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The Candamo Dilemma

The Amazon’s landscapes are breath-taking at any hour of the day.

(LIP-jl) -- Few areas on our planet have escaped humankind's destructive touch. Peru is home to one of the last of these areas, the Candamo forest. But man´s struggle for survival in the modern world endangers the future of this ecologically untouched zone.

Danish philosopher Sören Kierkegaard explored the notions of freedom and choice in his famous book Either/Or. The title of his work reflects the heart of the debate concerning the Candamo Reserve, one of the world´s last areas of untouched splendor.

Will the area become a national park, or will it be turned into an oil field? Candamo’s fate hangs in the balance as history, politics and legal technicalities meet head on in the southeast corner of Peru.

The original proposal

In the 1980s, several scientific and conservation organizations, aware of Candamo’s incalculable ecological value, proposed a strategy that would conserve the area while allowing for the rational and sustainable use its resources. After lengthy analysis, these groups proposed the creation of a new national park based on technical criteria that reflected the interests of all the region’s stakeholders.

The Candamo Valley, according to the proposal, was to be the heart of the park, a natural area that would be left untouched. Surrounding the nucleus would be a series of concentric circles with increasingly fewer restrictions. The innermost ring would be reserved for scientific research, the second would allow tent camping and the third would allow the construction of ecotourism lodges. The proposal also called for several buffer zones for development projects, with special attention given to native communities.

The proposal, which met with the approval of neighboring communities, had its first success in the early 1990s, when the Tambopata-Candamo Reserved Zone was created. The news constitued a real victory for conservationists. Everything pointed to the imminent creation of a national park, since a "reserved zone" is generally considered a precursor to national park status

The conflict

Tree frog

But status as a "reserved zone" does not guarantee that an area will be left untouched. The Tambopata-Candamo jungles were included in a massive map of possible petroleum fields, which the government designed as part of its strategy to attract foreign investment. The entire Candamo Valley and a large part of Tambopata were "trapped" within Lot 78, which was awarded to a consortium made up of Mobil, Exxon and Elf.

The environmental community reacted to the news with a mixture of indignation and despair. The proposed park--the result of years of work, research and dialogue--was suddenly knocked off the negotiating table, leaving the area exposed to the risks of large-scale oil exploitation. The government, aware of widespread frustration, tried to compensate for its decision by announcing that all areas of the proposed park that fell outside the oil lot would be declared a national park.
 
This attempt at reconciliation gave rise to the new, scaled-back Bahuaja Sonene National Park. It was a bittersweet victory. The park protects areas of undoubted ecological value, but excludes the nucleus that gave meaning to the original park proposal: the Candamo Valley, the area originally intended for protection.

A ray of hope

There is still hope for the Candamo Valley, however. According to the contract, Mobil and its partners must "return" all areas of Lot 78 that they do not use. The returned areas will automatically be incorporated into the Bahuaja Sonene National Park.
 

A taricaya tortoise is born.

Environmentalists hope that Candamo will be one of these returned areas. It is, after all, only a fraction of the huge oil lot, and the companies could continue their work away from the environmentally important zone. It is ironic that Candamo´s conservation depends on the existence of oil.

Candamo will be exploited if profitable quantities of oil or natural gas are found. Otherwise, it will become part of a national park and will remain intact for the future generations. Either/or. The final decision is the hands of Mobil and its partners.

Of the 77 million hectares up for grabs in the Peruvian jungle, Tambopata-Candamos's one million hectares constitute the last remaining untouched area. "It is the largest uninhabited jungle on earth," according to the New York Zoological Society. British conservationist Sir Ghillean Prance, director of the Kew Botanical Gardens, agrees. "Candamo is vitally important because it is the heart of the largest uninhabited jungle in the world. It is entirely without hunters, an extraordinary distinction that can bring Peru much credit."

Candamo is an environmental treasure of unparalleled splendor. It has been spared depredation by loggers, fishermen, hunters and orchid collectors. It is free of slash and burn agriculture and cattle grazing, both common to the rest of the jungle. The animals have never known the presence of humans, and they react with remarkable innocence when a visitor does approach. Visitors can get within a few meters of species on the verge of extinction, such as tapirs, jaguars and giant river otters.

Dr. Hernán Ortega, a specialist on Amazon fish, says Candamo is the only place in the world where intact species of giant fish can be studied as a way of discovering biological patterns that may lead to a rational management of aquatic resources. "Candamo can teach us how to feed the entire Amazon, today and tomorrow," he says. The scientific community is understandably disheartened by the possibility of oil exploitation in the immediate area. Common sense dictates that it would be better to study the resources first and exploit them later, not the other way around. The absence of humans is an undeniable advantage in biological research.

A majestic and imposing tiger heron (Butorides striatus).

Another extraordinary feature of Candamo is its location at the foot of the Andes, in the department of Puno just 200 kilometers from Lake Titicaca. The area is enriched by the minerals and nutrients from the Andean soil that is washed down by mountain rivers. This mineral bonanza promotes biological processes, leading to much higher levels of biodiversity and biodensity than in Brazil, for example. Near one tourist lodge in Tambopata, a world record of 600 bird species were identified, nearly the number of species found in the entire United States. No one knows how many other species might be hiding in Candamo.

Perhaps the area's most amazing feature is its geography. Candamo is "a complete Amazon in miniature," according to scientists with Conservation International. It is a patchwork of plains and hills, swamps and cloud forests, tranquil rivers and whitewater rapids, all in the same fascinating place. Candamo is geographically isolated from the outside world, enclosed by a wall of mountains that creates a natural fortress for the protection of its biodiversity. It is a vast basin that receives enough rainfall to be self-sufficient and which is capable of existing independently of what goes on in the rest of the Amazon.

There are also social, economic and historical reasons to protect Candamo. The ecotourism industry has grown by leaps and bounds over the last decade, providing the closest city, Puerto Maldonado, with a steady source of jobs and income that will continue to grow in coming years. If managed correctly, tourism can offer lasting prosperity to the region, in contrast to natural resource extraction, which generally lasts between 30 and 40 years and destroys the environment in the process.
 
"Sacrificing Candamo for any short-term economic interest is a financial error of major proportions," says Bosse Landin, a Swedish filmmaker, writer and conservationist. "Candamo has enormous social and economic potential, but only if it remains intact," he adds.

Scorpion spider

The creation of a national park is the only way to guarantee native communities living on Candamo’s periphery the right to a healthy and prospering jungle just as they have enjoyed for the past 40,000 years. We cannot ignore the large social debt we have with the Ese'eja indigenous people, whose members were enslaved and brutally decimated by the rubber barons of a century ago. Today, only a few scattered settlements survive.

A century ago, resource extraction in the Peruvian Amazon supplied rubber for the tires of recently invented cars and bicycles. Today, its purpose is providing the fuel for our automobiles. Genocide and slavery may be things of the past, but the consequences of industrial expansion and widespread contamination can be just as fatal. Indeed, the similarity is worthy of debate.

Finally, from a geopolitical standpoint, Candamo's value can only increase as the destruction of tropical forests around the world continues unchecked. Kim MacQuarrie, author of a magnificent book on Manu (published by the Swiss-Arequipeña Patthey family) and winner of two Emmy Awards for the film "Spirits of the Tropical Forest" says, "Peru is known worldwide for names like Cusco, Machu Picchu, Paracas and Chan Chan. The name Candamo should be added to this list, because it is in the same class."

Historic decision

In Candamo, it is possible to see tapirs in the full light of day. This one is protecting itself from insect bites with a quick dip in the river.

Mobil and its partners, Exxon and Elf, are faced with an historic decision, one that will decide the future of the Candamo Valley, neighboring communities and indigenous groups. The decision will also affect the future of science and the trajectory of Peruvian development. No doubt, their intention is to do the right thing. At times, however, the best effort is not enough. Human technology, no matter how advanced, has its limits.
 
The most technologically proficient industries on the planet---space, defense and petroleum---make mistakes. We need look no further than the Challenger tragedy, the NATO bombing campaigns in Yugoslavia and the Exxon Valdez's environmental catastrophe. One mistake is all it would take to lose Candamo forever.

It is terrifying to think about the consequences of an oil spill in the Amazon basin, but the possibility exists. Candamo is especially an untamable zone, where the rigors of the jungle meet the fury of the Andes. It is a terrain of landslides, mudslides, avalanches, flash floods and rivers that continually jump their banks. Is there any way to make sure a pipeline is secure in this kind of an environment?

LIP Editor's note:

As soon as we learn of any developments regarding the fate of Candamo we will be sure to post it.



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