Wed, Feb 25, 2015 page9

• National park in Amazon under threat from highway extension

  • By David Hill / The Guardian
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  The Manu National Park and its buffer zone in Peru were international news early last year after scientists found it is “top of the [world’s] list of natural protected areas in terms of amphibian and reptile diversity,” beating off stiff competition from the Yasuni National Park in Ecuador. What these news reports did not acknowledge, not surprisingly, are the immense threats facing Manu — a UNESCO biosphere reserve in the southeast Peruvian Amazon where UNESCO says the biodiversity “exceeds that of any other place on Earth.”

  The first such threat, to the park itself, is from oil and gas exploration and exploitation. For years, Manu has been believed to hold significant hydrocarbon deposits, and numerous oil and gas industry maps depict “undrilled prospects,” “seeps” and a “spring” lying under the park. According to the Peruvian Ministry of Energy and Mines, five distinct “geological structures” in Manu could hold more than 396 billion cubic meters of natural gas.

  Shell explored in the far west of Manu in the 1980s, and in early 2013 it was revealed that Pluspetrol was planning “geological exploration” there.

  In in a recent report, non-governmental organization Peru Equidad refered to recent claims by local inhabitants that were passed on by a Catholic priest living in the region of “continuous helicopter flights towards the Manu headwaters” that suggested “seismic exploration or preparations for seismic” was taking place in the park.

  The report also said that inhabitants of the Manu Chico River region have been “disturbed” by overflights, which “could be related to extractive projects.”

  Another arguably more serious threat to the park is the extension of the southern branch, dubbed “PE-5S,” of the national “jungle highway” network, parts of which were first built in the 1960s.

  According to the Peruvian Ministry of Transport and Communications, the total projected length of the “PE-5S” is just over 1,000km, with only 109km paved to date, 74km unpaved, and 890km en proyecto.

  Ministry maps show the planned route: east from the Junin region into Cusco, along the Urubamba and Camisea rivers, across the watershed into the Manu basin and then along the Manu River past Boca Manu, a settlement at the confluence with Madre de Dios River and eventually all the way to the Heath River and border with Bolivia.

  What this would mean is running right through the Manu Park, as well as penetrating deep into a supposedly “intangible” reserve for indigenous people living in “isolation” and “initial contact,” skirting the Amarakaeri communal reserve and entering two other supposedly “protected natural areas”: the Tambopata National Reserve and Bahuaja Sonene National Park.

  According to Peru Equidad, the very first steps toward this extension immediately to the west of the park, in its buffer zone, have effectively already been taken.

  In its recent report, The Battle for “the Nanti, Peru Equidad said that a trail has been opened up through the forest linking three “Matsigenka-Nanti” settlements along the Camisea River.

  “It must be pointed out that [this trail] coincides with the proposed route for the national [highway] network, which comes from the central rainforest region [Junin], crosses the Urubamba towards the south, and runs parallel along the length of the Camisea [River], passes the three settlements, and then penetrates the Manu National Park,” the report said. “Although the model of the Camisea [gas] project continues being “off-shore in-land” — without access roads — there are national and regional plans proposing, in the medium or long-term, extending communication routes into the upper Camisea and the Manu Park.”

  On the other side, to the east and southeast, things are moving too. A road ultimately running from Cusco is gradually getting closer to Boca Manu, and the plan to build the stretch between Boca Manu and Boca Colorado, a town down the Madre de Dios River, to the east, was declared in late 2013 in the “public necessity” and “national interest” by the Peruvian Congress’ Commission on Transport and Communications.

  Indeed, Madre de Dios’ new regional president said before he was elected that the Boca Manu-Boca Colorado stretch of highway is on his agenda, and said that connecting Manu to Tambopata was among his plans.

  In 2011, UNESCO expressed concern about the “increasing pressures” that the Boca Manu-Boca Colorado stretch would “likely” bring on Manu Park and requested that the Peruvian government provide an “Environmental and Social Impact Assessment” by Feb. 1 last year.

  “The report was due by February last year, [but] it was never received,” UNESCO said. “UNESCO has requested it again, but it has still not arrived.”

  The idea of building a highway into the Manu basin has been around for many years: former Peruvian president Fernando Belaunde Terry even visited the region in the early 1980s and was forced to pull out after being attacked by indigenous people living in “isolation,” the “Yora” or Nahua, who at the time had no sustained contact with other people.

  However, the ministry’s maps say what they say, and the recent developments immediately to the west and east of Manu Park make it clear that the threat is growing.

  As scientists and many others have emphasized, building roads into fragile environments such as tropical forests, like the Amazon, can have particularly devastating impacts. These include physical disturbances to the soil, vegetation and water flows, pollution, and opening up previously inaccessible areas to hunting, colonization and natural resource exploitation.

  In the case of Manu, a potential highway or oil and gas operations also pose dangers to the reptiles, amphibians and other spectacular biodiversity, such as birds and butterflies, for which it is arguably most famous.

  The park is also home to various indigenous people, including the Matsigenka, the “Nanti,” or “Matsigenka-Nanti,” and one group known as the “Mashco-Piro” living in “isolation.”

  There are also other threats to Manu and its inhabitants: logging, cocaine industry trafficking and even people looking for archaeological remains, including a “lost Inca city” known as Paititi.

  One further outside threat is a gas pipeline that could connect potential deposits in a concession known as Lot 76, to the immediate east of Manu, to the Camisea gas fields, Peru’s biggest hydrocarbons project, to the west of the park.

  Several years ago, the International Union for Conservation of Nature raised the possibility that a pipeline “might traverse the property” to unite with Camisea, although UNESCO subsequently reported that the company operating in Lot 76, Hunt Oil, said “there is no intention to plan or build a pipeline” affecting Manu.

  Finally, it is essential to point out that the park’s buffer zone — included within the scientists’ research — has already been opened up to gas exploration and exploitation for years. The Camisea gas project, as operations there are known, has been producing gas since 2004 and includes a swathe of the buffer zone, as does Lot 76, where Hunt Oil is currently exploring.

  SERNANP, the Peruvian government agency responsible for “protected natural areas” like Manu, expressed concern that the expansion of operations in Camisea — approved by the Ministry of Energy and Mines early last year — would drive indigenous people in “isolation” into Manu to seek refuge.

  The Ministry of Transport and Communications, Ministry of Energy and Mines, Pluspetrol and Hunt Oil did not respond to requests for comment.
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