the Amazon. Under his Yasuní-ITT initiative, Ecuador would forgo oil exploitation in an Amazon nature reserve in exchange for billions of dollars in aid from wealthy nations.
Located in the Ecuadoran Amazon, Yasuní national park is home to the largest number of tree species per hectare on the planet and also contains endangered monkeys, pumas and jaguars. The Ecuadoran government has stated that it would not extract oil within the so-called Ishpingo-Tambococha-Tiputini (or ITT) oil fields located in Yasuní if the Global North provided the Andean nation with necessary funding.
In addition to rare animals Yasuní is home to the Taromenane, one of the world’s last uncontacted indigenous tribes. As oil presence has grown in the vicinity these hunter gatherers have come under threat: in 2003 unknown assailants killed 26 Taromenane in an ambush. The Indians have hit back and are thought to be the authors of a recent spear attack upon a settler family. One victim of the attack, a 12-year old girl, told oil workers shortly before she died that her attackers were almost entirely naked.
Not only would Correa’s ingenious plan take pressure off the Taromenane but also help to ameliorate climate change. Indeed, the President says that if Ecuador were to avoid burning Yasuní oil — and logging the rainforest to get it — the world might avoid the creation of 547 million tons of carbon dioxide going into the atmosphere. It’s a fabulous idea and best of all the Correa government would use proceeds from the ITT-Yasuní trust to prevent further deforestation.
For a country like Ecuador, getting at Yasuní’s oil is a tempting target: currently the Andean nation derives a whopping 35% of its public spending budget from petroleum exports. Correa could well use the added money: currently half the Ecuadoran population lives in poverty.
(10/27/2009) Ecuador’s Yasuni National Park is full of wealth: it is one of the richest places on earth in terms of biodiversity; it is home to the indigenous Waorani people, as well as several uncontacted tribes; and the park’s forest and soil provides a massive carbon sink. However, Yasuni National Park also sits on wealth of a different kind: one billion barrels of oil remain locked under the pristine rainforest.
(09/13/2009) The documentary Crude opened this weekend in New York, while the film shows the direct impact of the oil industry on indigenous groups a new study proves that the presence of oil companies can have subtler, but still major impacts, on indigenous groups and the ecosystems in which they live. In Ecuador’s Yasuni National Park—comprising 982,000 hectares of what the researchers call “one of the most species diverse forests in the world”—the presence of an oil company has disrupted the lives of the Waorani and the Kichwa peoples, and the rich abundance of wildlife living within the forest.
(09/03/2009) The promotional efforts ahead of the upcoming release of the film Crude have helped raise awareness of the plight of thousands of Ecuadorians who have suffered from environmental damages wrought by oil companies. But while Crude focuses on the relatively recent history of oil development in the Ecuadorean Amazon (specifically the fallout from Texaco’s operations during 1968-1992), conflict between oil companies and indigenous forest dwellers dates back to the 1940s.
But Correa, who issued lime-green posters emblazoned with the slogan “citizen revolution” during his first run for the presidency, and who has renamed the oil ministry the “ministry of non-renewable resources,” is busily pitching ITT-Yasuní to European governments instead of moving ahead with sensitive oil exploration. In exchange for preserving Yasuní, Correa wants $350 million a year from the Global North for the next ten years.
In the run-up to the climate conference in Copenhagen, Correa and Ecuadoran officials have been circling the globe to attract support for ITT-Yasuní. So far Spain, France and Italy have expressed interest in canceling Ecuador’s debts. But when Correa sought to set up a meeting with British MP’s about Yasuní-IT