The Camisea Gas Project is located in the Lower Urubamba river basin, a remote area of the southern Peruvian rainforest, one of the most biodiverse regions in the world and home to vulnerable indigenous communities.

Three of the four drilling wells for the first phase of Camisea are located inside the Nahua Kugapakori State Reserve, created in 1989 to protect some of the last indigenous communities still living in isolation anywhere in the Amazon basin. These communities have little or no immunity to many diseases borne by outsiders.

Completed in August 2004, the first phase of Camisea had extensive environmental and social impacts on the Lower Urubamba, including deforestation, erosion, sedimentation of local streams and rivers, pipeline spills, and the loss of fish and game populations on which local indigenous communities depend.

Despite the multiple, unresolved problems with the first phase of Camisea, in spring 2007, the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) was continuing to consider lending the Camisea consortia $400 million and guaranteeing another $400 million in syndicated loans for the second phase of the project. “Camisea II”, as it is known, is expected to spread the social and environmental damage wrought by Camisea I across a much wider area of pristine, primary tropical rainforest and its indigenous communities.

Companies involved in the Camisea project consortia include Hunt Oil, Halliburton, Argentina’s PlusPetrol and Techint, and Belgium's Tractebel. The consortia have been fined by the Peruvian government for violating erosion control and water quality standards. The pipeline right-of-way passes through many kilometers of steep rainforest terrain with unstable soils and has been completely exposed for two consecutive rainy seasons. The failure of the consortium to promptly replant and close the pipeline right-of-way has also opened the region to colonists, poachers and illegal loggers, further degrading this sensitive ecosystem and threatening the health and way-of-life of its indigenous inhabitants.

Hunt Oil is also responsible for the construction of a liquefied natural gas (LNG) liquefaction terminal on the Peruvian coast, located in a marine reserve, south of Lima. The target markets for this LNG are California and Mexico.  While Hunt Oil and the other companies involved stand to make a substantial profit from LNG, Peru appears set to receive minimal revenues.

The indigenous peoples in the Nahua Kugapakori State Reserve are in the initial stages of involuntary contact with outsiders. One of their early communications with the outside world was an expression of outrage at the presence of the energy companies: “In the past, Shell worked here and almost all of us died from the diseases...We know that if another company comes here, our rivers and land will be destroyed. What will we eat when the rivers are dead and the animals have run away?"

Learn more: Amazon Watch