After decades of kowtowing to energy companies like Chevron which left a toxic legacy that does billions of dollars of damage to the forest, the Peruvian government finally declared a state of environmental emergency. The reason for the admission is the elevated levels of toxic heavy metals, lead, barium and chromium as well as hydrocarbons, found in the Pastaza River [photo]. The river basin near Ecuador is the site of Peru's most productive oil fields operated by Pluspetrol of Argentina. It is also home to the Quichua and Ashuar people who remain hunter-gatherers by choice. They have complained for years about toxic contamination, but the government never addressed the problem since it did not have requisite environmental quality standards That error has been corrected and Pluspetrol will be required to clean up the contamination according to the nation's Environment Minister. The company was fined $11 million in January. The field was originally developed by Occidental Petroleum of Los Angeles, CA. Drilling began in 1971; it too failed to remediate contamination of surrounding habitat. Peru is not alone in the oil business, over 100 million hectares of the Amazon is currently let out for oil and gas exploration and production, but it does have the largest number of potential oil zones covering 84 of the Peruvian Amazon. |
| credit: Finer et al (2008) |
The president of Quichua Federation of Pastaza, Sixto Shapiama, said, "the government never wanted to see the reality" of constant oil spills. Adding that the river bottom is completely contaminated. An investigative magazine reported in 2010 that Pluspetrol had 78 spills in the region from 2006 to 2010. A British Catholic activist who worked with indigenous people of the area told AP that two other river basins were there are oil fields are also contaminated, the Corrientes and the Tigre. All are tributaries of the Amazon. Peru did not even have an environment ministry until 2008. Standards for levels of toxins in the soil were published on Monday of this week. Peru's president in 2006 Alan Garcia opened the gates of the Amazon to mining and oil exploitation. There has been a significant popular backlash against the despoilment of Amazonia. In 2009 a conflict between indigenous protesters and police lead to the death of 23 police and 10 protestors. Of course the oil companies largely ignore these expressions of popular will. Sixteen companies have formed a coalition to lobby the government to allow increased production.