Yasuni ITT Initiative

Ecuador’s second largest untapped oil fields lie beneath the largely intact northeastern section of the Yasuní Park (in the ITT block oil fields). The adjacent block 31 contains additional untapped reserves underlying Yasunı (Bass et al. 2010).

 

In response to strong opposition to oil drilling in Yasuní, the Government of Ecuador launched the novel Yasuní-ITT Initiative in 2007. Ecuador’s president Rafael Correa presented the Yasuní ITT initiative to the international community, to the report recommended leaving 846 million barrels of petroleum indefinitely in the ground against an international contribution equivalent to at least half of the income that the Ecuadorian State would obtain if it exploited the oil.

 

The official proposal mentions 3 supporting arguments for the Yasuní ITT Initiative as presented by Larrea et al. (2009):

 

  1. An innovative option for combating global warming by avoiding the exploitation of fossil fuels in areas of high biological and cultural sensitivity.
  2. Protecting Ecuador’s biodiversity and supporting the voluntary isolation of no contacted indigenous people.
  3. Social development, nature conservation and implementation of renewable energy sources.

 

The initiative includes the administration of the Yasuní -ITT Fund by the UNDP, and the investment of its interests in the development of clean energy sources, as well as a national transition from the current development model, based on oil extraction, to a new strategy based on equality and sustainability.

 

However, the intentions of this proposal have been a topic of discussion by researchers and others.

 

Differences are also presented comparing the Yasuní ITT initiative proposal to a previous proposal prepared by Oilwatch (2007), including participation of Carlos Larrea.

 

  • The ‘Sumak Kawsay’ (in Quechua language) understood as ‘well being’ as the basis of a post-oil civilisation in Ecuador, not dependent anymore on oil, and promoter of relationships between humans and nature.
  • Recognise the Rights of Nature rather than nature as a resource to satisfy human needs, or as a human capital.
  • The recognition of an ecological debt from countries of the North to countries of the South.
  • The notion of earth boundaries (or limits) in terms of Climate and Biodiversity.

 

Italy, Turkey, France, Chile, the Development Bank of Latin America, among others, have contributed to the Yasuní ITT initiative fund in the last years. In 2011 the Ecuadorian government has raised among citizens through the national and international campaign ‘Yasunízate’ asking people to contribute to the fund.

 

Despite divergent facts about the Yasuní-ITT Initiative, it is a mechanism giving attention to biodiversity and indigenous people’s protection, proposing an alternative of development other than oil extraction, which is a complex option for developing countries that mainly depend of revenues from natural resources extraction activities and deals with international associated institutions.

 

According to Finer (2009), protecting Yasuni National Park would serve a triple climate-related function: it could lock a substantial amount of CO2 underground, avoid deforestation, and maintain a potentially important refuge for Amazonian species negatively affected by increased drought conditions in the eastern Amazon.

 

Even if many environmental justice social (unsolved) problems already exist, there are many cases that have recently being known. As reminded by Finer (2009) for example, several large oil fields have been discovered in a remote section of the northern Peruvian Amazon and major hydrocarbon reserves are expected to lie under Bolivia’s renowned Madidi National Park.

 

Ecuador is renowned for its biodiversity and culture, but unfortunately also for the important social conflicts faced through the time related to contamination and people’s rights breaches. After many years of dependency on oil activity, people have started participating more actively on local concerns, and mobilisations over the world are looking for deeply social problems values understanding, as well as the research of sustainable development mechanisms