Community | February 21, 2010 | 10 comments

ANALYSIS: Ecuador's Biodiverse Paradise Could Still Be Lost to Oil

source: http://www.ens-newswire.com/ens/feb2010/2010-02-16-02.html

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JanforGore
In December 2009, as the world waited for a global climate change agreement at the UN Copenhagen climate summit that was never resolved, one bright spot for conservation remained - the protection of a paradise of biodiversity, a portion of Yasuni National Park in Ecuador's Amazon.

Ecuador's innovative plan to keep some 850 million barrels of oil underground and avoid nearly 410 million tons of the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide was heralded as a first step forward for the planetary protection of megadiverse areas.


Yasuni National Park (Photo courtesy Government of Ecuador)
In exchange for keeping the crude oil in the ground in the Ishpingo, Tampococha, Tiputini (ITT) region of the national park, the Ecuadorian government asked for compensation of $350 million a year for 10 years. The money was to go into The Yasuni Trust Fund to be managed by the United Nations Development Programme.

Overall, Ecuador's signing of the environmental trust fund agreement with the UN Development Program at Copenhagen would have stood as a symbol that pathways to protection for ecosystems of the developing world from the peoples of the developed world are possible.

However, on December 14, 2009, just two days before the scheduled signing by Ecuadorian government officials and UNDP representatives, President Rafael Correa sent word via e-mail to his team in Copenhagen not to sign the agreement that had been in high-level negotiations for months.

Roque Sevilla, president of the Ecuadorian Commission for the proposal, said that the group had met with President Correa on December 10, 2009 to review 33 observations that the government wanted to include in the negotiations.

The following Saturday, December 12, final Ecuadorian government observations from the Finance Ministry were included to prepare for the official signing in Copenhagen on December 16.

Yet the Ecuadorian negotiating team came home from Copenhagen without accomplishing their goal - the agreement was not signed.

The Yasuni-ITT proposal, named after the Ishpingo-Tambococha-Tiputini oil field, is pioneering in four ways:

it calls on the world to avoid emissions, rather than pay for over-emitting
it calls for co-responsibility between developing and industrialized countries to pay to keep global diversity hot spots intact
it would form the largest environmental trust fund in the world
it would protect not just the plethora of plant and animal species that inhabit Yasuni, but also the two uncontacted indigenous groups that live within its borders - the Tagaeri and Taromenane peoples
cont.
  1. groups:
    Community,   Green,   Earth and Science,   Sustainable Agriculture,   4 more
  2. tags:
    Environment,  Climate Change,  Global Warming,  Oil,  5 more
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10 comments // ANALYSIS: Ecuador's Biodiverse Paradise Could Still Be Lost to Oil

  • jubal
    • 0
      jubal  

    • I agree, there will come a time when, without the indigenous people's knowledge and wisdom, many, many will perish. Technology and science will fall like a house of cards when the pendulum of Nature swings in the direction of violence. Violent storms, violent weather changes, violent effects on agriculture, violent effects on clean water, etc. violence beyond the ability of science and technology to deal with it.

    • 2 years ago
  • JanforGore
    • 0
      JanforGore  

    • It boggles my mind to see the abject and pervasive destruction humans continue to wreck on this world knowing the negative effects it brings to the environment, humans, and other species and knowing there are better ways to do this and ignoring them. It is so immoral. We will for sure pay for this as will our children. But it is good to know indigenous peoples are fighting back. Their knowledge and wisdom about this world and how to live in harmony with it will be our saving grace.

    • 2 years ago
  • oe_niaw
  • jubal
  • oe_niaw
  • jubal
  • jubal
    • 0
      jubal  

    • "If the Yasuní-ITT Initiative does not succeed, the tragic reality will be drilling for oil in the core of the most biodiverse rainforest on Earth," says Matt Finer.

    • 2 years ago
  • jubal
    • 0
      jubal  
    • Image

    • http://news.mongabay.com/2010/0119-hance_yasunibio.html

      Here is another story on this issue. The indigenous peoples of the Amazon are waging their own battle to save their ancestral home lands. Yasuni park is a world treasure and should be preserved. If the global players aren't going to respect this, then the indigenous people's have a back up plan. They are forming their own international congress in order to have a global voice.

    • 2 years ago
  • JanforGore
  • JanforGore
    • 0
      JanforGore  

    • http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cr3oep32SzE

      More on the Yasuni itt initiative that now seems to be scrapped.

      Governments and corporations that continually engage in this kind of destructive beahvior towards these biodiverse areas knowing the consequences should be held liable for crimes against nature, just as those who are held accountable for crimes against humanity. One crime is inextricably linked to the other.

    • 2 years ago
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