Gas fires and living forests just don't mix

Although I was greatly impressed by this speech, when I considered the events of the preceding months, I could not decide whether to be delighted or disheartened. Was she truly about to take serious steps on the matter? The case that sprang to mind was that of past and present gas operations in the forestlands of Srimongol in Moulavibazar, Sylhet.

In October, Unocal was given permission from the Government of Bangladesh to put a 1.5-kilometre gas delivery pipeline through one of our last remaining protected areas for nature conservation, Lawachhara National Park (NP) in Srimongol. This was allowed in spite of our bitter experience with the Magurchhara gas explosion, which occurred there seven years ago on the outer boundary of the park. The site is an internationally recognised protected area for nature and for forest-dwelling people, which is a key point because Bangladesh has the lowest amount of designated protected areas (both in number and size) in South Asia. It also has one of the lowest levels of forest cover worldwide. According to the National Forest Policy endorsed in the PM's speech, national parks are one of the priority areas for protection, while reserve forest lands are to be increased.

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Lawachhara NP is a part of West Bhanugach Reserve Forest, which is also a recognised protected area. Both sites are home to hundreds of different plants and animals, many rare or endangered. In spite of being a tiny, disturbed patch of land, the area is inexplicably rich in diverse and beautiful forms of life. There are at least 246 species of birds, and a spectacular variety of primates, including three that are locally endangered: the hoolock gibbon, the slow loris, and the capped langur. It is still a magical experience to walk through the woods in Lawachhara, but one that this pipeline could end forever.

The last major pipeline-associated disaster in the area was in Magurchhara gas field, owned by the Occidental oil company. The establishment of that gas field was in itself questionable it involved clearing about 10 hectares of forest close to the edge of Lawachhara NP. In June 1997, an explosion in one of the wells caused a huge fire that spread to a nearby forest village, forcing villagers to seek shelter in the forest. The fire quickly spread to the park and burned large areas of the forest edge.

The blaze continued for two weeks.

The burned areas were still visible even recently, and according to anonymous sources, soil was shipped from overseas to cover up the mess. The damage to the gas field was addressed, amazingly, by the clearing of yet three more areas of forest to set up a new rig. Not so amazingly, compensation for the property damage to the villagers has still not been paid, and the damaging effects of the villagers relocating to new parts of the forest have also not been addressed. In 1999, Occidental sold off their holdings to Unocal, affected in part by poor publicity over the whole matter.

Five years on, the cycle begins again. How short are our memories? How is it possible for any commercial entity to get permission to put a national protected area at risk without parliamentary dispensation? The Department of Environment (DoE) categorises the pipeline project as a Red List Industry, or one that can cause a "significant adverse environmental impact." We are almost literally playing with fire. Gas pipelines are a known fire hazard worldwide, especially in developing countries, as a quick search through news items will confirm -- Argentina, Myanmar, and of course Nigeria.

Contrary to popular belief, these problems are not always due to design or construction faults, as modern pipelines have various safety devices. Common factors in developing countries are rapid wear and tear under rainy tropical conditions, natural disasters including flood and earthquake, and poor maintenance -- all of which are applicable here, but pale in comparison to another major threat in today's Bangladesh: willful vandalism, theft, and arson.

In our country, where only about 32 per cent of our population has electricity, gas pilferage is a daily practice -- and a dangerous one. Just yesterday, right in Moulavibazar, a huge gas fire resulted when thieves drilled into a pipeline to extract gas condensate. Although the fire could not spread because of pipe safety features, local firefighters were poorly equipped and the fire lasted for several hours until more help arrived.

If one wanted to steal gas, what better place to do it in secrecy than in the forest? Even if a blaze was ignited, a fire could in theory burn undetected for hours. Unocal's pipeline through Lawachhara is set to go underneath a pre-existing trail that is lightly travelled in normal circumstances. This trail could actually act as a corridor to spread the blaze even more effectively, as in the Brazilian Amazon.

The drilling method of gas pilferage has been in use for at least 6 years. Arson, however, is an old weapon used in land-grabbing in Bangladesh; it is suspected that the March 2004 fires in Sundarban may have been a form of this. The presence of a gas pipeline in the forest would be a lottery prize for potential land-grabbers.

These and other aspects of risk were not even considered in the Initial Environmental Examination (IEE), a study which by Bangladeshi law must be carried out before site clearance can be given by DoE for such a project. In fact, the IEE report, which is publicly available, downplays the protection status of both the National Park and the Reserve Forest. In spite of such glaring omissions, full permission seems to already have been granted and Unocal appears to have received fast-track clearance, even though a more detailed study submitted to the DoE is still being processed. Preparations are speeding along unhindered, and Unocal's park operations are due to start from January 2005 -- another nail in the coffin for one of our last patches of upland forest.

The speed at which Unocal has been allowed to work in such a poorly-studied area is phenomenal. How is this possible in Bangladesh, where projects to actually protect our forests spend years in limbo and often ultimately collapse under reams and reams of paper? How is this in keeping with the implementation of the 1994 National Forest Policy endorsed by the PM in her December 7th speech? The Policy has a long-term plan with goals for 2015 that include conserving existing degraded forests, bringing 20 per cent of Bangladesh under forest cover by tree planting, and increasing the Reserve Forest lands by 10 per cent. With just about 10 years left to meet these goals, putting a potential fire hazard in one our nation's last remaining woodlands is not the way to do it.

On top of that, we are leaving much of this work up to a company with a history of negligence. Last week, after eight years of wrangling in court, Unocal agreed to pay millions of dollars in settlements in a human-rights case brought against it by 12 Myanmar villagers. The suit was filed on the grounds that Unocal was aware of and allowed the use of forced labour in building the Yadana pipeline in the 1990s. During that time, the Myanmar army used slave labour, torture, rape, and murder to build a pipeline in a contract with multinational giants Unocal and Total.

It is difficult to justify any attack against a company that could provide such benefits where they are so badly needed, but the actions taken here set the precedent for the future of oil and gas extraction in our country. If the Myanmar-Bangladesh-Tripura gas linkage project is approved, the pipeline will likely pass through Bandarban in the Chittagong Hill Tracts. Eventually more extraction will be carried out in the Bay of Bengal, even in the Sundarbans. All this is vital to our nation's development and improving basic living standards, but how will we ensure that it is not at the cost of what is irreplaceable?

Unocal has given the assurance of using top-quality safety equipment and guard patrols for the site, but their attempts to minimise the dangers are unconvincing. In our country, anything is possible when it comes to thieving, whether it is done by locals or by foreigners. Look at the crash of the $77 million Sundarbans Biodiversity Conservation Project, which collapsed in 2003 amid accusations of inappropriate spending by the Asian Development Bank.

Unocal may have calculated the pressures of ordinary wear and tear on the pipeline, but not the pressures of human need and greed in Bangladesh. Nobody here was shocked at how a gas pipeline could be allowed to cut through a national park, once they remembered that it came just days after the famous Transparency International list was published. Unocal's understanding of the situation may be adequate to their requirements so far, but they would do well to note that it could strike back. Unfortunately, the fallout will affect the rest of us as well.

SM Abdur Rahman is a researcher and columnist.