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| It’s true. The Ecuadorian government is planning to allow oil drilling in one of the most biodiverse rainforests on the planet – Yasuní National Park – home to Ecuador‘s last remaining indigenous peoples living in voluntary isolation. Together we can stop this. Please sign and share this global petition today!Thousands have mobilized in Ecuador to protest President Correa‘s decision to drill. In response the government has cracked down on dissent, launched a nationwide media campaign pitting poverty against leaving oil underground, and just last week it convinced the National Assembly to approve drilling in the most biodiverse part of Yasuní. If drilling were to move forward it would be a disaster for the rainforest and indigenous rights, and it would pave the way for drilling in 6.5 million acres of indigenous territory in the southern Ecuadorian Amazon.
Our partners are mobilizing for a national referendum on the government’s plans to drill in Yasuní and need our support in calling for global action. They have just launched a global petition to save Yasuní-ITT. Please sign and share to let President Correa know that the world won’t stand for drilling in the last remaining pristine rainforests. Thank you for your support! For Yasuní,
P.S. Download and Play The Age of Yasuní on your iPhone or Android smartphone. All proceeds support local groups that are defending Yasuní National Park. |
Tag Archives: Rafael Correa
Eye on the Amazon: Yasuní & Indigenous Peoples
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Rights and Responsibility: The Failure of Yasuni- ITT and What it means for Ecuador’s Indigenous Peoples
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Shining a Light on Yasuní
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| Since 1996 Amazon Watch has been supporting efforts to protect the global treasure that is the Amazon rainforest. We’ve helped protect the sacred lands of the U’wa from Occidental Petroleum in Colombia, backed the Achuar in defending their ancestral lands from Talisman Energy, and supported the Kichwa people of Sarayaku in their fight to keep oil operations out of their territory. We’ve been busy.
And since 2007 we’ve been supporting the Yasuní-ITT Initiative – a bold plan launched by Ecuador’s President Rafael Correa to “keep the oil in the soil” in one of the world’s most biodiverse rainforests. We are disappointed with Correa’s announcement last week to cancel the initiative and allow drilling in Yasuní National Park. The president blames the international community for not pitching in enough over the last six years. But Amazon Watch is not giving up. We’re going to do everything we can to protect Yasuní and the people who live there from oil drilling and all the dangers that come with it. Since last week we’ve been focused on bringing this news to the international community, and it’s worked. We’ve helped garner stories in the New York Times, Washington Post, PBS and The Guardian, among others. In Spanish language media alone there have been over 350 stories around Yasuní. This is big. With your support we can continue to get the word out so that the Yasuní issue cannot be swept under the rug. Please make a donation today. We can only do this kind of work because of your support. Thank you for your partnership in protecting one of the greatest last wild places on Earth. For the Amazon,
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Ecuadorians Outraged with President’s Decision to Allow Drilling in Yasuní
In response to President Rafael Correa‘s decision to terminate the historic Yasuní-ITT initiative, an innovative plan to preserve the world’s most biodiverse rainforest in the Yasuní National Park, hundreds of Ecuadorians have taken to the streets to protest and are preparing a national referendum to reverse this decision.
The ground-breaking initiative launched in 2007 would keep some 920 million barrels of oil underneath the park permanently in the ground in exchange for financial contributions from the international community. The plan would also keep an estimated 410 million tons of CO2 – the major greenhouse gas driving climate change – from reaching the atmosphere.
But Correa, citing the proposal’s lack of contributions, signed a decree to liquidate the UNDP trust fund, and declared drilling in the national interest, a designation that sets in motion final approval from Congress to pursue drilling.
However, recent polls show that 90% of Ecuadorians support the Yasuní-ITT initiative, and at protests across the country they have begun to gather signatures for a national referendum that could reverse the president’s decision to allow drilling in this part of the park.
The park is a UNESCO Biosphere Reserve and contains what are thought to be the greatest number of tree and insect species anywhere on the planet. In just 2.5 acres of the park, there are as many tree species as in all of the U.S. and Canada combined. The area is also home to the Waorani indigenous people, and two nomadic Waorani clans – the Tagaeri and Taromenane – who live in voluntary isolation. Attempts to drill the ITT fields would put their lives and livelihoods at risk.
Stay tuned for more information and ways to get involved! In the meantime, check out:
- Amazon Watch Press Release: Ecuador President Pulls Plug on Innovative Yasuni-ITT Initiative, Authorizes Drilling in National Park
- My interview with HuffPost Live
- Oil is Not Life in the Amazon, a blog post by ClearWater’s International Field Coordinator Alex Goff
- Insightful coverage from Science Magazine and National Geographic
Viva Yasuní!
Kevin Koenig
Ecuador Program Coordinator
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Eye on the Amazon: Investors Balking on Ecuador’s Amazonian Oil Auction
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Investors Balking on Ecuador’s Amazonian Oil Auction
What the media narrative has largely missed is that there is an oil spill nearly every week in Ecuador. Just between 2000 and 2010 there were 539 oil spills. So why is this spill gathering international media attention while hundreds of others go unreported? |
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