Monitoring environnemental, Santé, Société et Pétrole en Equateur

MONOIL is an integrative project which aims to improve interdisciplinary knowledge of the social and environmental impacts of oil industry activities in Ecuador. It includes four central objectives: 1. to identify and map oil-rich areas according to the vulnerability/population’s capacity to deal with environmental contamination; 2. to measure the impact of chemical cocktails consisting of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) and heavy metals associated with petroleum activities (air, rainfall, surface water and groundwater, soil and the food chain (fish, molluscs, crops) 3. to understand the constraints and levers that affect the implementation of environmental rules and regulations that are supposed to regulate petroleum activities; 4. to study the links between environmental contamination risks and health from a human scale (socio-epidemiology) to the cellular level (molecular biology, cytotoxicity) 5. to test an innovative system for depolluting water intended for human consumption.

In order to do this, MONOIL proposes an original approach of collective surveys, realised conjointly by sociologists, geographers, economists, geochemists, biologists and modelers carrying out shared field studies conducted between environmental and social sciences; the implementation of feedback sessions with the local population as well as scientific seminars for industrial and institutional actors, are planned for the duration of the project. This approach will be facilitated by researchers’ experience involved in MONOIL who will coordinate, participate and/or participated in other interdisciplinary projects, notably those internationally funded by ANR (ToxBol, RIMNES, AMAC, Eclis projects).