State-owned oil company Petroperu said Sunday protests organized by Indians in Peru’s Amazon region were causing fuel shortages in several jungle cities.
Recent reporting on the Pasto Mocoa Highway have included video of the actual highway that is currently one of the most dangerous roads in Colombia, referred to by some as the “Trampoline of Death.” As an IIRSA priority project with funding in preparation by the IDB, a proposed 50 km rerouting of the section between between San Francisco and Mocoa will pass through the 35,00 ha Upper Mocoa Forest Reserve with impacts on indigenous and farmer communities in the affected region. Among other impacts, the highway improvement is expected to increase investment in mining as indicated by the estimated increase in mining related traffic from zero vehicles to 180 vehicles daily.
By means of this bulletin, the BICECA project of Bank Information Center, seeks to bring news and relevant current information about particular aspects of projects and policies related with the Initiative for the Integration of Regional Infrastructure in South America (IIRSA). This publication is addressed to a diverse public of civil society organizations, native groups, students, academics and other people or entities that follows the different policies and projects of international financial institutions related the IIRSA project.
IDB Loan Approval Set for early 2009: The $200 million road project in Putumayo, Colombia is an anchor project for the IIRSA Amazonas Corridor and will unlock commercial traffic between the ports of Tumaco and Belem, as well as between Bogota and Quito.
Concerned parties threaten to file a court case against the Egyptian government if they do not receive satisfactory answers.
The Phulbari Coal Project threatens numerous dangers and potential damages, ranging from the degradation of a major agricultural region in Bangladesh to pollution of the world’s largest wetlands. The project’s Summary Environmental Impact Assessment, and its full Environmental and Social Impact Assessment are replete with vague assurances, issuing many promises of future mitigation measures.
Over 100 civil society groups from 31 countries are calling on financial backers to withdraw their support from the the controversial Phulbari Coal Project in Bangladesh. The project will displace over 200,000 people, impoverish farming households and cause immense environmental impacts in one of the most fertile regions of Bangladesh. Despite these factors, according to information available on its website, the Asian Development Bank (ADB) remains interested in financing the project after having distanced itself from it earlier this year.
The World Bank’s support for the $15.5 million feasibility studies continues to raise questions about the Bank’s application of its operational safeguard policies on the project.
The Director of the Asian Development Bank’s Private Sector Operations Department, Robert Bestani, notified the Bank’s Board of Directors last week that it will take the Phulbari Coal Project in Bangladesh out of the Bank’s funding pipeline.
Civil society groups from South Asia are planning to boycott the Asian Development Bank’s consultation meeting on its safeguards policy update, to be held in New Delhi, India tomorrow. The groups, from India, Nepal, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh state that the ADB’s consultation draft, released in October 2007, greatly dilutes the Bank’s earlier policies on Environment (2002), Involuntary Resettlement (1995) and Indigenous Peoples (1998), and is opposed to indigenous peoples’ rights and subverts environmental considerations.