Peru's rainforest: oil and gas run through it
Indigenous groups are threatened as Peru gears up for an energy boom.
from the May 7, 2007 edition
Page 3 of 3
"People are looking to Camisea to set a standard for what goes on in the Peruvian Amazon." says Peter Kostishack, a Washington-based human rights activist.
The Argentine company Pluspetrol, leader of Camisea's development group, says Camisea companies have helped natives, including village reforestation projects, clinics, doctors other development benefits. "[But] we were very blunt from the beginning in stating that we are not going to substitute the function of the state," says Sandra Martinez, a Pluspetrol spokesperson. "We can collaborate with the state."
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Conservation groups say a challenge is how to hold oil companies – which are bound to serve shareholders – to higher and often more costly environmental and social standards in poor countries with inefficient or corrupt regulators.
Private investment arms of Washington-backed development banks are meant to raise those standards through loan conditions.
But experts say they must increasingly compete with private financiers.
"The world is awash in private capital," says Mr. Sohn. "We see number of banks adopting better standards but many still don't see the business case for environmental standards or for free, prior, informed, consent of native groups."
• Kelly Hearn traveled to Peru on a grant from the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting. For more information about this and other Pulitzer Center projects visit: www.pulitzercenter.org .
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