Ley de consulta a las comunidades amazónicas intentaría ser burlada

“Aparentemente hay el interés de concesionar todo antes que se apruebe la Ley de Consulta”

- Señala investigador del IIAP

- Blgo. José Álvarez, respecto a lotización de la Amazonía para exploración y explotación petrolera.

El tema de la lotización de la Amazonía para exploración petrolera cada día preocupa más debido a que éstas empiezan a ejecutarse de manera inconsulta e incontenible en el territorio selvático. Así lo ha indicado Róger Rumrill, hace poco y lo ratifica el investigador del IIAP, José Álvarez.

“La inexistencia de la Ley de Consulta Previa permite ahora que el gobierno siga privatizando, ofertando, vendiendo la Amazonía, concesionando a empresas multinacionales, gasíferas, petroleras y forestales; un ejemplo es que la Plaza de Arnas está dentro de una concesión (Lote 122). De los 60 contratos petroleros firmados hasta ahora hay 24 contratos que están sobrepuestos en territorios indígenas. Vemos ahora y a futuro un escenario lleno de conflictos sociales porque este gobierno no quiere respetar las normas”, expresó Róger Rumrill.

Blgo. José Álvarez, investigador del IIAP.

Mientras que el Blgo. José Álvarez, precisó lo siguiente: “Hay más de un 70% concesionado para exploraciones y explotaciones petroleras. Si las comunidades no dan autorización a esas empresas para entrar a sus territorios titulados, ellos no pueden entrar, necesitan de un permiso. En Maquía hay una Reserva donde no han dado autorización a una empresa para explorar y el Poder Judicial les ha dado la razón, no pueden explorar cuando alguien tiene un derecho sobre la superficie de un sitio”, mencionó Álvarez.

¿Antes que se apruebe la Ley de Consulta Previa siguen entregando más Lotes para exploración?

-Es una pena que no se avance en el tema, aparentemente hay el interés de concesionar todo antes que se apruebe la Ley de Consulta. Es una pena porque se están atropellando derechos inalienables de comunidades al tomar decisiones sobre su presente y futuro. Lo que generan es una fuente de conflictos, están sembrándose futuras tempestades con la irresponsable dilatación del proceso de aprobación de la Ley de Consulta. Lo que de por sí exige la Ley Internacional y los pueblos para que se les tome en cuenta sobre las decisiones de lo que se va a hacer y no hacer en su territorio. Es un error esa dilatación.

¿Gran Tierra Energy dice sentirse decepcionada por no haber encontrado petróleo en el Lote 128, mas continúa en el 122 y está en espera de 3 Lotes más por Datem del Marañón?

-El petróleo lo necesitamos en Loreto y debe haber límites para la exploración y explotación, pero no por eso se puede hacer esa actividad donde sea como la que se hace en “las puertas de Iquitos”, en zonas sensibles como la cuenca del Nanay, donde entran al patio trasero de las casas sin consultar. Para mí es una buena noticia que no se  halle petróleo en zonas cercanas a Iquitos porque implicaría riesgos tremendos, aquí, se necesita el petróleo pero no a costa de la salud o dignidad de las personas.

Desborde del Ucayali

Viernes, 04 de Marzo del 2011  |  11:32 am hrs

Cuantiosas pérdidas por desborde de río Ucayali en distrito Iparía

(RPP) El alcalde de Iparía, Pedro Saldaña Balerezo, precisó que 45 comunidades nativas están inundadas y el 50 por ciento de colegios fueron afectados.

Cuantiosas pérdidas dejó como saldo el desborde del río Ucayali en el distrito de Iparía, provincia de Coronel Portillo en la región Ucayali, según información emitida por el alcalde distrital Pedro Saldaña Balerezo quien recorrió las zonas afectadas.

La autoridad edil precisó que  varias viviendas e instituciones educativas en 45 comunidades nativas están inundadas y alrededor de 8 mil personas quedaron daminificadas. Además 300 hectáreas de cultivos fueron dañados.

Pedro Saldaña , advirtió que se teme la propagación del mosquito transmisor del dengue, ante la gran cantidad de zonas humedecidas e inundadas por las aguas del río.

Lea más noticias del Perú en la sección Nacional

Ambientalista hallado culpable de sabotaje; Salt Lake City

Environmentalist Tim DeChristopher Found Guilty of Sabotaging Oil and Gas Auction; Faces Up To 10 Years in Jail A federal jury in Salt Lake City has convicted environmental activist Tim DeChristopher of two felony counts for disrupting the auction of more than 100,000 acres of federal land for oil and gas drilling. DeChristopher was charged in December 2008 with infiltrating a public auction and disrupting the Bush administration’s last-minute move to auction off oil and gas exploitation rights on vast swaths of federal land. A student at the time, DeChristopher posed as a bidder and bought 22,000 acres of land with no intent to pay in an attempt to save the property from drilling. He faces up to ten years in prison. DeChristopher joins us today to talk about the verdict.

 

palingates: Big oil

Interesante bitácora dedicada a la trayectoria política de la ex gobernadora del estado de Alaska, Sarah Palin, prominente miembro del movimiento de extrema derecha Tea Party y probable candidata presidencial. El doble discurso, cierto menosprecio hacia las minorias etnicas, las verdades a medias o la simple mentira parecen ser los señalamientos persistentes en su contra. Sobre todo si se trata de negocios en petróleo, impuestos y protección al medio ambiente. Fiel exponente de la moralina (en lo individual) y la política del desastre y el "!Salven a los ricos primero!" (en lo colectivo).

Impresionantes imagenes de los derrames de petroleo en el medio ambiente y sus efectos devastadores en la Madre Naturaleza. El dinero no lo justifica.

palingates: Big oil: "During her campaign for the governorship of Alaska, Sarah Palin projected the image of a maverick, prepared to fight corruption within her ..."

Medio ambiente: caso Chevron (Ecuador)

Appeals planned as Amazon residents win ruling against Chevron

By the CNN Wire Staff

February 16, 2011 -- Updated 1132 GMT (1932 HKT)

Humberto Piaguaje, an Ecuadorean native and member of the Amazon Defense Coalition, speaks during a news conference in Quito, Ecuador, on Tuesday.

(CNN) -- A judge in Ecuador this week awarded $8.64 billion to Ecuadorian residents of the Amazon who had sued Chevron for years of crude oil pollution, but both sides said Tuesday they will appeal the verdict.

Chevron charges the verdict against them is the "product of fraud," and the plaintiffs say the size of the award is too small in comparison to what would be needed to do a real cleanup.

Luis Yanza, speaking for the residents' group the Assembly of those Affected by Chevron, said at a news conference that the ruling was "historic" and a "collective victory." However, he said, "Eight billion dollars doesn't represent a significant amount to repair the environmental damages."

The judgment against Chevron is the latest in 18 years of litigation between the Amazon residents and Texaco, which was later purchased by Chevron. It was decided in a courtroom in the Amazon by Judge Nicolas Zambrano.

For its part, Chevron said it will also appeal.

"The Ecuadorian court's judgment is illegitimate and unenforceable," said Chevron, in a press release Monday. "It is the product of fraud and is contrary to the legitimate scientific evidence."

Both sides have until Friday to file their appeals.

Despite the pending appeal, one of the local leaders, Humberto Piaguaje, called the judgment a victory for the population that lives in the oil-producing area in northern Ecuador.

"The judge did justice and has seen reality," he said. "We know that this is only one part of our fight and we will continue until there is justice and the damage is healed. The world should know that what happened in the Amazon and our fight for life, for justice."

The case, Aguinda v. ChevronTexaco, was originally filed in New York in 1993 on behalf of 30,000 inhabitants of Ecuador's Amazon region. The suit was eventually transferred to the Ecuadorian court and Ecuadorian jurisdiction.

The lawsuit alleges that Texaco used a variety of substandard production practices in Ecuador that resulted in pollution that decimated several indigenous groups in the area, according to a fact sheet provided by the Amazon Defense Coalition.

According to the group, Chevron has admitted that Texaco dumped more than 18 billion gallons of toxic waste into Amazon waterways, abandoned more than 900 waste pits, burned millions of cubic meters of gases with no controls and spilled more than 17 million gallons of oil due to pipeline ruptures.

Cancer and other health problems were reported at higher rates in the area, the group says.

Medio ambiente y Partido Republicano en Estados Unidos

AlterNet / By Jill Richardson

56 COMMENTS

Get Ready: The GOP Has Declared War on the Environment

Republicans are trying to take down the EPA and with it environmental regulation that seeks to protect our air, water, food and health.

February 25, 2011  |  

 

 

 

 

Many who follow environmental issues find themselves routinely disappointed with the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) for its failure to adequately protect the environment (and thus the health of the American people). Even with the EPA acting as environmental cop on the beat, the U.S. is still home to fish too contaminated to eat, dead zones off our coasts (such as one the size of Massachusetts in the Gulf of Mexico), and an unthinkable amount of pesticides applied to our lands. In fact, according to Pesticide Action Network, some two-thirds of all active ingredients in pesticides were legalized by the EPA in a process known as "conditional registration." That's the legal equivalent of saying "Go ahead and use it, and tell us later whether or not it's safe." Once conditionally registered, pesticides are rarely, if ever, removed from the market once the safety studies are completed.

But House Republicans and their donor base are not among those who worry that the EPA does not go far enough. Quite the opposite. The first talk of taking on the EPA began long before the new Republican House of Representatives was even sworn in. In the current environment of budget hysteria, instead of offering earmarks and spending, Congress could offer fewer environmental regulations to its donor base. In a February 11 floor speech, House Agriculture Committee Chair Frank Lucas, R-Okla. spoke out against EPA regulation of particulate matter, pesticide spray drift, agricultural pollution in Chesapeake Bay, and more. But the biggest kahuna of all for Congress to go after is the EPA's ability to regulate greenhouse gases.

For a preview of the House Republican agenda over the next two years, one need look no further than the over 1,900 pages of responses Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Calif. received when he asked heads of industry about regulatory burdens they wished to see lifted. The EPA was a popular punching bag for industry respondents. The American Chemistry Council simply complains about the EPA's scientific methods, providing 200 pages of backup data to support its point. And the U.S. Chamber of Commerce dislikes the volume and complexity of environmental regulation in general, going so far as to provide a graph showing why environmental regulations are even more complex than the U.S. tax code.

Among the top complaints were the Clean Air Act and the Clean Water Act. The American Farm Bureau Federation chimes in, agreeing that nutrient pollution should not be regulated, and adding much more. "Unfortunately," it says, "the list of recent Federal regulatory actions that have had or may have a negative economic impact on the agricultural sector is long." The Fertilizer Institute is quite specific and detailed in noting its distaste for the EPA's efforts to clean up the nutrient pollution (fertilizer and manure runoff) in waterways that spills into the ocean, creating dead zones where no ocean life can survive. Additionally, taxpayers pay to have toxic nitrates leached from fertilizer runoff cleaned from their drinking water. The Fertilizer Institute asks in its letter that "Congress and the Administration ensure that any legislation or regulatory actions do not create a competitive disadvantage for America's fertilizer industry." They add that, "the U.S. fertilizer industry provides high paying jobs to hardworking Americans," as reason why the regulations should not be enacted.

Those who complained did not even have to wait for Issa's oversight hearings to begin seeing results. The Republicans -- with no support from Democrats -- passed a bill to fund the government for the remainder of the fiscal year that was chock full of amendments to dismantle environmental regulation or otherwise cripple the EPA. The Fertilizer Institute got its wish, with an amendment halting the EPA's regulation of fertilizer runoff in Florida's polluted waterways. Coal companies engaging in mountaintop removal mining and cement plants that spew mercury and other toxins into the environment came out as big winners in this bill as well.