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Ecuador oil ban: Climate activists brace for fight over Amazon rainforest [1]

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Date: 2023-10

Ecuador’s historic vote to halt oil exploitation in Yasuní National Park, one of the planet’s most biodiverse areas, is under threat as the government looks to renege on the result of the 20 August referendum.

A clear majority of the population – nearly 59% – voted ‘yes to Yasuní’, choosing to protect the Amazon rainforest in Ecuador from fossil fuel drilling and leave the park’s oil reserves underground indefinitely. The result was a huge victory for environmental activists seeking to usher in a post-oil economy.

But both the outgoing president, Guillermo Lasso, and the frontrunner to win the presidential run-off in October, Luisa González, look set to disregard the referendum’s result.

“We don’t want the production of Block 43 [an oil field] to end. We don’t want to and we are not going to support or rush any procedure,” Lasso said in a meeting on 5 September with delegates from local Indigenous communities, many of whom fear the economic effects of halting the drilling and voted ‘no’ in the referendum.

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As a result of the vote, the government has a year to stop operations in Block 43-ITT – short for Ishpingo, Tambococha and Tiputini – an oil field that covers nearly 2,000 hectares within the park. The area is home to the Waorani, Kichwa and Shuar Indigenous peoples and borders the land of other ‘uncontacted’ groups. The authorities are also prohibited from signing new oil contracts for Yasuní.

In the 5 September meeting, footage of which was leaked online, the president said that the government’s strategy to avoid implementing the referendum result will be to argue that it is “unenforceable”.

Lasso said: “Technically, it's not possible to shut down an oil well overnight. We are heading down the path of this referendum being unenforceable. It's not feasible, please understand that it's not possible, and we will maintain this position for as long as possible.”

In a press conference the day after the referendum, members of the groups that led the ‘yes’ campaign, surrounded by the flags of Ecuadorian Indigenous peoples, announced they will closely watch the authorities’ compliance with the popular mandate.

Now, activists are regrouping to resist attacks on the popular will. “It is common sense among all social organisations [in Ecuador] that what you achieve at the ballot box, you must defend in the streets,” Alejandra Santillana, a member of Yasunidos, the environmental collective that spearheaded the ‘yes’ campaign, told openDemocracy.

“As always, they violate collective decisions and rights. We think anything can happen. That's why we will be very vigilant,” Zenaida Yasacama, the vice-president of the Confederation of Indigenous Nationalities of Ecuador (CONAIE), told openDemocracy.

Activists are also demanding a comprehensive recovery plan for Yasuní that takes into account existing damage to human health and the environment, and provides strong protection for the park and its communities.

Yasuní, which encompasses more than one million hectares of tropical rainforest in the heart of the Amazon, was declared a UNESCO biosphere reserve in 1989. It is home to more than 1,500 animal species and several Indigenous peoples, including the uncontacted Tagaeri and Taromenane peoples, who live in voluntary isolation.

For half a century, oil operations have threatened the survival of this rainforest. Block 43-ITT is the most recently opened oil field, with state-owned oil company Petroecuador operating there since 2016.

Government response

President Lasso, whose term ends on 25 November, says Ecuador will lose $1.2bn per year if oil drilling in Yasuní is halted. Yasunidos challenges this figure, claiming a more accurate figure is $148m per year, based on estimates of oil reserves given by Petroecuador to the country’s Constitutional Court.

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[1] Url: https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/5050/ecuador-amazon-yasun%C3%AD-rainforest-oil-ban-referendum/

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