The Guardian | The fate of one of the hotspots of global diversity is hanging by a thread as conservation and indigenous groups in Ecuador race to raise a petition of over half a million names which would force a national referendum on whether foreign oil companies be allowed into the Yasuní national park.
Yasuni
Ecuador Stops Protecting Its Rainforest – to Pay Off Debt to China
President Rafael Correa's decision reflects just how reliant his country is on Beijing as a source of loans
The Atlantic | When a poor nation finds a massive oil reserve beneath a rainforest with more species per hectare than in all of North America, it makes for a nettlesome problem. When you add in a huge amount of debt to resource-hungry China, it makes for an environmental catastrophe.
Ecuador Says It Will Launch Controversial Drilling in Amazon Park
Science Magazine | Researchers consider the nearly 10,000 square kilometers of land within Ecuador’s Yasuni National Park to be one of the world’s richest biological hotspots. Yasuni is also the territory of the Waorani indigenous people and two nomadic Waorani clans who live in voluntary isolation.
Ecuador Scraps Plan to Block Rain Forest Oil Drilling
Idea had been hailed as a revolutionary way to combat climate change.
National Geographic | The decision by Ecuadorian President Rafael Correa to abandon a plan to spare the species-rich Yasuní rain forest in eastern Ecuador from oil development has dashed hopes for what environmentalists had hailed as a historic approach to weaning industrial society from its dependence on fossil fuels.
Plan to Ban Oil Drilling in Amazon Is Dropped
New York Times | "It could have been used as a model for other sensitive areas," said Matt Finer, a scientist with the Center for International Environmental Law, referring to the fund. "But now that it has failed, there is really no alternative model that is attractive to governments unable or unwilling to forgo drilling solely on ecological grounds."
Amazon Watch is building on more than 25 years of radical and effective solidarity with Indigenous peoples across the Amazon Basin.
Ecuador President Pulls Plug on Innovative Yasuni-ITT Initiative
Indigenous groups and civil society vow resistance
Quito, Ecuador – In an evening address to the nation on Thursday, Ecuador's President Rafael Correa officially terminated the historic Yasuni-ITT proposal, and announced that PetroAmazonas, the state run oil company, would initiate plans to exploit the Ishpingo, Tambococha, and Tiputini oil fields that lie beneath the eastern part of Yasuni...
Ecuador Approves Yasuni National Park Oil Drilling in Amazon Rainforest
Environmentalists devastated as president blames lack of foreign support for collapse of pioneering conservation plan
The Guardian | President Correa said it would affect less that 1% of the park, but the termination of the conservation initiative has stirred up fury among environmentalists and is likely to upset the population at large. Polls show that between 78% and 90% of Ecuadoreans are opposed to drilling in this sensitive region.
Ecuador: One Year After Decisive Ruling, Sarayaku Struggle Goes On
Amnesty International | The government of Ecuador must do more to protect the human rights of the indigenous people of Sarayaku if it is to fully comply with an international court ruling.
Ecuador Forced to Delay Oil Round; Now Let's Make Them Cancel It!
This is the second time that the government has been forced to extend the deadline for bids, and is just the latest in a series of serious setbacks to the government's attempts to auction off millions of acres of the Amazon.
Ecuador Pushes Bid Deadline for 11th Oil-Licensing Round to Nov. 28
The Wall Street Journal | Quito, Ecuador – Ecuador has extended for the second time the deadline to submit offers for companies interested in the country's 11th oil-licensing round to explore for oil in blocks located in the southeastern Amazon region.
Indigenous Protests Grow as Ecuador Closes Bidding on Amazonian Oil Round
Leaders gather in Puyo to denounce auction of their territory
Amazonian indigenous leaders mobilized today in the regional capital of Puyo to oppose the Ecuadorian government's attempts to close bids on eight million acres of its pristine southeastern Amazon. The region is Ecuador's last remaining tract of virgin rainforest and is home to seven indigenous nationalities. Attempts to lease it have been plagued...
Investors Balking on Ecuador's Amazonian Oil Auction
Last month President Correa apologized for an oil spill that wreaked havoc throughout the Amazon Basin. What the media narrative has largely missed is that there is an oil spill nearly every week in Ecuador.
Ecuador's Challenges with Oil Development
Pachamama Alliance | Oil spills in Ecuador are anything but unusual. May’s spill is just one of many that occur on a regular basis, adding up to an enormous amount of oil spilled over the years.
Ecuadorian Amazon Oil Slick Heads Towards Peru
Crude discharged after pipeline was ruptured by landslide has entered Napo river which flows across border
The Guardian | An oil spill in the Ecuadorean Amazon is flowing downstream towards Peru and Brazil, heightening concerns about the impact of drilling in one of the world's last remaining wildernesses.
Ecuador Oil Spill Casts Shadow Over New Amazonian Drilling Plans
An oil spill from Ecuador's Trans-Andean pipeline last weekend has reached Amazonian tributaries and is wreaking havoc on local communities and ecosystems downstream.
Isolated Amazon Indians Under Pressure in Ecuador
IPS | Quito, Ecuador – Reports of another massacre in an isolated indigenous community in Ecuador's Amazon region cast doubt on the state's compliance with precautionary measures imposed in favour of uncontacted peoples in 2006 by the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights.
A Ruptured Pipe Spilled Oil Upstream of the Amazon River
Smithsonian.com | Ten thousand barrels of oil are now making their way down Ecuador's Coca River – a waterway that eventually feeds into the Amazon River – after a pipe run by the state-owned Petroecuador burst during a landslide.
PetroEcuador Says Biggest Oil Pipeline Cut by Amazon Landslide
Bloomberg | OPEC member Ecuador's biggest crude pipeline was cut today by a landslide in the country's eastern Amazon region. Today's accident is the second time in two months that a landslide has damaged Ecuador's oil pipelines.
Oil Demand Threatens Ecuador's Rainforest
Up to 8 million acres of pristine Ecuadorian rainforest is under threat by a new plan to drill for oil. A local tribe vows to fight to protect their land.
NBC Nightly News | The Wauroni tribes, who live in the forests of Ecuador, are getting ready to challenge the Ecuadorian government’s plan to sell as much as 8 million acres of rainforest for oil drilling, saying they are prepared to fight to the death to protect the land.
Is Chinese Big Oil Going to Destroy Ecuador's Amazon?
VICE | To the world's oil and gas companies, the Amazon rainforest is one huge cash cow just begging to be milked. But anyone who'd rather not rid the world of 30 percent of its animal species would probably argue it's a region that shouldn't be destroyed by rich people.
Ecuador Delays 11th Oil Round Deadline
In a bit of an Earth Day reprieve, Ecuador has extended the deadline for companies to offer bids for the 16 oil blocks up for sale in the country's southeastern Amazon rainforests.
Idle No More Goes Up Against Ecuador's 11th Round
Actress and aboriginal activist Michelle Thrush demanded to know why the Ecuadorian government is "auctioning off over three million hectares of indigenous land in the Amazon without the consent of the people who live there."
Indigenous Leaders meet in Puyo, Ecuador to Oppose the XI Oil Round
"Our territories belong to our ancestors, they belong to our grandparents, first they will have to kill us to operate in our territory," explained delegates from the community of Amazanga.
Increasing Pressures on Yasuní Lead to More Violence in the Amazon
A group of indigenous Waorani warriors has allegedly carried out revenge killings against other indigenous people deep in the Ecuadorian Amazon. This latest spate follows the March 5th deaths of Ompore and Bogueney, an elderly Waorani couple killed by a group of Taromenane in the community of Yarentaro. It is yet unknown exactly how many...
A Tough Sell Indeed
A new report from Analytica Investments warns that the XI Oil Round in Ecuador would threaten "a biodiversity every bit as varied as that of the fabled Yasuní National Park to the North" where one hectare holds more tree species than exist in all of North America.
The 11th Round Oil Auction in Ecuador: A Tough Sell
Analytica Investments Weekly Report | The government and indigenous organizations led by Amazon confederation CONFENIAE continue at loggerheads over the southeast, with the latter bent on derailing the oil round.
Uncontacted Group Kills Two Natives in Ecuador
Reprisals, "forced contact" campaign feared after attack in Yasuní National Park
ScottWallace.com | The victims had sustained previous encounters with the elusive Taromenane, who reportedly conveyed their growing irritation over an influx of outsiders and increased industrial activity in the zone.
Mounting Pressures on Yasuní Lead to Violent Attack in the Amazon
Quito, Ecuador – Amazon Watch reports that based on a statement from the Waorani Nationality Organization of Orellena Province on March 6 two Waorani adults were attacked and killed by members of the Taromenane, one of two Waorani clans that continue to live in voluntary isolation.
XI Round Campaign Launches in Ecuador
La Amazonia que nos Queda
So much attention has focused on the protection of Yasuní National Park, and yet meanwhile an area of unspoiled and highly biodiverse rainforest many times larger is greatly threatened by the XI Oil Round.
