topic: | Conservation |
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located: | Brazil |
editor: | Ellen Nemitz |
In response to a long-lasting proposal by petrochemical companies to explore the Amazon river estuary for oil, the Brazilian Institute of Environment and Renewable Natural Resources (Ibama), one of the main official environmental bodies in the country, denied the companies’ request, citing risks to the environment. In this northern area, scientists recently discovered a coral reef that extends through an area of up to 56,000 square metres, which is still being explored.
The project was presented to Ibama in 2014 by the enterprise BP Energy - six years later, the national state company Petrobras took over its rights. A due process of environmental impact studies and public audiences followed in the next years, but the nacional agency understood that the documents lacked "definition of the fauna support structure, the drill unit and the support vessels that would be used."
On 17 May, following further studies and strong lobbying by environmental NGOs and activists, Ibama's president Rodrigo Agostinho accepted a technical report against the licence. The report assesses that, despite advances in guaranteeing safety conditions, "the efforts to develop models and technologies with higher accuracy and smaller margins of error are proportional to the challenges and risks related to oil exploration."
Furthermore, the technical document highlights that "errors in model predictions may affect oil retention and recovery strategies, as well as fauna protection, leading to increased risk of damage to biodiversity and livelihoods of local populations." In case of an accident, damage would hardly be avoided or mitigated in areas difficult to reach on the Brazilian coast.
The global NGO Greenpeace has been closely monitoring the development of the case and naturally celebrated the recent decision. "This is a victory for good sense, based on scientific evidence and the precautionary principle. An opportunity for the country and Petrobras itself to position themselves on the right and strategic side of history," stated Marcelo Laterman, spokesperson for Greenpeace Brazil's Oceans campaign.
The Mapinguari Institute, a local institution for social and environmental education and research, also showed its support of the rejection due to the weak contingency plan presented by the project. "In addition, the impacts that the exploitation would cause on traditional communities, especially indigenous communities, were not adequately foreseen," a group of local institutions commented.
Not everyone has received the decision with the same joy. Politicians such as the senator Randolfe Rodrigues, previously affiliated to a pro-environment party, criticised it, alleging that the people of Amapá, a nearby state, had not been involved in the discussions. He defended a supposed "sustainable development" of the region based on oil exploitation.
His statements were largely condemned. The coalition of civil society organisations called Observatório do Clima (Climate Observatory) explained that the senator affirmed that Ibama would be "preventing research" in the region, but what it has done is actually ensure more research will be carried out before putting biodiversity at risk. On Twitter, the organisation sharply added that "research" is here understood as just drilling "to see what appears,” which actually "has more to do with engineering than science."
However, as more companies continue to invest in new methods to explore oil, this will likely be a long fight. For now, sea life is safe and oil will stay in the ground.
Image by Gabriel Vissoto