Prosecutor raises serious concerns about BP and Total’s plans to drill near the Amazon Reef | WPN World People News

The Prosecutor has intervened with IBAMA, the Brazilian environmental regulator responsible for issuing environmental licenses to operate, and will take legal action to suspend the licensing process if IBAMA rejects or fails to respond to their concerns within ten days.

If IBAMA (the Brazilian Institute of Environment and Renewable Resources) accepts the Prosecutor’s assessment, BP and Total will need to start a new Environmental Impact Assessment. The key issues the Prosecutor has raised are the risks to the unique Amazon Reef which has not yet been adequately documented, and to the coastlines of neighbouring countries which could be exposed to an oil spill.

According to the Prosecutor’s public statement, Total and BP "did not take into account the important ecosystem of the coral reef of the mouth of the Amazon River. Thus, exploration in an area close to [the reef system] corals, without adequate environmental impact study, can cause irreparable damage to this unique and little known biome."

In response to the Prosecutor’s intervention, Amazon Reef campaigner Thiago Almeida said “BP and Total are proposing a technically challenging, risky deep water operation close to a unique and largely unexplored biomein an area with an unknown number of endangered species. As if that wasn’t reckless enough, the oil, if they find any, will just add to the enormous oversupply of fossil fuel we can’t afford to burn.

“The Prosecutor’s concerns, on top of the flaws previously identified by IBAMA, highlight the fundamental failure of BP and Total to identify, let alone mitigate, the many serious risks posed by drilling in such a remote and sensitive location. BP and Total must cancel these dangerous projects before their negligence starts racking up victims.”

The Prosecutor also describes the international threat of drilling in the region, stating that the Federal Prosecutor Office’s main objective in this case is "to prevent possible accidents and damages to the environment, besides avoiding a possible international conflict. Information from the exploration company itself confirms that a possible leak during oil activities can cause damage to the marine, physical and ecosystem environment, not only in Brazil, but also in neighbouring countries, especially the Caribbean region.”

This statement follows IBAMA’s recent decision to reject BP’s and Total’s oil spill modelling on the grounds that “it does not adequately represent the environmental variability of the region”and because BP and Total failed to comply with previous requests for information. IBAMA also criticised the companies’ modeling as “statistically incoherent” in places.

Earlier this year, Greenpeace launched a campaign to protect and explore the Amazon Reef - working with a team of researchers to produce the first underwater images of the ecosystem. More than one million people around the world have already pledged to defend the reef, demanding that Total and BP drop their plans to drill nearby.

Source: Greenpeace International