Project
Foto: Andrés ÁngelStopping the spread of fracking in Latin America
“Fracking” is short for hydraulic fracturing, a process used to extract oil and natural gas from historically inaccessible reservoirs.
Fracking is already widespread in the global North, but in Latin America, it is just beginning. Governments are opening their doors to fracking without understanding its impacts and risks, and without consulting affected communities. Many communities are organizing to prevent or stop the impacts of fracking, which affect their fundamental human rights. But in many cases they require legal and technical support.
What exactly is fracking, and what are its impacts?
A straight hole is drilled deep into the earth. Then the drill curves and bores horizontally, making an L-shaped hole. Fracking fluid—a mixture of water, chemicals, and sand—is pumped into the hole at high pressure, fracturing layers of shale rock above and below the hole. Gas or oil trapped in the rock rises to the surface along with the fracking fluid.
The chemical soup—now also contaminated with heavy metals and even radioactive elements from underground—is frequently dumped into unlined ponds. It may seep into aquifers and overflow into streams, poisoning water sources for people, agriculture, and livestock. Gas may also seep from fractured rock or from the well into aquifers; as a result, water flowing from household taps can be lit on fire. Other documented harms include exhausted freshwater supplies (for all that fracking fluid), air pollution from drill and pump rigs, large methane emissions that aggravate global warming, earthquakes, and health harms including cancer and birth defects.
AIDA’s report on fracking (available in Spanish) analyzes the viability of applying the precautionary principle as an institutional tool to prevent, avoid or stop hydraulic fracturing operations in Latin America.
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The Final Frontier: Public policies, impacts and resistance to fracking in Latin America
Heavily promoted by the United States, the exploitation of unconventional hydrocarbons through fracking has sought to expand into nations throughout the Americas. It has done so despite the fact that none of those governments have comprehensive knowledge of its risks, the serious and irreversible damage it does to human and environmental health, or how to prevent and mitigate those risks. That’s why the Latin American Alliance On Fracking (ALFF) published this report—to contribute to the debate, and spread awareness of the impacts of this controversial technique. Throughout these pages we address the situation of fracking in six countries: Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Colombia and Mexico. Each case analyzes: the context of energy development in the country; public policies to promote and regulate fracking; the social, environmental and economic impacts of fracking on people, their human rights, and their land; and the advocacy, mobilization and resistance strategies deployed in each country. The report concludes with a summary of conclusions and recommendations in light of the analysis of and reflection on the different cases studied. As part of ALFF, it is our goal to feed the discussion of an urgent change to the energy model of our region, to arrive at one that is sustainable and socially just. We believe that the forms of production, distribution and consumption of energy promote in our region reflect the unjust and deeply unequal system of social relations in the region. This is the social, political and economic reality that the promotion of fracking reinforces. This is what we want to change. Download the report (in Spanish)
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The Precautionary Principle: A legal tool against the impacts of fracking
This report analyzes the viability of using the precautionary principle to prevent, avoid or stop fracking operations in Latin America. These measures can result in prohibitions or moratoriums, as has occurred in various states, provinces and cities across America and Europe. Fracking is a technique that enables the exploration of historically inaccessible reservoirs of natural gas or petroleum. Governments and businesses across the world have pushed for the exploration of these reservoirs due to declining global reserves of conventional hydrocarbons, thanks to 150 years of overexploitation. The exploitation of unconventional hydrocarbons is technically more difficult, has a higher economic cost, and implies greater risks to the environment and public health.Promoting fracking to extract unconventional hydrocarbons is a bad decision on climatic, political, social and environmental levels. It deepens our dependence on fossil fuels and wastes energy and resources that should be directed at developing renewable energies.That's why we felt it important to examine the viability of applying the precautionary principle as a legal tool to avoid or slow down the risks and damages caused by fracking, particularly in countries that have begun or are planning to begin fracking in coming years. Read and download the report (in Spanish)
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To cool the planet, fracking must be prohibited, organizations say
In the framework of COP21, a coalition of Latin American civil society organizations is urging world leaders meeting in Paris to ban fracking in their countries. By emitting large quantities of greenhouse gases, the process itself goes against the central objective of the climate negotiations: stopping global warming. Paris, France. In a public statement directed at Member States of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, organizations and allies of the Latin American Alliance On Fracking asked that all fracking activities be banned due to the fact that, among other impacts, hydraulic fracturing emits greenhouse gases that contribute to global warming. During the cycle of extracting, processing, storing, transferring, and distributing unconventional hydrocarbons using fracking, methane gas is released into the atmosphere. Methane is 87 times more powerful than carbon dioxide as an agent of global warming, the group explained in their statement. The document will be presented this Friday December 11 at 10 a.m. (local time) at the Climate Action Zone by: Alianza Mexicana contra el Fracking; Asociación Ambiente y Sociedad; the Inter-American Association for Environmental Defense (AIDA); Food & Water Watch; Freshwater Action Network Mexico; the Heinrich Böll Foundation – Mexico, Central America and the Caribbean; Instituto Brasileiro de Analises Socias e Economicas (IBASE); and Observatorio Petrolero Sur (OpSur). The organizations discuss the current state of hydraulic fracturing in Latin America. Although the use of the experimental technique is contrary to national and international commitments to reduce emissions, several countries in the region – among them Mexico, Colombia, Argentina, Chile and Bolivia – have begun exploration or exploitation of unconventional hydrocarbons through fracking. “Fracking is advancing blindly in Latin America, with no comprehensive long-term studies on the risks and serious damage that it could cause to the health of people and the environment,” said Ariel Pérez Castellón, attorney at AIDA. “Operations of this kind in the region have failed to respect fundamental human rights, including the right to consultation and free, prior and informed consent; the right to participation and social control; and the right to information,” added Milena Bernal, attorney with the Asociación Ambiente y Sociedad. According to the organizations, fracking is advancing quickly into indigenous and rural communities, urban neighborhoods, and even Natural Protected Areas. It has caused the displacement both of people and of productive activities such as farming and agriculture, because their coexistence with this technique is impossible. Rejection of fracking has grown in parallel with its spread in operations. “The proof of this resistance are the national and international networks opposing this technique, including more than 50 municipalities that have banned it in Argentina, Brazil and Uruguay,” said Diego di Risio, researcher at Observatorio Petrolero Sur. “As part of our statement, we urge the Member Parties of the Convention to: sign a binding agreement that quickly and effectively reduces greenhouse gases and incorporates human rights into the legal text; apply the precautionary principle to ban fracking; and promote renewable energies and disincentivize the extraction of fossil fuels,” stated Claudia Campero Arena, researcher at Food & Water Watch, and Moema Miranda, director of Ibase. Read the full statement from the Latin American Alliance on Fracking here. Event “The fight against fracking in Latin America: experiences in Argentina, Bolivia, Colombia, Brazil and Mexico” Simultaneous translation in English and French Friday December 11, 2015 Climate Action Zone Centquatre, 5 rue Curial, Paris (Métro Riquet)
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