Channel Button

There are 33 articles on this title. You are reading the article ranked and rated #17 by Helium's members.

Politics, News & Issues   >

Pulitzer Center

Get a Widget for this title

Should US environmental standards apply when multinational companies develop the petroleum resources of fragile ecosystems such as Peru's Amazon?

Title endorsed in part by:

Be Advised; North Americans may not appreciate hearing the truth.

Multinational oil companies are racing south to exploit delicate environments in countries such as Ecuador, Peru, and Bolivia in the endless search for oil.
Hunt Oil is an American corporation that is operating the Camisea Gas project (*1) in the Amazon jungles of Peru with other multinational partners.

The quiet, virtually unknown indigenous peoples of the Peruvian Amazon jungles have been beguiled by words, promises and barter. Their governments, led as sheep to the slaughter, have "licensed" their oil reserves to multinational corporations and are being exploited at unbelievable cost to the lives of their people and the environment.

The once pristine native river is now a fouled highway used for the transportation of construction goods, rusty steel pipe, and foreign workers instead of being the sole source of life, food and fish it has been for millennia.

The "glorious" allure of westernized culture, tin-roofed schools, television, the internet and temporary slave-labour jobs in exchange for environmental mayhem, and not one, not two, but no fewer than six major ruptures of the Camisea River gas pipeline since 2001 -is proving to be less than acceptable barter.
There is little doubt that a pipeline built in a hurry to exploit the huge gas reserves, using minimal standards, questionable testing, and procedures that would not be allowed for similar construction in the continental United States of America, will continue to fail in the future.

With a questionable record of several disastrous failures to date, it is virtually guaranteed to fail repeatedly in the future, but at what cost?

What will happen deep in the jungles of Peru when Hunt Oil finishes exploiting the gas and oil reserves must inevitably be distasteful, hidden, and bear much similarity to the typical North American pattern of "moving on", in which corporations leave resource-stripped sites as permanent environmental disasters.

Ecological damage, garbage, operational waste, and all repercussions thereof are left to the indigenous populations to deal with. The future of the local populations is negatively changed and affected forever but is ignored as "out of sight and out of mind".

"Out of Sight" is not out of mind merely because the projects are "imagined to be beyond criticism" deep in the dense rain forests of Peru.
By any stretch of corporate imagination or wishful thinking, a remote location is not justification for lack of environmental


Below are the top articles rated and ranked by Helium members on:

Should US environmental standards apply when multinational companies develop the petroleum resources of fragile ecosystems such as Peru's Amazon?

  • 1 of 33

    by Peter Shattuck

    Necessity and Neglect: Making Multinationals Accountable for What Matters

    The enforcement of strict environmental standards

    read more

  • 2 of 33

    by Linhah

    The title of this article might better be Is God Truly Dead? To begin with, the United States has no environmental standards.

    read more

  • 3 of 33

    by Gary C. Gibson

    The application of U.S. law to American citizens visiting foreign countries is something of a difficult question that is

    read more

  • 4 of 33

    by Patricia Dexheimer

    If there is one place on the planet earth that must be protected and safeguarded, it is the South and Central American rain-forests,

    read more

  • 5 of 33

    by Eve Redstone

    Ever since Sting brought it to world attention the plight of the Amazonian rainforest has been an international concern.

    read more

View All Articles on:
Should US environmental standards apply when multinational companies develop the petroleum resources of fragile ecosystems such as Peru's Amazon?

Add your voice

Know something about Should US environmental standards apply when multinational companies develop the petroleum resources of fragile ecosystems such as Peru's Amazon??
We want to hear your view. Write_penWrite now!

Helium Debate

Cast your vote!

Should the state of Connecticut tax plastic bags at the grocery store?

Click for your side.

170397

Featured Partner

House Rabbit Society

House Rabbit Society is a volunteer-based international non-profit organization with two primary goals: 1) To r...more

What is Helium? | Buy Web Content | Contact Us | Privacy | User agreement | DMCA | User Tools | Help | Community | Helium’s Official Blog | Link to Helium

Helium, Inc.
200 Brickstone Square Andover, MA 01810 USA