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INFORME ALTERNATIVO SOBRE LA SALUD EN AMERICA LATINASince 1992, according to law, petroleum companiesmust monitor regularly the levels of environmentalcontamination and send the corresponding reportsto the national Government of Ecuador. This informationis not accessible to public opinion. However,when one of these reports was presented in 1999 toa community that had constantly complained to theDepartment of Environment for the environmentalcontamination by petroleum, concentrations of petroleumtotal hydrocarbons superior by 500 times to thelimit permitted by the regulation of the EuropeanUnion were found in the rivers of the mentioned community.The petroleum company and the representativeof the Ecuadorian Government maintained thatthe levels of petroleum total hydrocarbons were normal[Ecuador. Ministerio de Medio Ambiente, 1999].Within the Amazonian Region of Ecuador thedata available on the contamination of soil and its possibleimpact is scarce, and not one study has been doneon the impact that petroleum development has onboth fish and fishing. Nevertheless, studies of theAmazonian Region in Peru found high concentrationsof petroleum total hydrocarbons in the stomach andmuscles of fish after an overflow of petroleum in theriver Marañón [Perú. Dirección Regional de Pesqueríade Loreto, 2000].Effects in HealthFor several years, the residents in areas of petroleumexploitation in the Amazonian Region in Ecuadorhave expressed their concerns in relation to contaminationcoming from the exploitation. Many indigenousand peasant communities have declared that numerouslocal rivers and streams, which used to be plentifulfor fishing, at present lack aquatic life.They have observed,as well, how cattle die after drinking the waterof those rivers and streams. These are the same watersthat population customarily utilizes to drink,cook, and bathe. The residents of these areas have alsostated that bathing in these rivers produces skinirritation, especially after intense rain, as this acceleratesthe flux of waste from the pools near the rivers[Kimerling, 1991; Kimerling, 1995].In 1993, an association of health promoters forthe Amazon accomplished a study that described thecommunities. The study found that communities inareas of petroleum exploitation had elevated rates ofmorbidity, with notably prevailing abortions, dermatitis,skin fungus, and malnutrition, as well as a majormortality rate compared to communities where therewas no petroleum exploitation [Unión de PromotoresPopulares de Salud de la Amazonía Ecuatoriana, 1993].In 1997, the Institute of Epidemiology and CommunitarianHealth "Manuel Amunárriz" initiated a researchprocess to evaluate the possible impact onhealth, of the contamination by petroleum in communitiesnear the oil fields. Through the first of these studies,women who lived in communities near oil fieldsshowed greater rates of diverse symptoms (skin mycoses,fatigue, irritation in the nose and/or the eyes,sore throat, headache, earache, diarrhea, and gastritis)than women who lived in communities without petroleumexploitation [San Sebastián,Armstrong, Stephens,2001]. In addition, it was detected that the risk ofspontaneous abortions was 2,5 times greater in womenwho lived in the vicinity of the oil fields [San Sebastián,Armstrong, Stephens, 2002]. The research in1998 of a cluster of cancers in a community situatedin an area of petroleum exploitation in the AmazonianRegion of Ecuador uncovered an excess of cancersamong the masculine population [San Sebastián,Armstrong,Cordoba, Stephens, 2001]. In 2000, anotherstudy investigated the differences in the incidence ofcancer from 1985 to 1998 in the Amazonian Region ofEcuador. This study revealed an incidence of cancersignificantly greater, as much in women as in men wit-180
Observatorio Latinoamericano de Salud.hin cantons where there had been petroleum exploitationfor more than 20 years. The cancers of stomach,rectum, melanoma, subcutaneous tissue and kidney,in men, and the cancers of cervix and lymphoma,in women, were extensively present [Hurtig, San Sebastián,2002]. Recently, a higher risk of infant leukemiain cantons where there is petroleum exploitation hasbeen noticed [Hurtig, San Sebastián, 2004].The Response of the GovernmentThe peasants and indigenous people of the AmazonianRegion have presented their complaints to thedistinct administrations of the national Government.The inhabitants of this region have claimed a better lifestandard, the availability of basic necessities such aselectricity, the supplying of water and health services,technical assistance, and above all the remediation ofenvironmental contamination. By way of their organizationsand the support of national and internationalenvironmental organizations, the residents of theOriente have solicited companies to clean contaminationand to be compensated for the damages causedby this contamination. Until the present, the measuresadopted by companies and the different administrationsof the national Government have been describedas "patches" (covering of some pools, construction ofschools, roads) without facing the root of the problem[Varea, Ortiz, eds, 1995].Various administrations of the national Governmenthave declared the principal importance of petroleumfor the development of Ecuador. Ecuador currentlyretains the record external debt per capita ofall South America, roughly US 1.100 dollars per person[Centro de Derechos Económicos y Sociales, 1999].The rate of unemployment (from 6% to 7,7%) and thepercentage of population in poverty (from 47% to61,3%) have increased from 1970 to 2002 [Centro deDerechos Económicos y Sociales, 1999; Instituto Latinoamericanode Investigaciones Sociales, 2005]. Theratio of the income received by 5% of the poorest populationand the richest 5% changed from 1:109 in1988 to 1:206 in 1999 [Acosta, 2000b].The AmazonianRegion has the worst infrastructure and the worst socio-economicaland health indicators of the entirecountry [Terán, 2000].As a response to the nearly US 16 billion dollarsof external debt that the country has, one of the keystrategies of the national Government and the InternationalMonetary Fund has been the expansion of petroleumexploitation within the country. The proposalsof the national Government include the ceding oftwo million hectares of primary tropical forest in theSouth of the Amazonian Region to the exploitation ofpetroleum and the construction of a pipeline of heavycrude oils in the North of the Amazon to facilitate amajor exploitation in that area [Centro de DerechosEconómicos y Sociales, 2000].WHAT OUGHT TO BE DONE?In order to be compatible with the sustainabledevelopment and well-being of Amazonian populations,modern development of petroleum and gas exploitationmust be based on an integral environmentalplanning that considers the accumulated impact ofpresent and future exploitation all through the region.To prevent serious environmental and health impact,strict environmental controls and careful monitoringof the extraction activities in the long term are necessary[Kimerling, 2001]. Five interrelated actions are urgentlyrequired:● The Government of Ecuador should perform an evaluationof the environmental situation of the AmazonianRegion. It is also indispensable to develop andsupervise the execution of a plan to remediate the181
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PEOPLE’S HEALTH ASSEMBLY 2GLOBAL
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LATIN AMERICAN HEALTH WATCHAlternat
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12. Neoliberalism, Pesticide Use an
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Observatorio Latinoamericano de Sal
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Monopoly,Inequity and Health
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INFORME ALTERNATIVO SOBRE LA SALUD
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3The Right to Health and the Free T
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