For decades now we've been hearing about how the world's rainforests are in danger from
rampant deforestation and how the world's ice caps and glaciers are melting as a result
of global warming.
At the same time, we're always hearing about oil.
How the world is running out of it and how our burning of it is contributing to global
warming.
And the closer we get to the world's oil supplies running out, the more obsessed with it we
seem to become and the less fussy about where we get it from.
Author Michael T. Claire has called it a 'race for what's left' but what happens when oil
reserves happen to lie under the very rainforests and glaciers that are already under threat.
To answer this a good place to start would be Ecuador.
In 2006 Ecuador state oil company, petro ecuador found a massive new oil field containing nearly
a billion barrels of oil under Ecuadorian land.
The find was equivalent to a fifth of the nation's total oil reserves and worth a minimum
7-10 billion dollars.
Only problem was the oil just happened to be under part of the Yasunit national park
located deep inside the Amazon rainforest and one of the last places on earth that is
truly undisturbed.
Not only is the area home to two of the world's largest uncontacted tribes - more on that
in the next part of the series - but it is also thought to have more species of plants,
animals and insects per hectare than anywhere else in the world and the Amazon as a whole
holds nearly 30% of the world's animal species with new species being discovered all the
time.
The decision of what to do with Ecuador's latest oil find was left down to the country's
then oil minister Alberto Acosta but despite spending years working in the state's oil
industry the decision terrifies him.
Acosta's dilemma was this.
Ecuador could use the money earned from selling the oil for badly needed housing infrastructure,
health and education.
But, drilling for the oil would release an estimated 406 million tonnes of carbon dioxide
into the atmosphere and lead to pollution, deforestation and destruction of plant/animal
species as well as destruction of the uncontacted tribes and other indigenous people's entire
way of life.
So Ecuador came up with a plan.
In return for a promise that the country wouldn't touch the oil field under Yasuni national
park, known as the Tiputini field, it asked the world for 3.6 billion dollars in donations,
around a half of the oils minimum value.
In 2010 the plan was backed by the UN who agreed to administer the funds and it was
set.
If a down payment of 100 million dollars was made by December of the following year, Ecuador
would not drill.
It seemed like an ingenius idea and individuals such as Bo Derek, Leonardo diCaprio, Edward
Norton and Al Gore all made generous donations but in the end just 13.3 million dollars was
collected.
We have to say that the world has failed us.
It is with profound sadness but its also with absolute responsibility to the people and
with our history that I have had to make one of the most difficult decisions of my government.
Today I have signed the executive decree for the liquidation of the Yasuni itt trust fund
and through it end the initiative.
So, drill it is.
But if the past is anything to go by the results could be disastrous.
Between the early 1960s and 1992 the american oil giant Texaco operated more than 300 oil
wells throughout Ecuador's amazon region.
According to campaigners during this period the company dumped more than 18 billion gallons
of toxic waste water into the rainforest.
The water there remains polluted today and many of the indigenous communities in the
region have no option but to drink it.
Urinary illnesses.
Women have problems with uterus and some have to have them removed.
Illnesses like that, cancers, stomach cancer, it is painful painful.
They swell up and they die.
Campaigners say that leaks from the oil wells have caused birth defects, cancers and miscarriages
and in 2011 the communities living there won an 18 billion dollar lawsuit against Chevron
- another American oil company that acquired Texaco in 2000.
Two years on Chevron continues to claim that the judgement in this lawsuit was illegitimate
and accuses both the plaintiffs lawyers and Ecuadorian government and judiciary of fraud.
It is so far refused to make any payment and it's not just pollution that's a problem.
The drilling also resulted in deforestation on a massive scale leaving some areas with
nothing to be seen from horizon to horizon.
Unfortunately, Ecuador isn't the only country to have suffered to the hands of our unquenchable
thirst for oil.
In the next part of this series we'll take a look at the impact of drilling in neighboring
Peru as well as consider what the consequences of future drilling Ecuador might be.
In the meantime you can let us know what you think about all of this in the comments below
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