Not only could oil workings fatally contaminate water and soils, but new oil roads would be constructed deep into the forest allowing hunting, deforestation and colonisation by people seeking land.
The newcomers require homes, food, water, electricity, oil, roads and boats – all of which add to the pressure on a local environment that is one of the world's most important biodiversity hotspots.
Today, thanks to an ambitious modernisation programme financed by oil, roads span across the country in all directions, schools (for both sexes) number more than a thousand and education and healthcare are free.
Indirect effects arise from the easy access to previously remote primary forest provided by new oil roads and pipeline routes, causing increased logging, hunting, and deforestation from human settlement [27] [29].
Data were collected inside Yasuní National Park, Ecuador, in communities located along the Maxus road, one of two main oil roads entering the Yasuní National Park from the north.
Attempts to shift the oil by road and rail have made only a small dent in rising inventories.Meanwhile recent maintenance shutdowns in the North Sea have worsened already declining supplies from ageing fields of Brent crude.
In 2006 a Swedish government commission proposed that by 2020 the consumption of oil in road transportation should be reduced by 40-50 % through the use of more effective motors and the development of new fuels [8].
Supporters say the pipeline would be safer and more cost-effective than transporting the oil by road or rail.
These Revolutionary Guards owned-and-operated businesses are active in such industries as oil, agriculture, road and dam constructions, and automobile manufacturing, among others.
