A 500-barrel oil spill last month in the Cuyabeno Wildlife Reserve, located in the Ecuadorian Amazon, is being described by authorities as the result of a deliberate attack on a well operated by Petroecuador, the state oil company. The Aug. 18 spill occurred following the rupture of a secondary pipeline that routes crude from the Petroecuador well, called Cuyabeno 8, to a production station. Officials say the break was not an accident, and they are conducting an investigation to determine who is responsible for it. Under Ecuador law, government-sanctioned mining and oil-development activity can be conducted in protected areas. The Cuyabeno reserve, created in 1979, covers more than 1.5 million acres (600,000 has) in the provinces of Sucumbíos and Orellana. One of...
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Green groups in Mexico are questioning the selection last month of a Mexican environmental official as executive director of the Commission for Environmental Cooperation (CEC), the tri-lateral agency created in 1994 in conjunction with the North American Free Trade Agreement (Nafta). By agreement of Nafta signatories Canada, Mexico and the United States, each of the three governments gets an opportunity to fill the CEC executive director’s post on a rotating basis. With William Kennedy of the United States stepping down Aug. 31 at the close of his three-year term, it was Mexico’s turn to appoint a successor. The government of Mexican President Vicente Fox announced Aug. 22 that its selection was Felipe Adrián Vázquez, until last month the undersecretary of environmental protection management...
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The Chilean Agriculture Ministry has reached agreement on a native-forest conservation bill with the timber lobby, environmental groups and other forestland stakeholders. The administration of new Chilean President Michelle Bachelet has re-introduced the legislation, called the Native Forest Recovery and Forest Development Law, in Congress amid signs the measure will win passage this year. “This is an agreement that has wide support,” says Claudio Pérez, a spokesman for the National Forestry Corporation (Conaf), Chile’s forest service. “It includes scientists, timber company owners and environmentalists. There is no basis now for anyone in the Congress to oppose it.” The bill reflects core ideas on which the various stakeholders could agree. Among these is that Chile must encourage—through subsidies and other means—sustainable native...
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Efforts by plaintiffs to speed a major Ecuadorian Amazon oil-pollution trial have persuaded the judge handling the case to reduce the number of field inspections being carried out as part of the proceedings. The trial concerns alleged contamination of rainforest lands from 1972 to 1992 by Texaco Petroleum Co. (Texpet), a subsidiary of Texaco and now a subsidiary of Chevron by virtue of Chevron’s purchase of Texaco in 2001. The proceedings have moved slowly since getting underway in 2003. To reduce delays, attorneys representing the rainforest Indian plaintiffs proposed to the judge, Lago Agrio Superior Court President Germán Yanez, that a list of 96 oilfield evidence-gathering inspections they had originally requested be pared down to 32. In all, the original list of inspections...
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