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Ecuador is the home of UNESCO Biosphere Reserve, the Yasuní National Park. The park is 9,820 square kilometers primarily covered in Amazonian rainforest. Underneath this rainforest lies the Ishpingo Tambococha Tiputini oilfields, which if tapped by Ecuador, could produce around $700m a year.
Here’s where President Rafael Correa poses the question to the international community at large— just how much is a rainforest worth to you? Correa, who touts “development in communion with, not against, nature”, with the help of his minister for energy and mines, Alberto Acosta, came up with a plan to preserve the rainforest but still get rich—The Ecuadorian government would agree to leave the National Park alone in exchange for an annual payment of $350m, a mere half of the expected revenue from the oil, in order to preserve the jungles, sequester approximately half a billion tons of CO2, as well as pull their people out of poverty.
Of course critics point out that Ecuador has been producing oil for years, approximately 4 billion barrels at a value of about $82 billion, and poverty is still a problem. Not to mention that the money going to “save a rainforest” is actually being exchanged for social programs in Ecuador rather than environmental preservation.
But all of that aside (and I know this is simplifying), I can’t help but see this is as part of the greater question that is being put to the global community— oil or trees? Will we continue to exploit our precious natural resources to pursue oil to support our extravagant lifestyles or have we reached a place that we value our rainforests more than our cars?
Vanessa
4 responses so far ↓
1 Rich // Oct 20, 2007 at 10:02 pm
I am really glad you are taking this issue on Vanessa. Its often overlooked as the cost of doing business when we need to be looking into alternatives. I would love to know more about the sources you are gathering this information from. The unfortunate truth is that in America the ill effects of our actions are often to far from our reality for us to decide to act.
Government or people who makes the first move? Really I would like to hear what your thoughts are on this. Perhaps a follow up post?…
2 vanessa // Oct 22, 2007 at 10:50 pm
On this topic specifically, my resources were mostly blogs, news articles and a few conversations. It was a side research project– a form of procrastination to be honest.
But you pose a huge question, people or governments first? This topic relates to some of the dependency theory reading I’ve been doing lately that outlines the relationship of the “metropolis” (referring mainly to developed nations) and the “satellites” (originally colonial development in the ‘underdeveloped world’) and how the system is set up for the metropolis to suck the resources out of the developing world for their own utilization and profit. If that supply was to be limited or cut off, as some of the theorists recommend and as in a way President Correa is proposing, we in the West would first, be faced with the breadth of our dependence on these resources and second, would forced to think up other solutions.
Well, that wasn’t really an answer, just an additional thought.
3 Jordan // Jun 3, 2008 at 8:51 am
I completely think that they should just leave the rainforest alone for if we destroy them or mine/drill oilfields too much they would be destroyed ina matter of years…This is going to turn into a huge problem if we do not conserve them
4 timothy dawson // Sep 29, 2008 at 6:21 am
save the rainforest
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