Oil and gas access roads in western Amazon could open up ‘Pandora’s box’ of environmental impacts

This article is more than 5 years old

This article is more than 5 years old

Oil and gas roads are encroaching deeper into the western Amazon, one of the world’s last wildernesses and biodiversity hotspots, according to a new study.

Roads across Bolivia, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru and western Brazil could open up a ‘Pandora’s box’ of negative environmental impacts and trigger new deforestation fronts, the study published in Environmental Research Letters finds.

“The hydrocarbon frontier keeps pushing deeper into the Amazon and there needs to be a strategic plan for how future development takes place in regards to roads,” said the report’s lead author, Matt Finer, of the Amazon Conservation Association.

“We pay particular attention to access roads because they are a well-documented primary driver of deforestation and forest degradation.”

Western Amazonian oil and gas blocks now cover an area much larger than the US state of Texas – more than 730,000 square kilometres – and have expanded by more than 150,000 sq km since 2008, the study finds.

Oil and gas access roads, particularly in the Ecuadorian Amazon, cause both direct forest loss and indirect impacts from subsequent colonisation, illegal logging, and over-hunting, it says.

The report argues the ‘offshore inland model’ – a method that strategically avoids the construction of access road – is crucial to minimising negative ecological impacts.

Map features the current state of all hydrocarbon blocks and known discoveries. For discoveries, symbols indicate access type (and era for access roads). Photograph: Environmental Research Letters

“This model treats the forest as an ocean where access roads are not a possibility and the drilling platform is essentially an island in the forest accessed only by helicopter or river transport,” said Bruce Babbitt, the report’s co-author and former US interior secretary. “It essentially signifies roadless development.”

Use of the offshore inland development model is now well established in the Camisea natural gas project in the south-eastern Peruvian Amazon, says the report. Meanwhile, Ecuador changed course last year to allow road construction to drilling platforms within Yasuni national park despite a previous 2007 commitment not to do so.

The report finds that employing the offshore inland model could cost less. It argues that the increase in helicopter-related expenses would be offset by cutting the costs of building and maintaining roads in tropical rainforest.

“This study documents numerous operational examples of the offshore inland model,” says Babbitt. “What we need now is government and company commitments to ensure all future hydrocarbon development follows this model and moves beyond building more access roads deeper into the Amazon.”

The study found of the current major oil and gas projects in the western Amazon, 11 have access roads while six are road-less.

But future hydrocarbon development in the area is expected to increase significantly in the wildlife-rich region. The study documents 35 confirmed or possible hydrocarbon discoveries across the western Amazon that have not yet been developed.

No-go zones that are off-limits to hydrocarbon activities cover nearly 1.2m sq km across Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, and Brazil. These areas include national parks

and territories for indigenous peoples in voluntary isolation. However in Ecuador and Bolivia national parks are not necessarily off-limits to extractive activities.