October 2, 2010
Source: Ottawa Citizen
The world's environment is everybody's responsibility, and everyone is obliged to do right by it. That is why Ecuador's extortionate proposal to refrain from despoiling its own Amazon region in exchange for $3.6 billion from the world's wealthy nations cannot go unchallenged.
In 2009, Ecuador signed an agreement with the United Nations' Development Program, saying it would forgo developing a huge oil reserve in Yasuni National Park if it received compensation for at least half the lost revenue.
Yasuni is a million-hectare tropical rainforest located on the eastern edge of Amazonian Ecuador. Home to indigenous tribes, and thousands of plant and animal species, it was declared a UNESCO Biosphere Reserve in 1989.
Earlier this week, Lenin Moreno Garces, Ecuador's vice-president, said his country could earn $7 billion if it produced the 850 million barrels estimated to be in the area. He then warned: Pay up or we drill. "By the end of 2011, if we haven't received at least $100 million, we will have to go to Plan B and extract the oil."
Ecuador, a member of OPEC with a population of 13 million, is playing a cynical game by appealing to environmentally minded westerners -- who else did you think would pay? -- while, at the same time, implying they will be to blame should the forests be destroyed.
This is ecological blackmail. Schemes like the Yasuni fund amount to a transfer of western wealth to developing countries with no assurance it would be the last. Indeed, the UNDP wants to replicate the no-drill-for-dough program in other countries, possibly Guatemala, Peru, Bolivia, Vietnam and Nigeria. Soon the list will be long of countries eager to raid the treasuries of Europe, the United States and Canada.
Of course, the UNDP is confident of Ecuador's "guarantees" to refund the money if the oil is extracted at a later date, but skepticism is the most charitable response to such assurances. Once spent, where would Ecuador get the money? It already owes $15 billion in external debts. Besides, nothing prevents future Ecuadorian governments from trying the pay-up-or-the-trees-die gambit again.
President Rafael Correa's left-wing government, elected in 2006 on a promise to help the poor, needs as much oil revenue as it can get. Earlier this week, police rioted against the government to protest cancelled bonuses. Oil exports provide 50 per cent of the national budget. Three years ago, according to reports, Petroecuador, the country's state-run oil company, struck deals with Sinopec of China, Chile's Enap and the Venezuela's state oil company PDVSA to develop oil fields in Yasuni park. Human rights and indigenous groups recently criticized the government for using the Yasuni initiative, with covers only the eastern fringe of the park, as a mask to open other ecologically sensitive areas to oil and mining development.
This suggests that Ecuador is engaged in a sleight-of-hand. It plays the green card, while, at the same time, dealing out oil exploration licences for other areas.
Correa's government certainly has a responsibly to the country, but it also has obligations to the world. Surely there are better ways to serve the environment than demanding ransoms from western taxpayers. Perhaps Yasuni can be opened to the long-term wealth of eco-tourism. Perhaps the rainforest's pharmaceutical potential can be a source of riches. Ecuador should be rewarded for doing things, not for doing nothing.