Ecuador Seeking Help to Leave Amazon Oil

Ecuador Seeking Help to Leave Amazon Oil



   
April 2007 -   The government of 
Ecuador will wait up to one year to see if the international 
community offers to compensate the country for not developing 
a major oil field in the heart of the Ecuadorian Amazon, 
Energy Minister Alberto Acosta says. The area of lush, primary 
rainforest shelters a unique diversity of animals and plants. 
Ecuadorian President Rafael Correa and his government say that 
if the international community can compensate the country with 
half of the forecasted lost revenues, Ecuador will leave the 
oil in Yasuni National Park undisturbed to protect the park's 
biodiversity and indigenous peoples living in voluntary 
isolation. 
"The first option is to leave that oil in the ground, but the 
international community would have to compensate us for 
immense sacrifice that a poor country like Ecuador would have 
to make," said Correa in a recent radio address. 
President Correa estimates the compensation figure at around 
US$350 million per year. Ecuador's President Rafael Correa would
 leave oil underground 
in Yasuni National Park, for a price. 
"Ecuador doesn't ask for charity," said Correa, "but does ask 
that the international community share in the sacrifice and 
compensates us with at least half of what our country would 
receive, in recognition of the environmental benefits that 
would be generated by keeping this oil underground." 
The government's offer is in response to opposition to 
oil development in the area from Ecuador's vocal environmental 
and indigenous organizations who urgently strive to keep this 
continous primary rainforest intact. 
The oil fields, known as Ishpingo-Tiputini-Tambococha, ITT, 
are the largest untapped oil fields in Ecuador. They have been 
estimated by Ecuador's government and analysts to contain 900 
million to one billion barrels of oil equivalent, about a 
quarter of the country's known reserves. 
On April 4, Petrobras signed a memorandum of understanding 
with Ecuador's state-run oil company Petroecuador, in which 
the companies plan to jointly develop the giant oil block. 
Petrobras said the partners also are considering building a 
crude oil upgrading plant on site at ITT. 
Since late March, Petroecuador also has signed agreements for 
the development of ITT with Sinopec of China, Enap of Chile, 
and the Venezuelan State Oil Company PDVSA. 
Yasuni National Park still shelters an untouched expanse of 
Amazonian rainforest. 
"We now have an unprecedented opportunity to work with a 
progressive administration in order to save one of the 
greatest spots on Earth," said ecologist Dr. Matt Finer of 
Save America's Forests, a conservation group based in 
Washington, DC. "What are urgently needed now are viable 
proposals from the international community to present to 
President Correa." 
ITT is located within one of the most remote and still intact 
parts of Yasuni National Park, globally renowned for its 
record levels of biodiversity for everything from trees and 
insects to mammals, birds, and amphibians. 
Moreover, ITT is located within the ancestral territory of the 
Waorani and it is widely believed that several clans are 
living in voluntary isolation within the project area. 
"This presents a landmark opportunity to sequester up to half 
a billion tons of CO2 while conserving Yasuní's astounding 
biodiversity and cultural heritage," said Max Christian of the 
Sustainable Development and Conservation Biology program at 
the University of Maryland. 
"If the international community is serious about mitigating 
climate change and impacts to ecosystems, structuring a 
debt-for-carbon swap here offers a very real financing 
possibility," Christian said. 
Humboldt's Woolly Monkey, Lagothrix lagotricha, listed by the 
IUCN as Vulnerable to extinction in Ecuador 
Ecuador is a country of 13 million people, more than half of 
whom live in poverty. The government claims that oil revenue 
is necessary to meet the development needs of its citizenvironment news. 
These revenues account for around 40 percent of the federal 
budget every year. 
Ecuador is burdened with over 15 billion dollars of external 
debt, including substantial amounts owed to the World Bank and 
Inter-American Development Bank - more than enough to cover 
Ecuador's ITT compensation offer. 
Yasuni National Park protects one of the most biologically 
rich regions in the world, including a large stretch of the 
world's most diverse tree community and the highest known 
insect diversity in the world. It is one of the most diverse 
places in the world for birds and amphibians. 
An Amazon tapir, Tapirus terrestris, South America's largest 
land mammal, swims in Yasuni National Park. 
Yasuni shelters 25 mammal species that are of global concern 
according to IUCN-The World Conservation Union, including the 
endangered Amazon tapir, the largest land mammal on the 
continent, and at least 10 monkey species. 
Relatives of the Waorani, the Tagaeri and Taromenane, are 
believed to be living in voluntary isolation in the ITT area. 
These groups are renowned for their giant spears and regarded 
as among the fiercest tribes on Earth. Dr. Finer says they 
maintain no peaceful contact with the outside world and are 
completely dependent on a thriving rainforest for survival. 
Because of Yasuni's biological and cultural importance, it was 
declared a UNESCO Biosphere Reserve in 1989. Masked crimson tanager,
 Ramphocelus nigrogularis, in Yasuni 
National Park. 
In January, in order to protect the Tagaeri-Taromenane, the 
Ecuadorian government created an Untouchable Zone - a large 
area off-limits to oil activities and logging just to the 
south of ITT. 
To the immediate west of ITT is Petrobras' controversial Block 
31, where development plans have been stalled for nearly two 
years due to strong opposition from environmental, scientific, 
and indigenous organizations. 
Several indigenous organizations opposed the creation of the 
Untouchable Zone because it still allowed oil activities 
within presumed Taromenane-Tagaeri territory within ITT and 
Block 31. 
In May 2006, the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights 
granted precautionary measures in favor of the 
Tagaeri-Taromenane due to the threats posed to them from oil 
activities along with illegal logging. 
These measures request that the Ecuadorian government "protect 
the territory in which they inhabit, including actions 
required to prevent the entry of others." 
Juan Ernesto Guevara of Finding Species, a conservation group 
with offices in Ecuador and the United States, says, 
"Government approval of oil activities within ITT, as well as 
Block 31, would represent a violation of these precautionary 
measures." 
To find out more about the uncontacted peoples of the Amazon, 
visit: http://www.korubo.com/AMAZONDOC/firstpeople.htm 

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