Camisea Gas Project

The Camesia gas pipeline, which runs from the amazon, over the Andes, to the pacific coast has been raising a lot controversy in the past decade with its destruction of the Peru rainforest. It has ruptured 4 times with at least three major spills in the first 18 months since it was constructed in 2004. With 22 indigenous communities living in a state reserve in isolation, a contractor by way of helicopter has made contact with these isolated communities and is pressuring them to abandon their ancestral lands so they can be destroyed to make money. The already drilled gas extraction operations for “block 88” wants to expand to destroy even more indigenous native land. The area has suffered a range of direct and “indirect” impacts, from the loss of local fish and hunting populations on which native indigenous people of that land live on, to landslides, infectious diseases and STD outbreaks. Peruvian health ministry confirmed that incidences of infectious diseases had increased among one group, the Nanti, to such a disturbing rate that only one in four now reaches adolescence. Expansion of the gas project is the most damaging project in the Amazon Basin. From the improper development loans, scars to primary rainforest, and damage to semi-nomadic peoples who live in isolation we can see why this is true. This project has upset many in Peru, especially because it was built within the Paracas Marine Reserve, considered to be an internationally important wetland area by the RAMSAR. Despite repeated appeals by Peruvian society, the consortium refused to choose an alternative.
There was a lot of push back and criticism from indigenous groups, Peruvian society, international NGOs, USA congressional representatives and its own environmental auditors. They all agreed that this project would not only harm the people living there, but their own economy and image to the outside world. But even after all the signs they were given not to do it, the Inter-American development bank