Quito, Ecuador – A coalition opposing the development of Ecuador’s sensitive Ishpingo-Tambococha-Tiputini, or ITT, oil block has collected more than 500,000 signatures to request the government’s electoral agency hold a national referendum to decide on the future of the oil.
Opponents of the development need to collect about 600,000 signatures before the April 18 deadline, but the environmental coalition, YasUnidos, wants to collect a million.
“We want to have a good cushion of signatures. We believe that the Electoral Council will try to invalidate many signatures,” Patricio Chavez, a spokesman for YasUnidos, said Thursday.
The referendum will ask voters if they believe the government should keep crude oil in the ITT underground indefinitely.
The ITT, or block 43, is believed to hold 900 million barrels of oil.
A portion of the land where the drilling could take place is inside the Yasuni National Park, a Unesco world biosphere reserve and the country’s largest nature reserve, located in the Amazon rain forest.
The park is considered one of the world’s most biologically diverse areas and is home to two indigenous tribes, the Tagaeri and Taromenane, who shun contact with the outside world.
Last year President Rafael Correa abandoned a plan his government announced in 2007 to refrain from drilling for ITT oil if the world came up with $3.6 billion to offset some of the foregone benefits of the oil money. Just $13.3 million was delivered for the initiative.
Regardless of whether a referendum on ITT proceeds, YasUnidos plans to continue fighting to change the current extractive model.
“We support the fight against the extractive model in either mining or oil. The Yasuni is the tip of the spear in this fight,” said Gabriela Ruales, a volunteer helping in the collection of signatures.
Ecuador is committed to begin in 2015 or 2016 large-scale mining production for copper and to develop important gold and silver projects.
The country also wants to expand its oil frontier on the border with Peru, but could face opposition from environmentalists, indigenous groups and people from communities where projects are to be developed.
