The people of Ecuador are heading to the polls – but they’re voting for more than just a new president. For the first time in history, the people will decide the fate of oil extraction in the Ecuadorian Amazon.
The referendum will give voters the chance to decide whether oil companies can continue to drill in one of the most biodiverse places on the planet, the Yasuní National Park, home to the last uncontacted indigenous communities in Ecuador.
The park encompasses around one million hectares at the meeting point of the Amazon, the Andes and the Equator. Just one hectare of Yasuní land supposedly contains more animal species than the whole of Europe and more tree species than exist in all of North America.
It’s been a decade-long battle that began when former President Rafael Correa boldly proposed that the international community give Ecuador $3.6 billion to leave Yasuní undisturbed. But the world wasn’t as generous as Correa expected.
But ‘yes’ campaigners have ideas to fill the gap, from the promotion of eco-tourism and the electrification of public transport to eliminating tax exemptions. They claim that cutting the subsidies to the richest 10% of the country would generate four times more than what is obtained extracting oil from Yasuní.
Credit: cnn.com
