If we look closely at this region, spills resulting from hydrocarbon activities are frequent; however, they often go unnoticed due to the remoteness and difficult access to the area.
Given this scenario, what is being done to recover our Amazon?
In 2015, the Peruvian government created the Environmental Remediation Contingency Fund. For the first time, resources were allocated to remediate environmental liabilities requiring priority and exceptional attention from the government in the Tigre, Pastaza, Corrientes, and Marañón river basins, the most important oil-producing area in the country.
The Contingency Fund, whose technical, administrative and financial secretariat is managed by Profonanpe, Peru's environmental fund, has developed more than 30 rehabilitation plans for 32 impacted areas prioritized by the Board of Directors, a governance mechanism made up of state entities and federations..
The rehabilitation plans were submitted to the Ministry of Energy and Mines (Minem), the institution responsible for reviewing them, and received more than 4,800 comments. Since 2020, Profonanpe has been working with consulting firms to address nearly 4,000 of these comments, which has led to the approval of the first 14 rehabilitation plans: 12 for the Corrientes Basin, 1 for the Tigre Basin, and 1 for the Pastaza Basin.
The preliminary step to remedy
With the remediation plans approved, the next step is to develop the detailed engineering; that is, Gather all the information necessary to define what is required for the future execution of the remediation process.
At the last Board of Directors meeting, Profonanpe was tasked with negotiating with the consulting firm to develop the detailed engineering plans for eight sites in the Corrientes Basin. These sites must be accessible by river and land, given that some routes providing access to other impacted sites are in poor condition and their maintenance and repair depend exclusively on PeruPetro.
Profonanpe is working hard to ensure the remediation takes place; however, the process may take a long time because it is important to coordinate with different actors involved: federations, native communities, ministries, consulting companies, among others.
It is important to note that Profonanpe is working in areas impacted for more than 50 years. Current regulations state that the pollution now occurring is the responsibility of the companies involved in hydrocarbon exploration and extraction.
