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Yasuni National Park in the Amazon Now Open For Oil Drilling
Petrobras wins permit to work in lush Ecuador park
August 27, 2004
By Reuters
QUITO, Ecuador - Brazilian state-owned oil company Petrobras has won an environmental permit to build oil drilling infrastructure in one of Ecuador's most important Amazon parks, an official said.
"I signed the environmental permit on Aug. 19," Ecuadorean Environment Minister Fabian Valdivieso told Reuters.
The permit allows Petrobras to build a highway, dock and bridge in Ecuador's exotic Yasuni National Park, the country's biggest natural reserve, deep in the Amazon jungle near Peru.
Petrobras, which can build in an area of 200 hectares (490 acres), operates an oil field that shares land with Yasuni and is counting on this infrastructure to explore for crude there.
Yasuni, a UNESCO biosphere reserve that covers 982,000 hectares (2.4 million acres), is home to 90 species of frogs and toads and more than 500 kinds of birds.
Environmental lobby group Accion Ecologica this week asked a court in Ecuador to grant an injunction that would halt Petrobras from using the permit.
"We think that this environmental study isn't technical enough to guarantee that there is no ecological damage," the group's lawyer, Ramiro Avila, told reporters.
Conservationists are fighting Ecuador's efforts to expand oil concessions in its pristine Amazon jungle, fearing the unique wildlife living there will be wiped out.
Oil is Ecuador's top export and a main source of government revenue.
Source: REUTERS NEWS SERVICE
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