Four months to save 'world's last paradise'
15th August 2011
Ecuador's Yasuni National Park could be saved from oil extraction and irreversible devastation, if the world can raise a further $60 million by the end of 2011
Five years ago Ecuador's state oil company, Petroecuador, found a huge oil field, containing nearly a billion barrels of oil, under the Yasuni National Park near the Brazilian border. The find is said to be worth at least $7bn and is equivalent to 20% of the nation's reserves.
However, the oil at Ishpingo Tambococha Tiputini (ITT) field is below one of the world's most biodiverse areas and conservationists believe, to extract it could devastate the area.
Ecuador's government and leading politicians have proposed the world a deal. Alberto Acosta, Ecuador's oil minister explained, "We will leave the oil in the ground and save the forest and the people if you, the world, make a financial contribution.”
Polls show that 90% of Ecuador's population back the plan to preserve Yasuni and last year the UN declared the plan to be a safe environmental investment and agreed to administer the ITT Fund.
If $100m is made by December, the forest and the indigenous groups will be left alone. If the money is not found, then a Chinese company is expected to move in within months and the destruction of Yasuní will begin.
So far, around $40m has been raised with significant amounts being donated by Chile, Peru, Spain and Italy.
Acosta also highlighted the other areas conservation work could aid, “The money from the world can be used to protect Ecuador's other national parks, including the Galápagos islands.
"We must understand that oil is unsustainable. We should be an intelligent country and see it in the long term. Climate change is a limit and we can't continue to burn oil. Perhaps we must change our model of life. What we have learned is that while we cannot live without nature, it can live without us."
Yasuni national park, located on the equator, remains mostly undisturbed. It is home to two of the world's last uncontacted tribes (Tagaeri and Taromenane) and is thought to have more species of plants, animals and insects per hectare than anywhere else in the world.
One six-square-kilometre patch of Yasuní was found to have 47 amphibian and reptile species, 550 bird and 200 mammal species living there. Another patch of land in the park broke all the world records for the number of bats and insects living there.
Acosta added, "It is one of the last places on earth which is truly undisturbed. It is simply a paradise.”
The Minister stated that the extraction of the oil, “would lead to contamination, deforestation, extinction of cultures and destruction of social structures. It would need a vast infrastructure including roads, river ports, tracks, airstrips. Villages would have to be constructed, pipelines laid and millions of tonnes of contaminated waste buried.
Click here to make a donation to the Yasuni ITT Fund.
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