in the
Amazon is its carbon
stocks, which we
estimate to be worth 2.8
trillion dollars if
monetised in today’s
markets," according to
the report.
If Amazonian countries
agree to reduce their
present rate of
deforestation by five
percent a year for 30
years, they would
achieve a reduction in
greenhouse gas emissions
that could be converted
into credits and used to
pay for the health and
education needs of
thousands of
municipalities in the
region, the report says.
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