The governments of Chile and Argentina are actively pursuing plans to build a Trans-Andean Rail tunnel to connect the Pacific and Atlantic ports of the respective countries. When completed, the rail line is expected to increase trade between the countries tenfold.

The current rail line between the countries is shut down for an average 45 days per year due to weather and technical problems.

Companies involved include Argentinian firms Corporación América (CASA) and José Cartellone Construcciones Civiles, Chilean group Urenda’s Empresas Navieras, Spanish group Comsa, Italian consultancy Geodata, Austrian engineering firm Geoconsult and Brazilian company Odebrecht.

The project is currently in study phase.

Also, plans are proceeding for three other hydropower dams on the Tapajós river — São Luiz do Tapajós (6133 MW), Jatobá (2338 MW) and Chocorão (3336 MW) — and four on its tributary, the Jamanxim: Cachoeira do Caí (802 MW), Jamanxim (881 MW), Cachoeira dos Patos (528 MW), and Jardim do Ouro (227 MW). Like any such dams, they would destroy critical habitat and displace people from their homes. At least two of the dams are planned to be built in or affect indigenous communities.

• Mexican Energy Secretary Georgina Kessel has announced plans for oil drilling in Chiapas, with private companies invited to invest as early as the coming year. The Zapatistas have been predicting this for a while, especially after the Mexican military invaded the oil-rich Zapatista territory of La Garrucha in June.

• Kessel has also announced plans to grow vast fields of an extremely poisonous plant (Jatropha curcus) and process it into biofuel!

• 55 new mining applications are pending for Chiapas (on top of mines already in operation) for metals including gold, silver, copper, barite, lead, titanium, iron, zinc, antimony and molybdenum. Many of the metals to be mined are essential for the oil industry (note again how interconnected the system is).

• Plans are proceeding for highways, bridges, airports and other transportation infrastructure in the region, to serve both the tourist and resource extraction industries.

Read the complete article and analysis from Narconews.

Loggers, ranchers and oil companies have a history of denying that such groups exist, in order to avoid running afoul of indigenous protection laws. But another less well-known threat is highlighted by an article from The Independent: the Trans-Oceanic Highway (also called the Interoceanic Highway).

Designed to facilitate trade by linking Peru’s Pacific ports with Brazilian ports on the Amazon River, the highway is a major component of the South American Regional Infrastructure Integration Intitiative (IIRSA). It has also been called the biggest threat to indigenous peoples in the region.

“In theory, it should not affect these peoples, and it won’t go slap through their land,” said John Hemming, a researcher of Brazilian indigenous peoples. “But when it’s built, the settlers will come pouring in.” He added that the highway will also facilitate contact for illegal loggers and mineral prospectors.

Note that while many news articles, including the Independent story linked to above, assume that the recently photographed “uncontacted” peoples have never heard of modern civilization, in fact such groups are almost certainly aware of the outside world — they just want nothing to do with it, as this article points out.

CONAIE accused Correa of making “racist, authoritarian and antidemocratic” pronouncements in service of a neoliberal and oligarchical agenda, and of “handing over national and indigenous territories to transnational oil, mining, pharmaceutical, logging and hydroelectric companies.” It blasted the President for his opposition to the indigenous movement’s central demands of plurinationality and “prior consent.”

Prior consent would require the government to gain the explicit consent of any affected communities before initiating large-scale mining or other resource extraction. “The indigenous movement will defend this right at any cost,” the declaration reads.

Plurinationality refers to a constitutional recognition of traditional indigenous cultures, including guarantees of bilingual education and culturally appropriate health care.

CONAIE also demanded the immediate suspension of all IIRSA projects within Ecuador, including negotiations over the “Manta-Manaos multimodal transportation axis,” which would connect Ecuador and Brazil with a variety of new roads and at least one new sea port in order, according to one government official, to achieve the “dream of joining the Atlantic and Pacific oceans through a terrestrial-river route.”

CONAIE is only one component of Ecuador’s strong anti-mining movement, which has organized several large-scale road blockades over the past few months.

Read CONAIE’s declaration (in Spanish) here.