Cheap gas vs. biodiversity

Update 12

AmazonQuest is an interactive expedition developed by Classroom Connect. For five weeks, a team of scientists and explorers are examining one of the most distinctive and most threatened environments on Earth: the Amazon River basin.

Peruvian construction workers take a break by a tractor, which they are using to clear out an area along the Rio Urubamba. The area will become a base of operations for pipeline construction.

Today, we entered a whole new world. Literally.

After days of waiting at the Machiguenga Wildlife Lodge for the rain to let up, it finally did. We loaded up a motorboat, and we've been working our way down the Rio Urubamba ever since.

This afternoon, our boat dropped us off in an enormous jungle clearing on the side of the river. Men walked around in the steamy heat, wearing bright orange jumpsuits and hard hats. A helicopter sat next to a small village of white trailers. A moustached man in jeans greeted us, took us into an air-conditioned trailer and served us cold sparkling water. A radio played classic rock. I flushed a toilet for the first time in two weeks.

This was Nuevo Mundo -- Spanish for "New World" -- the headquarters of a controversial project to deliver natural gas from the Amazonian jungle through an underground pipeline to Lima, Peru, about 450 miles away. Peru's only supply of natural gas lies near here, thousands of feet underground in an area called Camisea. A consortium of companies, which includes Hunt Oil in America and PlusPetrol in Argentina, has invested more than $26 billion in the project.

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Ten project executives, including the consortium's general manager Alejandro Segret, explained their plans to us in Cuzco two weeks ago. "The Camisea pipeline is the biggest and most important project being carried out in Peru right now," Segret said.

Peru desperately needs a cheap supply of natural gas, Segret said, especially in the capital city Lima. A quarter of Peru's citizens live in Lima, and 70 percent of the country's vehicles zoom around the city's streets. Right now, the country's cars, trucks, and buses run on diesel fuel, which spews out large doses of carbon dioxide gas. Carbon Dioxide traps heat in the atmosphere and may contribute to global warming.

I found it hard to breathe in Lima's smelly gray air when we were there.

A steady supply of natural gas would alleviate many of those problems, Segret said. Electricity prices would drop drastically, to less than a quarter of what people pay right now. Gasoline would be cheaper, too. And putting natural gas instead of diesel into the city's buses would cut carbon dioxide emissions in half.

But many environmentalists are critical of the project. Daniel Blanco, a biologist with the Peruvian conservation organization PeruVerde, calls the pipeline project a "bad necessity." It is a "necessity," Blanco says, because Peru needs the money; the government will receive 37 percent of the project's profits. He worries, though, about the area's wildlife.

Emily hangs out with a caterpillar at a beautiful gorge called the Pongo de Mainique. The Urubamba River funnels through the Pongo before flowing into the Camisea region.

In a 1998 study, scientists from the Smithsonian Institution found an incredibly rich center of biodiversity in the Lower Urubamba River Valley. Scientists have long thought that Manu National Park, near where we began AmazonQuest, has more species of plants and animals than anywhere else on the planet. But the study found that this region near Camisea might be even richer in biodiversity. In an area measuring just over two acres, the researchers counted 198 species of birds, 118 species of fish, 86 species of reptiles, more than 100 species of bats, and perhaps more species of nocturnal butterflies than anywhere else on earth.

Pipeline construction might threaten that biodiversity, some scientists warn. To install the pipeline, construction workers will cut a 150-foot wide stretch of forest through the jungle and over the mountains to the city. Such a barrier might disrupt hunting activities of animals like jaguars, which need lots of room to roam. One female jaguar, in fact, requires eight square miles to feed herself and her cubs. Monkeys, rodents, and other animals might suffer too if they're not willing to risk crossing the clearing.

Consortium executives say the project will exceed environmental laws and regulations to protect the area's wildlife. Roads will provide access only to construction vehicles. Workers will cut as few trees as possible. They will leave corridors for animal crossings. And, once the pipeline is in place, Mr. Segret said, the jungle will take over in no time. "In 20 years, the forest will look the same as it does now," he said. "The jungle will cover the whole pipeline."

The debate continues, mostly because no one has ever embarked on a project like this before. The man we met at Nuevo Mundo today, base manager and doctor, Alejandro Alvarez, showed us the project's 87-page environmental impact assessment. He, too, earnestly assured us that the country needs the project.

Development has already reached this part of Peru. Instead of jaguars and capybara, here we see dogs and cows along the banks of the river. A motor powers us instead of oars. Roosters crow instead of macaws.

Power lines are already here. Pipelines may be next.

Yours in admitting that air-conditioning felt really, really good,

Emily