ALERT! Fund Ecuador to Keep Oil Underground
It is time for the international community led by Europe to step up and finance large-scale Amazon rainforest preservation to protect the Earth's atmosphere, biodiversity, and life-giving ecosystems; while helping meet needs for national advancement
TAKE ACTION! The Western Amazon -- home to some of the most biodiverse and intact rainforest left on Earth, which are critical for driving regional and global ecosystems and climatic patterns necessary for life -- may soon be decimated by oil rigs and pipelines. According to a new study in the open-access journal PLoS ONE, over 180 oil and gas "blocks" – areas zoned for exploration and development – now cover the Western Amazon, which includes Bolivia, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, and western Brazil. These oil and gas blocks stretch over 688,000 km2 (170 million acres), a vast area nearly the size of Texas.
Yet there is hope, as Ecuador's new forward-thinking government led by President Rafael Correa announced in June 2007 the innovative Yasuní-ITT Initiative which offers to keep Ecuador's largest untapped oilfields unexploited in exchange for financial compensation from the international community. Regional governments, international donors and global citizens must decide whether every last bit of the Earth's wilderness; and intact, large ecosystems, will be sacrificed to delay having to transition now to renewable energy sources, ensuring abrupt run-away climate change in the process. Given their historical strong rhetoric on the need to protect global climate and biodiversity, please ask European aid agencies to lead the effort. TAKE ACTION!
Comments
I believe governments world wide should providefunding for this fantastic idea as it not only preserves part of the natural world and the creaturesthat live there but is also part of the solution in slowing down climate change.
Posted by: John McCann | August 21, 2008 3:04 AM
If it is kept in the ground for just a few more years and as we develop renewables oil will become redundant and the forests will be safe forever!
Posted by: sheila freeman | August 21, 2008 4:20 AM
This is a great first start; however it seems to be built on fairly unstable grounds. How are we to ensure that e.g. with a change of government in Ecuador the whole thing does not collapse? We must be more proactive and wean ourselves internationally off our addiction to fossil fuels globally now - to halt climate change, to protect our last remaining large scale ecosystems and increase chances of future survival of the biodiversity this planet currently still enjoys. Unless we make these connections more clearly, I worry that the international community will not buy into schemes like these long term because the need to "fuel our economies" will be simply too high, and short-term greed will prevail at the cost of long term consequences and future generations of humans, flora & fauna.
Sincerely,
Svenja
Posted by: Svenja Meyerricks | August 21, 2008 5:51 AM
We, in the developed world need to provide funding and other resources for the protection of these vital areas of conservation. Climate change is the most serious threat facing mankind today. This is way of helping to tackle it and protect the precious flora & fauna of these forests for the future.
Posted by: Bernadette Power | August 21, 2008 9:50 AM
Unfortunately the USA will offer more to get the oil
than Europe will pay to leave the oil where it is.
Aubrey
Posted by: Aubrey | August 21, 2008 12:01 PM
IN general I would share your skepticism. Yet in this case the Ecuadorian government has
made a hard offer and is under pressure to follow through. I was there a couple months ago
and after years of instability this is a very good government. Get it working in one place
and a precedent would have been sent.
Regards,
Glen
Posted by: Dr. Glen Barry
|
August 21, 2008 12:02 PM
It is these types of policies that could really effect change - if the governments are willing to follow through. Over at EcoPanas we posted an article highlighting the political climate in Brasil in an interview with Nadia D'Ávila Ferreira, the top environmental official for Amazonas state, Brasil. Follow this link if you want to read more: http://www.ecopanas.com/index.php?page=environment
Posted by: Julie Mattern | August 21, 2008 2:22 PM
I understand your points but why don't we also call for a complete ban on oil drilling and other extractive activities in the most untouched and fragile places of planetary importance whether it be the virgin rainforest where uncontacted peoples live or coral reefs.
We could ask the progressive nations and investors to boycott investments in or purchases from any company that crosses these lines and any company that does business with them. We could also say that no new extraction should begin in any healthy ecosystem until the host country has completed steps required of it by the Convention on Biological Diversity and the would-be extractors should fincance compliance and safeguards in advance from proceeds of their existing operations.
JF
Posted by: John Fitzgerald | August 24, 2008 6:47 AM