The Paria Peninsula, home to five endemic bird species, at least 13 endemic subspecies and four globally threatened bird species, is in further trouble. On one hand, by mid-2003 the new road connecting Güiria, at the base of the Peninsula, to Macuro, at its tip, was complete and partially surfaced. The road is expected to increase shifting cultivation of cash crops and therefore increase the already worrying rate of deforestation.
At the same time the Marsical Sucre (formerly Cristóbal Colón) LNG project was reactivated through a framework agreement signed on 9 June 2003. The $2.7 billion project is a partnership between PDV Gas (60% ownership), Shell (30%), Mitsubishi (8%) and other Venezuelan organizations (2%). Marsical Sucre is projected to produce 4.7 million tonnes of liquefied natural gas per year, mostly for export to the USA. Shell say the project emphasises the extraction of 10 trillion cubic feet of gas resources in the Norte de Paria fields in the Caribbean north of the Peninsula which will be piped over the mountains to a cryogenics plant on its south shore. Conservationists are concerned that the project may try to pass the pipeline through the already highly threatened Paria Peninsula National Park. So far oil companies have not disclosed their plans, nor has an EIA been carried out. The project is scheduled to begin production in 2007.
By Chris Sharpe (rodsha@true.net) for Birdlife International, originally posted at:
http://www.birdlife.org.uk/news/news/2004/03/paria.html
Photo credits: Mario Dos Reis (mariodosreis@yahoo.com)