INTRODUCTION Dear fellow Ecuadoreans, especially the young people of my Homeland: More than six years ago, with much joy, enthusiasm and perhaps, a level of naivety, we introduced to the world the YasunĂ-ITT Initiative—proposing to the planet to indefinitely refrain from exploiting the oil reserves of the IshpingoTiputini-Tambococha Block (ITT), estimated at around 920 million barrels, which account for 20% of the country's proven reserves. This would contribute to the struggle against global warming by preventing the release of more than 400 million tons of CO2 into the atmosphere. To this end, the international community would have to contribute at least US$3.6 billion, which at that time represented almost 50% of what the State would receive if it exploited the ITT. What we were asking for was not charity; it was joint responsibility in the struggle against climate change, with the Ecuadorean people as the main contributor—since Ecuador is a marginal polluter, and nevertheless, would be sacrificing US$3.6 billion in oil revenues with this proposal. The
compensation
demanded
was
perfectly
logical
in
environmental and economic terms: it constituted fair 1
payment
for
generating
environmental
resources.
Without the Amazon jungle, the main lung of the world, life on the planet would probably disappear. Despite that, we Amazon countries received nothing in return. The proposal was intended to raise the world's awareness and to generate a new reality: to go from words to deeds, demanding
joint
responsibility
from
the
international
community in the struggle against global warming. Without seeking any type of credit, only as a clarification for history, the one who came up with and proposed the initiative during a meeting with the board of Petroecuador in June 2007, was the President of the Republic. FAILURE Unfortunately, we have to say that the world has failed us. Up to date, there are only $13.3 million in funds available deposited in the YasunĂ-ITT trust fund, which account for barely 0.37% of what was expected. There are commitments not directly connected to the Initiative for another US$116 million. What is the reason for this failure? Surely we have made mistakes, because of the innovativeness of the proposal, but I assure you that by no means have they been crucial.
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I think the initiative was ahead of its time, and that those responsible for climate change were unable or unwilling to understand it. We have also had the misfortune of having the launch of the initiative coincide with the worst world economic crisis in the past 80 years. But let's not fool ourselves: the fundamental factor of the failure is that the world is extremely hypocritical, and the logic that prevails is not that of justice, but power. It is as simple as it is tough, dear young people: the polluting countries are also the richest and strongest ones, and if they have free access to environmental resources generated by others, why should they pay something? Imagine for a moment if the situation were reversed: if we the poor countries were the polluters and the rich countries the ones who had the Amazon jungle generating pure air. Would they not even have invaded us to force us to pay them for those resources? That is the big struggle, dear young people: a world where justice reigns and not just what is convenient for the strongest. REALITY
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In the meantime, we must overcome poverty, we must build hospitals, proper schools, housing, energy, ensure that every territory has essential public services. With this goal in mind, Ecuador has approved its National Plan for Good Living, which contains an investment program for the entire State, including the Decentralized Autonomous Governments, of nearly US$70 billion. We have lived accustomed to diseases such as dengue fever, cholera, gastroenteritis, which are the pathology of misery, since they should not exist with adequate sanitary services— drinking water, sewer systems, landfills—which, in the middle of the 21st century, only half of Ecuador's population has. We could hardly achieve the millennium objectives by 2015 when it comes to malnutrition, due to the absence of these sanitary services. Our fresh water is being destroyed, not by the mining industry, as some liars say, but because of the lack of wastewater systems in our cities. The jungle is also being destroyed, because agricultural and livestock boundaries are expanding, especially in the Amazon. Preventing
this
would
require
alternative
sources
of
employment and income. Our ancestral peoples and ethnic minorities live in poverty, and some expect to maintain them in this situation in the 4
name of preserving their cultures—as if misery, the biggest insult to human dignity, were part of folklore. EXPLANATION Because of all that, with deep sadness but also taking full responsibility toward our people and history, I have had to make one of the toughest decisions of my entire Administration. Today, I have signed an Executive Decree for the liquidation of the Yasuní-ITT trust fund, and with that, put an end to the initiative. Moreover, with the aforementioned decree, I have ordered the preparation of technical, economic and legal reports in order to, pursuant to Article 407 of the Constitution, request that the National Assembly declare the exploitation of oil in Yasuní to be of National Interest. This use will affect, listen to me closely, Ecuadorean people, and in particular, dear young people, less than 1% of the Yasuní Park (repeat).
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I am including this commitment in the same decree and will personally oversee it. I quote: Article 5 - In the event that the National Assembly authorizes the extraction activity, this cannot be carried out in an area exceeding one percent (1%) of the YasunĂ National Park. For that purpose, we can create a citizen oversight panel, but made up of honest people, not the fundamentalists with senseless agendas anti-everything who barely achieved 3% of popular support in the latest elections.
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What the usual groups have positioned is a rude and irresponsible lie, a ploy into which many good-hearted young people have fallen: Yasuní or oil. This is not true. I would never allow Yasuní to disappear. They have deceived us with a false dilemma: all or nothing; the exploitation of the ITT or the survival of Yasuní. This false dilemma is part of an even bigger false dilemma: nature or extractivism. Norway is an oil country and one of the countries that takes the best care of its nature. Canada is a mining country and has the world's largest reserves of fresh water. What those people have said is false, dear young people. Currently, based on the technology available for oil recovery and oil prices, exploiting the reserves of the ITT would yield a net present value of US$18.292 billion, more than 11 billion over what was originally estimated. Consequently, the true dilemma is: 100% of Yasuní and no resources to satisfy the urgent needs of our people, or; 99% of Yasuní and nearly 18 billion to overcome misery, especially in the Amazonia, paradoxically the region with the highest incidence of poverty. 7
I think the choice is extremely clear.
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