Ecuador Govt Approves Oil Drilling Beyond Last Development Barrier In Heart Of Yasuni NP

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In April, the Ministry of Environment approved plans to open two platforms of the Ishpingo oil field, the third phase of the controversial Ishpingo-Tambococha-Tiputini (ITT) project. Ishpingo is the most contentious field in the ITT project as it is the largest and overlaps with the ZITT and its buffer zone, an area 10 kilometers (6 miles) wide that surrounds the ZITT. Then in May, President Lenín Moreno signed a new decree that allows oil platforms to be constructed within the Intangible Zone’s buffer area, which was previously forbidden.

Yasuni National Park has long been controversial for being an area rich in biodiversity that also has some of Ecuador’s largest oil reserves, in a country that is highly dependent on oil revenue. Activists say these recent decisions will have major environmental repercussions in a region that was once a beacon of hope for global conservation, and on the two indigenous nations that live in voluntary isolation there.

Saving Yasuni from oil extraction has long been a priority for conservationists, especially since former president Rafael Correa launched the ITT initiative in 2007. Correa asked the international community to donate $3.6 billion in return for keeping oil in the ground in the ITT field, located in what’s known as Block 43. The plan was scrapped six years later when less than 10 percent of the target figure was raised. Block 43 was the last remaining bit of Yasuni that was free of oil activity, and the ITT initiative had been a symbol of hope for a new economic model.

Tarsicio Granizo, former undersecretary of natural heritage in the Correa administration, who helped craft the ITT Initiative, says the proposal wasn’t about conservation; it was about directly addressing climate change by giving incentives to keep oil in the ground. But when the Ministry of Environment approved the third and final oil field in ITT earlier this year, that put to rest any possibility that the park could be saved from extraction activity

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https://news.mongabay.com/2019/07/heart-of-ecuadors-yasuni-home-to-uncontacted-tribes-opens-for-oil-drilling/