Amazon Watch
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    Yasuni

    Yasuni-ITT: Oil Change or More of the Same?

    The Ishpingo, Tambococha, Tiputini oil fields are Ecuador's largest. According to estimates, they could yield up to 900 million barrels of heavy crude. But in a cruel twist of geologic fate, they happen to lie beneath one of the most biodiverse places on the planet – Yasuni National Park in the Ecuadorian Amazon.

    September 23, 2010
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    3 min read

    The September Eye on the Amazon Is Out!

    The latest version of our Eye on the Amazon enewsletter is out and online. Among other developments, it highlights the historic agreement the Government of Ecuador has made with the United Nations to create a trust fund in exchange for refraining from drilling for oil in the Yasuni National Park.

    September 9, 2010
    5,846 views
    1 min read

    Ecuador Signs Historic Yasuni-ITT Deal with UNDP To Keep Oil in the Soil and CO2 out of the Atmosphere

    Praise for Pioneering Proposal is Mixed with Concerns by Indigenous Groups Over New Drilling Planned in Southern Ecuador's Pristine Rainforests

    Quito, Ecuador – Ecuador plans to sign an agreement today with the United Nations Development Fund (UNDP) that will open an international trust fund to receive donations supporting the government's proposal to keep some 900 million barrels of oil in the ground.

    August 3, 2010
    2,842 views
    3 min read

    Amazon Watch is building on more than three decades of radical and effective solidarity with Indigenous peoples across the Amazon Basin.

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    The Wrong Kind of Green

    The Nation Magazine | Why did America's leading environmental groups jet to Copenhagen and lobby for policies that will lead to the faster death of the rainforests–and runaway global warming? Why are their lobbyists on Capitol Hill dismissing the only real solutions to climate change as "unworkable" and "unrealistic," as though they we

    March 3, 2010
    2,118 views
    20 min read

    Yasuní-ITT: Chronicle of a Death Foretold?

    by Kevin Koenig, Northern Amazon Program CoordinatorEcuador's historic proposal to keep some 850 million barrels of crude that lay beneath the country's stunning Yasuní National Park hit a familiar roadblock last weekend, as President Rafael Correa undermined his own negotiating team, denounced foreign don

    January 19, 2010
    1,172 views
    5 min read

    Ecuador Foreign Minister, criticized for Amazon project, quits

    Reuters | QUITO (Reuters) - Ecuadorean Foreign Minister Fander Falconi stepped down Tuesday, a source at the ministry said, after President Rafael Correa criticized the way that Falconi was negotiating an Amazon rain forest protection project."He resigned this morning," said the source, who has direct knowledge of the situation

    January 13, 2010
    5,984 views
    1 min read

    Se resquebraja el proyecto Yasuní

    BBC | Quito–El proyecto Yasuní-ITT, que busca dejar petróleo bajo tierra en la Amazonia ecuatoriana a cambio de un aporte económico de la comunidad internacional, se resquebraja.

    January 12, 2010
    5,599 views
    3 min read

    Ecuador Minister Resigns Over Amazon Oil Project

    AP | QUITO, Ecuador (AP) – Ecuador's foreign minister resigned Tuesday after President Rafael Correa criticized his handling of negotiations to prevent oil drilling in a pristine Amazon reserve.Fander Falconi was the third government official to resign over a plan to seek international donations of $3 billion over the nex

    January 12, 2010
    3,617 views
    2 min read

    US sabotages negotiations on draft REDD text

    by Chris Lang / www.redd-monitor.org(bellacenter-COP15-Copenhagen, Denmark)– Discussions late into the night on Monday (14 December 2009) in Copenhagen made the REDD text worse. The main culprits were the US and Colombia.

    December 16, 2009
    3,650 views
    5 min read

    Ecuador's Amazonian Indian confederation faces varied threats

    Indian Country Today | Approximately 100 representatives of Ecuador's Amazonian Indian nations recently gathered in the community of Union Base, near the southeastern town of Puyo, to celebrate the inauguration of new leadership for the Confederation of Indigenous Nations of the Ecuadorian Amazon (CONFENIAE).The ceremony was held in Spanish

    August 10, 2009
    691 views
    4 min read

    Ecuador Says Germany Backs Cash-For-Conservation in Amazon

    EFE | QUITO – The Yasuni-ITT initiative, Ecuador's offer to forgo exploiting Amazon oil reserves in exchange for aid from wealthy nations, will take the form of a trust with an initial endowment from Germany, the Andean nation's foreign ministry said Friday.The plan emerged from a meeting in Berlin between Foreign Minister

    June 29, 2009
    5,879 views
    1 min read

    Yasuní: Ecuador busca cambiar la historia "Una propuesta para cambiar la historia"

    BBC Mundo | En esos términos describe el gobierno de Ecuador la iniciativa que promueve para frenar el cambio climático, con la que busca crear un nuevo paradigma.El proyecto, conocido como iniciativa Yasuní-ITT, pretende que se pague a Ecuador para que deje a perpetuidad, sin explotar y bajo tierra, parte de sus reservas petro

    June 26, 2009
    891 views
    6 min read

    Scientists warn of 'irreversible' climate shifts

    The Associated Press | COPENHAGEN (AP) — Hundreds of leading scientists warned Thursday that global warming is accelerating beyond the worst predictions and threatening to trigger "irreversible" climate shifts on the planet.Saying there's no excuse for inaction, the nearly 2,000 climate researchers meeting in Copenhagen urged policy-makers

    March 12, 2009
    5,137 views
    2 min read

    Yasuní: The Last Chance or the First Step?

    Yasuní: The Last Chance or the First Step?By Esperanza MartínezAcción EcologicaOn Februray 5, 2009, presidential decree number 1572 indefinitely extended an initiative not to exploit crude oil located in Yasuní National Park in Ecuador.With this, the Yasuní-ITT ini

    March 5, 2009
    4,636 views
    2 min read

    Ecuador Decree Keeps Oil Companies at Bay

    President Indefinitely Extends Historic Rainforest Protection Proposal

    Quito, Ecuador, Feb 24 (AW) – The President of Ecuador, Rafael Correa, recently signed a decree that breathed new life into the country’s pioneer proposal to keep its largest oil field permanently underground in one of the most pristine areas of rainforest in the world.

    February 24, 2009
    3,217 views
    2 min read

    President condemned for uncontacted tribes policy

    From Survival InternationalPresident Correa has been condemned by Ecuador's national indigenous peoples' organisation CONAIE over his policy towards uncontacted Indians.'Correa's regime is promoting oil production on land inhabited by uncontacted tribes,' says a statement from CONAIE.The statement w

    January 30, 2009
    1,981 views
    1 min read

    Gobierno amplia hasta junio plan para evitar extracción de crudo del ITT

    AFP | Quito, AFPEcuador extendió hasta junio próximo su plan para lograr una millonaria compensación a cambio de evitar la extracción de unos 920 millones de barriles de petróleo en la selva de la Amazonia, anunció el lunes el canciller Fander Falconí."Todo el proyecto se prolonga durante seis meses adicionales

    January 12, 2009
    2,990 views
    2 min read

    Ecuador Constitution Grants Rights to Nature

    New York Times | News accounts of Ecuador�s vote on Sunday approving a new Constitution mainly focused on how its terms could help the country�s leftist leader, Rafael Correa, an American-educated economist, gain and hold more power.

    September 29, 2008
    3,922 views
    2 min read

    Petrobras to return Amazon oilfield to Ecuador

    Reuters | QUITO - Brazilian oil company Petrobras (PETR4.SA: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz) has agreed to give back to Ecuador a controversial oilfield in the heart of the Amazon jungle, President Rafael Correa said on Saturday.Correa, a leftist former economy minister and ally of Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da S

    September 20, 2008
    1,697 views
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    Putting nature in Ecuador's constitution

    Los Angeles Times---Editorial | In an experiment worth watching, Ecuador will ask voters to decide whether nature has rights.This month, Ecuador will hold the world's first constitutional referendum in which voters will decide, among many other reforms, whether to endow nature with certain unalienable rights.

    September 2, 2008
    5,280 views
    2 min read

    Ecuador’s New Constitution

    Ecuador’s new constitution, approved by their Constituent Assembly July 24 and headed for voter approval in September, includes a number of articles that add environmental protections and make resource extraction in national parks like Yasuni more difficult to pursue.

    July 28, 2008
    6,123 views
    1 min read

    Yasuni-ITT Proposal Update

    Enthusiasm continues to surround the Ecuadorian government’s landmark proposal to keep its largest oil reserve, located beneath Yasuni National Park, in the ground.

    July 25, 2008
    5,407 views
    7 min read