The Impunity of Gas and Oil Companies Threatens the Peruvian Amazon

Gas and oil extraction has transformed the Peruvian Amazon: companies headquartered in the Global North operate with opacity regarding the impacts they generate, while local communities suffer the environmental and health effects.

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Accompanied by a local team of translators, health personnel, and boat drivers, and with the support of local indigenous organizations, Guilherme Queiroz and I spent two months conducting fieldwork in the forests of the Bajo Urubamba region, in Peru. This work is part of the INDILEAD project, which assesses exposure to toxic metals in indigenous communities in tropical countries. The project is led by ISGlobal, the Open University of Catalonia, and the University of Barcelona. The images, names, and details of the rest of the local team have been limited to ensure their privacy and safety.

Urubamba River as it passes through Sepahua (Peru). Photo: Guilherme Queiroz.

This is a land far from tourist circuits, where small rivers converge into the mighty Urubamba as it leaves the foothills of the Andes and enters the Amazonian plain. It is also a land where, to the naked eye, the contradictions of the contemporary world collide with the extraordinary beauty of a jungle in constant change.

Camisea is one of the largest gas projects in Latin America. It was financed by the World Bank under the pretext of stimulating local development

Here lies one of the largest gas projects in Latin America, the Camisea Project, financed by the World Bank under the pretext of stimulating local development. On its own, the complex generates 2% of the national GDP.

The dynamics of this industrial development intertwine with the daily activities of local inhabitants. During the day, artisanal fishermen work on a river shared with the engines of modern barges transporting heavy machinery. At night, the sky turns red as the flames of gas flares reflect on clouds drifting over the jungle.

From left to right, top to bottom: impact of the oil industry on block 8. ISGlobal team (Guilherme Queiroz and Guillem Rius) at the Huitiricaya River (Peru). Tapirus terrestris consuming salts from an abandoned oil well. An unfinished and abandoned gas pipeline on hunting grounds in the Camaná Native Community (Peru). A fisherman from the Yine ethnic group with his catch. Repsol facilities on the left bank of the Urubamba River (Peru). Photos: Martí Orta, Guilherme Queiroz, Guillem Rius and image taken from Orta-Martínez et al. (2018), with permission of the authors.

The constant flow of people and materials by air, land, and river shows no sign of stopping. Qualified personnel from outside the region, unaccustomed to the humid climate and the relentless mosquitoes, work tirelessly to keep the numerous wells and the network of gas pipelines running, transporting this valuable fuel to the Pacific coast and from there to distant countries such as Spain. When their monthly shifts finish, they return by helicopter and charter flights to the metropolises where they live.

The richest citizens of Peru?

As you can imagine, gas extraction has transformed the landscape of this region. Today, the inhabitants of the Bajo Urubamba communities are, on paper, the wealthiest citizens in all of Peru. Their per capita GDP surpasses that of the richest neighborhoods in Lima. And it’s true—they are wealthy, but not in the Western sense of the word. They are rich because they live in a communal system where private property matters little, and where human capital is measured by shared knowledge, cooperation, and mutual respect within a family that reaches beyond blood ties. The impact of their way of life and knowledge also spreads globally, as their practices and worldview help safeguard fragile ecosystems that are crucial for the health of the planet—and, by extension, for the survival of humanity..

We have witnessed the enormous social complexity associated with this type of industrial activity, in areas where the main economic activities are limited to agriculture, fishing, and subsistence hunting

Despite this role, for the authorities they are second-class citizens, excluded from the political and legal processes concerning matters in their territory. Their demands are as simple as having access to running water, electricity, and basic health services. Negotiations drag on and the years go by without these basic rights being realized.

And for years now, promises of prosperity and so-called development have been heard. The project's origins date back to the 1980s, when the British-Dutch company Shell began exploring for gas in the area. The arrival of settlers brought infectious and respiratory diseases, causing the death of 50% of the Nahua-Nanti population during the first year of contact. The subsequent creation of the “Kugapakori, Nahua, Nanti and Others Territorial Reserve,” covering half a million hectares to protect indigenous communities in voluntary isolation, did not prevent the development of gas wells in the heart of the reserve or the extensive network of pipelines linking them.

Camisea, a representative case

Today, two companies—Repsol and Pluspetrol—neither of which is Peruvian, operate primarily in Camisea. Little is known about the project's real socio-environmental impact. Spills occur repeatedly, the most recent on March 1. In terms of health, there is evidence of high mercury blood levels among the Nahua population, which a Ministry of Health report—never published and leaked by The Guardian—links, among various hypotheses, to the project. The lack of public information about the origin of these impacts and the absence of independent monitoring prevent the implementation of effective protective measures. This opacity, by both the companies and the government, leaves indigenous communities in an extremely vulnerable situation.

We have been told personal stories about spills, rivers full of dead fish, and a lack of repair. We have witnessed how the construction of an unfinished gas pipeline destroyed prime hunting areas

Our experience over these months is, until samples are analyzed, qualitative, but no less important to share. We have witnessed the enormous social complexity associated with this type of industrial activity in areas where the main economic activities are limited to agriculture, fishing, and subsistence hunting. Gas extraction creates complex relationships of dependence and unequal power between companies and communities, in a context of state absence and concessions contractually protected for decades. This leaves little room for negotiation. We have also seen how the influx of foreign currency from the project fractured social cohesion, especially in communities near the wells. We have been told personal stories about spills, rivers full of dead fish, and a lack of repair. We have witnessed how the construction of an unfinished gas pipeline destroyed prime hunting grounds. We have also witnessed infantilizing treatment of the communities when they reiterate their demands to the companies, and, in general, a sense of opacity and lack of transparency.

An unfinished and abandoned gas pipeline on hunting grounds in the Camaná Native Community (Peru). Photo: Guilherme Queiroz.

Viewed in perspective, Camisea is part of a pattern that repeats itself along the extractive frontier, where today 20% of the Amazon region is leased for fossil fuel exploration and extraction. The fossil lobby's race to find new deposits, whether in Venezuela, Nigeria, or Peru, pushes companies into territories considered, according to neocolonial logic, as “inhabited.” Through unequal free trade agreements and contracts that protect companies from changes in the environmental and social laws of Global South countries, large corporations, mostly based in the Global North, secure access to natural resources. These rules of the game favor a model of dependency in which wealthy countries continue to extract value from former colonies, while local and indigenous communities bear the costs.

These rules of the game favor a model of dependency in which wealthy countries continue to extract value from former colonies, while indigenous communities bear the costs

Tactics of impunity

Our research team, led by Cristina O'Callaghan-Gordo (ISGlobal/UOC) and Martí Orta-Martínez (University of Barcelona), has worked for years alongside indigenous populations in extractive contexts. The team has documented elevated levels of arsenic, cadmium, mercury, and lead in indigenous populations and wildlife living near oil extraction areas in the northern Peruvian Amazon, where oil spills and contaminating produced water regularly occur.

These impacts are not accidental but are the result of a deliberate strategy of not investing in the maintenance of oil infrastructure. In this regard, the research team recently published a scientific article identifying impunity strategies used by companies to externalize the social and environmental costs associated with their activities in two oil concessions in Peru.

In two oil concessions in Peru, we identified that 83% of the 1,184 spills and leaks reported result in no sanctions for the companies

The study concludes that 83% of the 1,184 spills and leaks identified end without any sanctions for the companies. These practices include, among others, hiding information about spills to authorities and appealing rulings for years until administrative cases expire. The case of Pluspetrol Norte S&A—whose business group also operates in Camisea and one of the companies with the most fines for environmental misconduct—is paradigmatic. Despite making $437 million in 2018, the company refused to pay the fines imposed by the Peruvian government and, through a corporate liquidation strategy, has managed to disappear off the map without being held accountable.

In this context, it is necessary to question the activities of companies that violate environmental and social regulations and to reform the legal frameworks, both national and international, that allow them.

Considering that burning fossil fuels generates 70% of anthropogenic CO₂ emissions, leaving oil or gas in the ground is imperative, especially in areas where the social and environmental benefits of doing so are greatest. Decisions affecting the territories of indigenous communities must respect their sovereignty and autonomy. Communities must be free to determine how to manage their resources and protect their environment, without external impositions or coercion. Guaranteeing this right is not just a matter of justice, but a fundamental right to preserve the cultural wealth, the environment, and the functional ecosystems that ensure the planetary health.