The world has failed Ecuador

Sergio Alejandro Gómez

THE idea was a revolutionary one. Ecuador committed itself to refrain from exploiting oil reserves in the Yasuní National Park in Amazonia, one of the regions of greatest biodiversity on the planet, in return for the international community contributing a little more than $3.6 billion, in 2007, half of estimated profits for its commercialization.

In this way, a protected area of more than one million hectares, declared a UNESCO Biosphere Reserve, would be preserved and, at the same time, would avoid the emission of 400 million tons of CO2 into the atmosphere, equivalent to the contamination of a country such as France during an entire year.

However, six years after Ecuadoran President Rafael Correa launched the proposal, the accounts of the Yasuní-ITT project (Ishpingo-Tambococha-Tiputini oilfield) amounted to barely $13 million, less than 0.4% of what was anticipated.

"The world has failed us," said Correa, upon announcing on national television that he was ending the project and initiating procedures to ask for Yasuní crude oil reserves – in excess of 920 million barrels – to be declared of "national interest."

"The initiative was ahead of its time. Those responsible for climate change could not or did not want to understand it," he commented.

"The world is full of hypocrisy and the prevailing logic is not that of justice, but of power. The contaminating countries are also the richest and strongest," he added.

The leader described the decision as "one of the most difficult" in all his time in government.

The announcement had strong national and international repercussions and, almost immediately, the social networks on Internet were full of messages on the issue. The principal trends on Twitter were the headings #Yasuní, #Teapoyamosrafael and #Elmundonoshafallado.

"Yasuní pains me, but it would be more painful to lose what we have achieved in education and social projects," affirmed Ecuadoran Anthony Muñoz on Twitter.

Other surfers expressed their disagreement with the exploitation of the National Park. "We cannot risk even one centimeter of the Yasuní, there is life and nature in every millimeter," wrote Karla Bajaña on the same network.

President Correa explained that oil drilling with appropriate techniques would affect less than 1% of the Park.

"Ecuador needs these resources in order to overcome poverty, build hospitals, adequate schools, housing, and ensure that every department has basic services."

He recalled that close to half of 15 million-plus Ecuadorans lack basic health services, which limits meeting the Millennium Goals.

According to figures given by the President, the commercialization of Yasuní oil, equal to half the nation’s reserves, would contribute more than $18 billion to public funds.

A significant part of these recourses would be channeled into fighting poverty in Amazonia, one of the country’s least developed regions, Correa noted.

In his speech, directed specifically at youth, the Ecuadoran leader criticized those who are trying to sell the dilemma of all or nothing. "The contradiction between oil and Yasuní is not a correct one."

The President has made it clear that Ecuador cannot refrain from utilizing its natural resources to achieve social progress. During his second term inauguration speech in May, Correa stated that the Citizens’ Revolution proposes to utilize natural resources in order to change the national productive structure and take the country out of the extreme poverty provoked by successive neoliberal governments.

Moreover, Ecuador is in the world vanguard in relation to recognizing the rights of Nature, guaranteed in its constitution.

"Nature or Pachamama, where life is reproduced and realized, has the right to its existence, the maintenance and regeneration of its vital cycles, structure, functions and evolutionary processes, being comprehensively respected," as established in article 7 of the Constitution approved during the first Citizens’ Revolution mandate.