From Enron to Evo : Pipeline Politics, Global Environmentalism, and Indigenous Rights in Bolivia PDF
Preview From Enron to Evo : Pipeline Politics, Global Environmentalism, and Indigenous Rights in Bolivia
From Enron to Evo Dedicated to my father, Roderick Hindery: For your enduring love and encouragement, and for inspiring me through your pioneering publications on comparative ethics, critical thought, and indoctrination From Enron to Evo Pipeline Politics, Global Environmentalism, and Indigenous Rights in Bolivia Derrick Hindery tucson © 2013 The Arizona Board of Regents All rights reserved www .uapress .arizona .edu Library of Congress Cataloging- in- Publication Data Hindery, Derrick, 1972– From Enron to Evo: pipeline politics, global environmentalism, and indigenous rights in Bolivia / Derrick Hindery ; foreword by Susanna B. Hecht. pages. cm. — (First peoples : new directions in indigenous studies) Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978- 0- 8165- 0237- 0 (cloth : alk. paper) 1. Indians of South America— Land tenure— Bolivia—Territorio Indígena Parque Nacional Isiboro- Sécure. 2. Indians of South America— Civil rights— Bolivia—Territo- rio Indígena Parque Nacional Isiboro- Sécure. 3. Indians of South America— Bolivia— Territorio Indígena Parque Nacional Isiboro- Sécure—Politics and government. 4. Indigenous peoples— Ecology—Bolivia—Territorio Indígena Parque Nacional Isiboro- Sécure. 5. Petroleum industry— Bolivia—Territorio Indígena Parque Nacional Isiboro- Sécure. 6. Natural gas pipelines— Bolivia—Territorio Indígena Parque Nacional Isiboro- Sécure. 7. Environmental protection— Bolivia—Territorio Indígena Parque Nacional Isiboro- Sécure. 8. Environmental justice— Bolivia—Territorio Indígena Parque Nacional Isiboro- Sécure. 9. Fossil fuel power plants— Brazil—Cuiabá (Mato Grosso). 10. Territorio Indígena Parque Nacional Isiboro- Sécure (Bolivia)— Social conditions. 11. Territorio Indígena Parque Nacional Isiboro- Sécure (Bolivia)— Environmental conditions. I. Title. F3319.1.T47H56 2013 306.0984—dc23 2012044179 Publication of this book was made possible, in part, with a grant from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation and by the proceeds of a permanent endowment created with the assistance of a Challenge Grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities, a federal agency. Manufactured in the United States of America on acid- free, archival- quality paper containing a minimum of 30% post- consumer waste and pro cessed chlorine free. 18 17 16 15 14 13 6 5 4 3 2 1 Contents Illustrations vii Foreword, by Susanna Hecht ix Ac know ledg ments xiii Abbreviations xix 1. Po liti cal Ecol ogy, Pipelines, and the Conduits of Re sis tance 1 2. The Neoliberal Turn and the Rise of Re sis tance 27 3. Green- stamping a Pipeline 63 4. Struggling for Transparency and Fairness 80 5. Struggling for Consultation, Compensation, and Territory 98 6. Struggling for Environmental Justice 125 7. From Neoliberalism to Nationalism: Resource Extraction in the Age of Evo 148 8. Clashing Cosmologies and Constitutional Contradictions 164 9. Cuiabá under Morales 185 v vi · Contents 10. Evo’s Double Game on the Environment? 216 11. Conclusion: Reconsidering Development, Indigenous Rights, and the Environment 232 Notes 245 References 251 Index 285 Illustrations 1.1 Construction of the Cuiabá pipeline through the Chiquitano forest 5 1.2 Area map 6 1.3 Chiquitano dry forest 8 1.4 Black howler monkey 8 1.5 Chiquitano community affected by the Cuiabá pipeline 19 2.1 Pipeline valve near the Don Mario gold mine 35 3.1 Pantanal wetlands 65 6.1 Soil degradation during construction of the Cuiabá pipeline 126 9.1 Burned vegetation along a section of the Cuiabá pipeline route that was not reforested 204 9.2 GasOriente Boliviano vehicle driving along a section of the Cuiabá pipeline that was not reforested 205 9.3 Don Mario gold mine 210 vii Foreword Che Guevara passed his last days in Vallegrande in the Andean foothills just above the Bolivian Amazon, and as he waited for his inevitable end, he might well have gazed toward the east, over a landscape that was just turning from its latifundist past and beginning its slow gyre toward its modern agroindustrial and hydrocarbon booms and its emergent native res ist ance. These w ere still wisps on the horizon, futures slowly being grid- ded out over the fl atness of the Bolivian Amazon, the “Oriente.” Che chose this part of South America because he believed that revolution fomented h ere would radiate throughout the continent from this tropical heartland. In many ways it has, but not as he imagined. What Leninist Che saw as ata- vistic remnants— its Indigenous populations— could scarcely be imagined as the socioenvironmental vanguard and the architects of successful res is- tance to energy juggernauts like Enron and Chevron, the quintessential incarnations of extractive- industrial monopolies. Hardly known in the mid- 1960s, the Amazonian- Andean interface stretches in an arc through Bolivia, Peru, Ec ua dor, Colombia, and Venezu- ela and contains some of the most extensive oil and gas reserves that lie under some of the richest tropical forests in some of the most remote parts of the planet. In the Amazon the hydrocarbon economy has pitted what seemed like the most powerless “backward” populations against some of the richest actors in global capitalism: transnational oil corporations. There is a simple David- and- Goliath story that could be told, but the virtue of Der- rick Hindery’s book is that he does not relax into this easy and well- known narrative, because we do not know how this story ends— and the account ix
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