BELLAVISTA, Ecuador — The buzzing of bulldozers pierces this cloud forest’s cold misty air.
Long a bird-watcher’s paradise, the Northwestern Ecuadorean Forest is home to 320 bird species, 38 different kinds of hummingbirds — and now, a $1.3 billion oil pipeline the government expects will be a boon to the Ecuadorean economy.
But construction is forging ahead, despite the protesters in the middle of the pipeline’s path.
“This is all we have,” said Molly Brown, an environmental activist who owns an orchid garden and a small hotel in nearby Mindo. “The government decided it was the cheapest and best route, and we need to let them know that can’t happen. They need to take their construction, and take it someplace else.”
Ecuador agreed two years ago to allow a multinational pipeline consortium, OCP Ecuador, led by Canada’s Alberta Energy and Argentine-Spanish giant Repsol-YPF, to build a 312-mile pipeline that would provide Ecuador with a cross-country route for heavy crude oil. With the capacity to pump 450,000 barrels of oil a day, the pipeline represents Ecuador’s single largest foreign investment in a decade.
The project has been controversial from the start. A series of snags, from labor strikes to management changes, protests and vandalism, resulted in months-long delays and a $2 million cost overrun.
Running from the Amazon to the Pacific port, the pipeline project cuts through 24 communities, including endangered bird habitats, water sources and protected forest. And although it’s now more than halfway completed, project managers have yet to resolve prickly environmental resistance from activists who vow to stop it, even as construction moves forward.
The pipeline was the subject of a protest this summer by internationally known activist Julia Butterfly, who was deported after rallying outside OCP’s Quito headquarters. The loudest cries have come from Mindo, a town near Quito, the Ecuadorean capital.