----- forwarded message -----
Date: Fri, 19 Oct 2001 12:52:31 -0700
From: melissa roberts <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: "[EMAIL PROTECTED]" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>,
"[EMAIL PROTECTED]" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>,
"[EMAIL PROTECTED]" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Rainforest Action Network - Monthly Email Newsletter
October 2001
Welcome! Thank you for being a partner in Rainforest Action Network's
campaigns. Read on to get the latest news and learn how you can help
save the world's rainforests.
In this post :
1. ACTION ALERT! Help insure the safety of Ecuadorian Activists
2. Background on OCP and Citi
For Pictures of the Blockade see :
http://www.ran.org/news/newsitem.php?id=435&area=home
ECUADORIAN ACTIVISTS BLOCKADE OCP PIPELINE CONSTRUCTION
PHONE CALLS NEEDED TO INSURE THEIR SAFETY AND CANCEL THE PROJECT
Beginning October 11, 2001 dozens of women, many accompanied by their
children, began to peacefully blockade construction of the OCP pipeline
through the Mindo-Nambillo Cloud Forest in Ecuador. After months of
exhausting legal options to reroute this environmentally disastrous
pipeline, local activists have escalated their attempts to save this
world renowned cloud forest. The activists from Accion Ecologica and
local impacted communities have placed their bodies in the path of
destruction and say they will maintain a resistance camp in order to
call international attention to their defense of endangered species and
ecosystems. German Bank, West LB, is the financial advisor to the
project. Citigroup is the primary backer of OCP consortium member,
Argentinean oil company Perez Companc. Perez Compac and Citi are
already set up to benefit from the new oil boom which the pipeline will
facilitate since Perez owns drilling rights to two controversial
drilling blocks within Yasuni National Park. Oil exploration in these
fragile areas is set to begin any time.
TAKE ACTION!
CALL Citi's investor relations :
1-888-250-3985 and dial 0 until you reach a human operator. Tell them
to use their influence to halt this destructive project and to stop
funding destructive activities such as fossil fuel development and
logging.
CALL/FAX the Ecuadorian Embassy in DC :
Tel. 202-2347200 Fax 202-667-3482
Let them know that the world is watching to insure that these activists
are allowed to voice their dissent in safety. Tell them that you are a
potential eco-tourist who doesn't want to see Ecuador's spectacular
forest reserves like the Mindo-Nambillo Cloud Forest threatened by the
OCP pipeline.
Call the NY offices of German bank West LB at 212-852-6000 Tell them to
cancel the project and redirect their investments towards renewable
energy development that will help the people of Ecuador without
threatening biological and cultural diversity.
ORGANIZE SOLIDARITY DEMONSTRATIONS at you local Ecuadorian consulate.
The locations of all Ecuadorian consulates in North America are at
http://www.ecuador.org/visa.html#ConsulatesofEcuador
For a full background info on OCP and oil development's destructive
legacy in Ecuador See Amazon Watch's Report "The New Heavy Crude
Pipeline in Ecuador: Fueling a Second Oil Boom in the Amazon" at
www.amazonwatch.org
For more resources and assistance in organize against Citigroup in your
community check out www.ran.org.
Background:
CITIGROUP FUNDS PROPOSED ECUADORIAN PIPELINE WHICH THREATENS FRAGILE
ECOSYSTEMS AND COMMUNITIES
To See RAN's case study on Citigroup and OCP check out :
http://www.ran.org/ran_campaigns/citigroup/cs_ocp.html
Ignoring the devastating toll thirty years of reckless oil development
has taken on the country of Ecuador - particularly on the Amazon and its
people - the government and a consortium of multinational oil companies
are poised to make the same irreversible mistake by moving ahead with a
controversial new oil pipeline project known as the OCP (Oleoducto de
Crudo Pesado). Among the consortium's main funders is Citigroup - the
world's most destructive bank. As the number one funder of oil
pipelines around the world it is no surprise to find Citi playing a
central role with yet another massive, destructive fossil fuel project.
Financially backed by Citigroup, J.P. Morgan Chase Bank, and Deutsche
Bank, the OCP consortium is comprised of Alberta Energy (Canada), Kerr
McGee (USA), Occidental Petroleum (USA) - notorious for their invasion
of the U'wa people's land in Colombia, AGIP (Italy), Perez Companc
(Argentina), Repsol-YPF (Spain) and Techint (Argentina). The pipeline
would transport heavy crude from the country's eastern rainforest region
to the Pacific Coast, placing fragile ecosystems and dozens of
communities along the 300-mile route in jeopardy.
The pipeline route chosen by the OCP consortium affects 11 protected
areas, and cuts through the middle of the Mindo Nambillo Cloudforest
Reserve and the surrounding ecologically sensitive forests. This area
is home to more than 450 species of birds---46 of which arethreatened by
extinction --and has been designated the first "Important Bird Area" of
South America by Birdlife International. The pipeline also represents a
threat to the area's burgeoning eco-tourism industry, which is expected
to bring in $600 million over the next 20 years.
In order to fill the new pipeline, Ecuador would have to double its
current oil production, setting off an unprecedented boom in new oil
exploration that could lead to the irreversible loss and destruction of
some the country 's last remaining old growth rainforest and territories
of isolated indigenous peoples. Hundreds of new oil wells and flow
lines would be built from existing oil concessions along with facilities
necessary to process and refine the heavy crude for transport across the
country. These activities threaten protected areas such as Yasuni
National Park, Cuyabeno Wildlife Reserve, and the Limoncocha and
Panacocha Biological Reserves. This project would also fuel the search
for additional oil reserves covering 2.4 million hectares of frontier
forest, the majority of which falls on the ancestral territories of
Achuar, Shuar, Huaorani, Quichua, Shiwiar, and Zapara indigenous
communities. Many of these communities have vowed to never permit oil
development on their land.
Prominent Ecuadorian and international environmental and human rights
organizations are calling for the cancellation of the OCP project and a
moratorium on all new oil exploration in the country's Amazon region.
CONAIE, the powerful national indigenous organization whose non-violent
uprisings have led to the ousting of two presidents in the last five
years, is joining environmental groups and local communities in filing
for a legal injunction in the coming weeks to void the OCP contract with
the government.
The Ecuadorian government, the OCP consortium, and the financiers have
failed to fully assess or disclose the long-term impacts of the new OCP
pipeline on ecologically and culturally sensitive areas in the Amazon
region or the coast. The government squashed all public debate on these
concerns by closing the public review process a mere three weeks after
the release of the 1,500-page Environmental Impact Assessment and fast
tracking licensing.
Ecuador's oil exports are primarily destined for consumption in the
United States, particularly in California. Not only does this pipeline
threaten fragile areas and local communities, it further increases our
reliance on oil - the main fossil fuel responsible for climate change.
We must call on the involved financial institutions to stop bankrolling
destruction of the Amazon and environmental injustice and urge them to
invest in renewable energy alternatives - not Amazon crude!
_________________________________________________________
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