The General Manager of LITOCLEAN Peru explains the need to address the biological, social and logistical aspects of soil investigation and remediation work in Peruvian territory.
Soil investigation and remediation projects are different depending on the territory in which they are carried out, so it is important to know well the country where you are working and its characteristics. LITOCLEAN has developed projects in many different places and has offices in countries as different as Spain, Peru or Mexico, so it knows how to manage the requirements of each project adapting to the region where it is located.
Albert Tasias Francí is the General Manager of LITOCLEAN in Peru, where he has been working for more than seven years. Before crossing the pond, he spent three years in the Barcelona office as Remediation Manager. He knows the particularities of each place and the aspects to take into account before starting a project in one context or another. “Understanding and learning” are the key to adapting to each environment.
– What is the first thing you learn in Peru?
Peru is not just one country, there are several. There they divide the country into coast, highlands and jungle and each scenario is different to work with. And, then, that in soil research and remediation projects there are many more aspects to take into account than what they are used to in Europe.
– Is the environment the big difference?
Yes, and all that this entails. In Spain we usually work in industrial environments and in Peru most of the time we work in the middle of nature, taking into account the biological richness of the area. This brings with it, on the one hand, the need to take into account the biological and social aspects of the project and, on the other hand, the logistics are totally different. You need a multifaceted vision to address them.
– What do you mean when you talk about social aspects?
The concept of territoriality is different, in the areas where we work there are native communities that you have to talk to before you can do anything there. This social management does not exist in countries like Spain, but it is very important and necessary there. The first thing you have to do is ask permission from the communities before going; then you make a first trip in which you introduce yourself so that they know what you are going to work on; after this, you agree with them on what terms the community is going to participate and only after this negotiation do the work teams go.
– Peru is one of the most biologically diverse countries in the world, to what extent does it matter in your projects?
It has practically the same weight as the soil and water aspect. Pollution is evaluated from the point of view of how it can affect the human receptor, which is the usual context in Spain, but in countries such as Peru the natural receptor is an equally important aspect to be evaluated.
– With all this in mind, the work teams are multiplying.
What in Spain would be to send a technician with an assistant to do a job, there for that same technician with that assistant to work you need a much larger team of people. There is a nurse or a doctor, depending on how isolated you are, because anything can happen to you, such as a bug bite, and you need assistance at the moment; there is a person responsible for security, who ensures that the transfers and field work are done with the necessary precautions; there is a support group that is responsible for moving the samples; in some projects, there are campers to set up a camp in the middle of the jungle; there is a community relations person to deal with the communities and there is a team of biologists, each one with his or her own specialty. In order for one or two people to work on strictly technical matters, you can put together a field brigade of 10 or 12 people. This requires much more planning than is done in Spain.
– Working in the middle of the Amazon, for example, also requires transportation planning.
We work in contaminated sites where access is really complicated, it can take you four days to get to the point where you have to work and on the way you have had to take planes, cars, boats, you have had to walk, take a plane and walk again. And those four days have to be undone at least a couple of times a week to take the samples. In long field campaigns we spend up to 30 days in a row working.
– Is Peru a land of opportunities in the field of soil research?
Totally, when I arrived from Spain, which was immersed in a crisis, I found a country full of opportunities. There were many things to do there, both from the environmental point of view and from the point of view of the country’s development, and today there are still many more. It is a challenge and a constant learning experience.
