This week the UN and Ecuador reached a historic agreement to set up a trust to protect the biodiverse (and oil-rich) lands that fall within the Yasuni National Park in Ecuador.
Said to be one of the most biodiverse places on earth, the park is also a gem in the eyes of oil drilling companies. Under the park, there are about 800 million barrels of crude oil. If this was tapped, the result, if the oil was used as fuel, would release 400 million metric tons of carbon into the air.
However, the new trust and initiative, signed by Ricaro Patino (Ecuador’s foreign minister) and Rebecca Grypsan (a UNDP associate administrator), will keep the oil from being tapped. Unfortunately, as it usually does, it comes down to the bottom line. Though Ecuador signed the deal, they will be appealing to countries around the world for funding. They claim the loss of revenue from being unable to drill in the park is upwards of $7 billion, and hope to collect about 60 percent of the loss, with Ecuador’s Vice President, Lenin Moreno, calling the deal a “sacrifice for our country.”
Yasuni NP has been a UNESCO designated biosphere reserve since 1989, and houses hundreds of insect, amphibian, and bird species, as well as two of the last remaining uncontacted indigenous tribes in the world (Tagaeri and Taromenane).
-via Telegraph
