Situated on the eastern rim of Ecuador’s Amazon, Yasuni National Park is classified as a biodiversity “hotspot.” UNESCO has declared it a world biosphere reserve. A single hectare of Yasuni forest holds as many species of trees as all the forests of the US and Canada combined. Rare and even endangered mammals live in its territory as well as countless species of birds, insects, frogs, and fish. The list of its abundance stops only at the limits of human knowledge.
Indigenous Peoples Living in Voluntary Isolation
The Amazon is home to numerous ethnic tribes who choose to live in isolation from the exterior world. In the Ecuadorean Amazon, the Tagaeri and Taromenane, as a result of social and environmental degradation from oil and timber exploitation, have journeyed deep into the Amazon to now occupy the park’s “Untouchable Zone,” the southern sector of the park, a refuge for those who reject co-existence with the modern world.
July, 1987, was the last known report of contact with the Tagaeri. Sponsored by an oil company, two missionaries ventured into their territory to convince them to allow oil exploitation on their land. The missionaries returned dead, a fierce rejection of co-existence, when for many indigenous the term implies contamination and poisoning of their communities and life systems. As well, contact with outsiders carries the threat of disease to which they have no natural immunity. Contact is equivalent to auto-extinction.
The Pandora’s Box of Oil Exploitation
The conflict arises from this bio and cultural diversity sitting atop Ecuador’s largest undeveloped oil reserves. The Ishpingo-Tambococha-Tiputini oil block contains reserves at an estimated value of 6 billion. Ecuador’s most important export is petroleum. It is petroleum dependent, and as a developing country, it needs the revenues. Exploiting these reserves, however, would imply steep environmental and social costs, such as deforestation in the opening of roads that would augment the already severe problem of illegal logging, biodiversity loss, and CO2 emissions.
Yasuni Initiative
In the face of increasing pressure to open the concessions for drilling in this area, President Rafael Correa has responded with a proposal to keep the oil underground and the environment and indigenous cultures intact. The idea is that the international community compensate Ecuador for some of the income lost by leaving the oil untouched. The initiative proposes an international compensation fund for Ecuador, allowing the government to use the fund’s capital returns to invest in projects of sustainable development, and is to be administered by international organizations or agents.
Professor Carlos Larrea points out that the fund could receive capital through “government donations, debts for conservation swaps, compensation from international conservationist and human rights organizations, and donations from citizens around the world who could symbolically ‘buy’ crude barrels kept underground in Yasuni National Park.” As he further states, the fund has the advantage of providing money for an indefinite period instead of the finite years of oil extraction.
Corruption in Ecuador
Ecuador’s largest impediment to success in rallying support for Yasuni is itself: its own government. The Forbes 2009 "Most Corrupt Countries" lists Ecuador in its top 10. In the 2009 Corruption Perceptions Index, Ecuador ranked 146, near the bottom of the list. Transparency International uses surveys to measure the “perceived level of public-sector corruption.” As a comparison, New Zealand was at the head, scoring a 9.4 (out of 10), while Ecuador scored a low 2.2, a result that indicates severe public mistrust of government.
The Future Question
The next question is for the future president: Will he or she uphold the rules? Or will the next government drill holes in Yasuni territory to get at the black gold beneath?
No complete guarantee could ever be built into any agreement, but by setting up an international trust fund supervised by externals, by calling upon the world to look upon the Ecuadorean Amazon through the lens of a microscope, by asking world citizenry to purchase pieces of the Amazon and become its keeper, by globalizing the problem and manifesting a new debate, by synthesizing the fight against global climate change and cultural preservation, the Yasuni initiative has the potential to promote a radically new brand of thinking.
Ecuadorean environment minister, Marcela Aguinaga, has said that “We will offer the opportunity, on the Internet, to buy the chance to keep the Yasuni oil in the ground with a credit card … It would be an ideal present for Christmas or for the birth of a child.”
References
Larrea, Carlos (2008) “Will it be conservation or oil extraction in the Yasuní National Park? A transcendental decision that will define Ecuador’s future.”
Schwagerl, Christian (2008) "Ecuador Seeks to Commercialize Rainforest," Spiegel Online.
Smee, Jess (2009) “Germany Takes Lead in Saving Ecuador’s Rainforest,” Spiegel Online.
Sandra Gross - Having lived in Ecuador for over 10 years, Sandra is familiar with change, charm, and contrast. From Pacific coastlines to the Amazon ...
Join the Conversation