subject: YASUNI ITT: A Big Idea from a Small Country… will the world respond? [print this page] YASUNI ITT: A Big Idea from a Small Country will the world respond?
The best things in life do come in small packages, and such is the case of an idea that came from a little package: a country called Ecuador. As some may already know, Ecuador's economy depends directly on oil resources whose gains are then invested on health, education and housing. This is the reason why, even though the planet is experiencing a climate crisis, the Ecuadorian and worldwide oil industry are expanding to new frontiers.
One of these oil industry's new horizon is located in the heart of the Amazon basin: the Yasuni Forest. Declared a World Biosphere Reserve by UNESCO in 1999, Yasuni is the most biologically diverse place on earth, with 13.000 species of mammals, amphibious, reptiles, birds and fish; and more than 100.000 species of insects. Just one hectare of this forest has as many as 655 tree species, more than what the United States and Canada combined have.
The Yasuni forest is also home to some of the last indigenous people still living in voluntary isolation. These people are now waiting for a miracle for the deforestation to stop, since they happen to live above Ecuador's largest undeveloped oil reserve: the "Ishpingo-Tambococha-Tiputini"(ITT) Oil Block. This block contains 20% of all the oil reserves in Ecuador (850 million barrels), representing 407 million metric tons of CO to the atmosphere, a 7 billion dollars gain and an extra 7.2 billion dollar for the carbon market.
Two decades ago, the Yasuni forest got considerably reduced from 1.476.000 hectares to only 625.000 due to the pressure of the oil companies, so the Ecuador government is facing now a huge dilemma: should it keep deforesting the reserve and drill for the oil, which would provide the country with the economic sources it needs to develop; or should it help preserve the environment by not deforesting the world's biggest ecological reserve? Looking for the best possible solution, the Ecuadorian government came up with a revolutionary idea and started to contribute to this race for life: "The Yasun ITT Project".
The idea is quite simple: The government will leave the Yasun oil underground and request, as a compensation for having avoided environmental pollution, a 50% of what the Country would have gained if the area had been exploited ($350 million a year) for a period of 10 years, giving up the rest of the gains.
To better understand the foundations of this project, it's essential to know that there is something called the "Carbon Market", regulated by the Kyoto Protocol. The program has created First and Second Generation bonds (G1 and G2) to reduce the emission of greenhouse gases to the atmosphere. The G1 bonds are given to companies with environment generating practices, while the G2 bonds are given to the companies that reduce their deforestation and pollution levels. These bonds are placed into the Carbon Market so that the companies with environment polluting practices can buy them. Depending on the amount of bonds they buy, these companies are allowed to pollute the environment.
All these been said, Ecuador's Yasun ITT Proyect is proposing the European Union to place into the Carbon Market bonds called "Yasun Certificates of Guaranty (CGY)", that would be Third Generation bonds given to countries that avoid or prevent environmental pollution, something that would keep millions of tons of CO from being emitted to the atmosphere. The money raised from these "green bonds" would be placed into an international trust foundation to support local environmental and social development programs that would help Ecuador move towards a sustainable economy, while preserving the rainforest and recognizing the rights of the indigenous communities in Yasun. This preventive model is the Ecuadorian's major initiative to become supporters and contributors to the preservation of the planet.
From 2007 until today, this historical initiative has been supported by the Medicine laureate Rita Levi-Montalcini and several Nobel Peace Prices such as Muhamad Yunus, Desmond Tutu, Rigoberta Mench; as well as by various countries such as France, Germany, Norway, Spain and Switzerland. If the plan succeeds, it could even become a worldwide accepted model.
With the current Kyoto Protocol model resulting in global emissions 40 percent above the ones registered in 1990 (the basis year), this is an alternative that has already being considered as effective not only for Ecuador, but for countries with similar conditions such as Bolivia, Brazil, Indonesia, Malaysia, Peru, the Philippines, the Republic of Congo and Venezuela.
For Ecuador's plan to succeed, the international community has to get engaged with the initiative in a significant way. Will the world respond? Perhaps the following letter, written by a Yasun native to the former Ecuadorian president, back in 1995, could motivate the countries provide an answer: r/> "What will happen when our children grow up?
Where will they live when they are older?
Our rivers are peaceful and in our forests we find the food, the medicines and everything that we need.
What will happen when the oil companies finish destroying what we have?"
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