Ecobreves – PERU: Growing Controversy Over Pipeline

By IPS Correspondents and - - Reprint | | Print |

LIMA, Aug 16 2004 (IPS) - Even now that the valves are open on the 700-km natural gas pipeline that extends to the Peruvian capital from the Camisea jungles in the south, criticisms of the project continue to heat up. The National Society of the Environment (SNA) asked the Inter-American Development Bank, which financed the pipeline, for an independent audit of the impacts of the pipeline, which began operating on Aug. 5. The group also demands an impact study of the natural gas fractioning plant to be built on the southwestern bay of Paracas, located next to a nature preserve.

SNA president María Elena Forondo rejected assurances from Energy Ministry Jaime Quijandría that the ecological and social effects are minimal.

According to Forondo, the construction of the pipeline displaced local families, hurt wildlife, and led to previously unknown diseases among 80 percent of the residents of the Nahua Kugapakori reserve.