A new study by researchers from the Universitat Autonoma de Barcelona (UAB) as well as Washington-based non-governmental organization, Save America’s Forests (SAF) has suggested that a rapid spread of new oil and gas concessions is threatening to overrun the Peruvian Amazon. The research discovered that the total area of land leased for concessions in the area is currently on schedule to account for about 70% of the Peruvian Amazon region.

The research, which was published in the Environmental Research Letters journal, discusses hydrocarbon activity in the region’s recent history and makes some predictions for what might happen over the next five years. The two main researchers involved, Marti Orta-Martinez and Matt Finer, discovered during the course of their studies that in recent times more of the Amazon in the Peruvian region has been leased out to gas and oil organization than at any other period previously recorded. They found that there are currently 52 hydrocarbon concessions active in the area that stretch across over 41% of the forest, a figure that has increased hugely from the 7% mark that was recorded only as recently as 2003.

The two authors of the report have warned that the Peruvian Amazon region is now in the grip of a “second hydrocarbon exploitation boom”, and they believe that concessions leased out to gas and oil companies will, on current projections, increase to cover some 70% of the area. The report’s data has revealed that the area’s recent hydrocarbon history has led to the extraction of almost one billion barrels of crude oil during the course of the last seventy years, and this accounts for the second-biggest land area in the whole Amazon basin outside of Brazil.

The report also found that, despite the fact that oil production in the Amazon region has been in a steady decline since the boom period of the early 1980s though the production of natural gas in the region has leapt since 2004, which coincides with the beginning of production located at Camisea. In keeping with this trend 2009 saw the lowest oil output from the region for three decades, although it also saw natural gas production rise rapidly for the sixth year in a row. Also, more than half of all the areas put forward as reserves for the local indigenous peoples are now taken up by oil concessions.

The authors also argue that the initial hydrocarbon explosion during the early 1970s came with hugely consequences, both environmentally and socially, and they state that this second wave is likely to do the same. In fact, previous government decisions to lease or outright sell the indigenous lands without any preliminary discussions or consent led to deadly clashes between government forces and the indigenous protesters. The report’s authors have called for a rigorous and thorough policy debate and that analysis of social and environmental impacts of developments should be fully explored so that they can be avoided at best, and minimized at worst.

These recent reports are further becoming fuel for many green energy activists and are being used as leverage to help encourage the development of alternative energy sources in more developed countries that would be utilizing the majority of the produced gas from the area. Although current demand for traditional high-carbon fuels such as natural gas and petroleum-based products is still high and therefore the current development projects are expected to continue for the time being the hope is that further developments down the line can be curbed through the reduction of the demand for the fuel source. Still, this is an end-goal and is generally considered a “best case scenario”, though if alternative energy developments can keep up it may be more realizable than previously thought possible.

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