From Enron to Evo : Pipeline Politics, Global Environmentalism, and Indigenous Rights in Bolivia

328 Pages·2013·2.493 MB·English

by  Derrick Hindery, Susanna B. Hecht

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