Eduardo Gudynas
ALAI AMLAT-en, 21/08/2013.- One of the most original environmental
initiatives in recent years, coming from Ecuador, sought to leave
oil in the ground to preserve the Amazonia and its indigenous
peoples. It was an idea emerging from civil society that took on
concrete form in 2007, under the first government of Rafael Correa,
and was centred on protecting the Yasuní National Park and its
adjacent areas (known by the abbreviation ITT). These efforts ended
a few days ago, when the government announced the cancellation of
this initiative and opened the way for petroleum exploitation.
The idea of a petroleum moratorium in Yasuní-ITT grew to maturity
over many years, but was founded on an exceptional framework in the
system of rights approved in the new Constitution of 2008. This
Constitution envisaged a better organization of the rights to
quality of life of persons, the regulation of the use of natural
resources and safeguards for indigenous peoples. In parallel with
these features, for the first time the rights of Nature or of the
Pachamama were recognized. In this way a constitutional ecological
mandate was established, which if complied with, would not allow
activities with such impacts as oil exploitation in Yasuní-ITT.
In the following stages, the government maintained the petroleum
moratorium but began to seek alternative options in order to obtain
economic compensation. During that time it was estimated that the
national economy of Ecuador would lose an estimated seven billion
dollars by not extracting the 920 million barrels of crude oil that
lie beneath the Yasuní-ITT. President Correa affirmed that if it
were possible to obtain a compensatory fund to the amount of half of
these lost gains, the suspension of petroleum extraction would be
maintained.
The fundraising of 3.6 billion dollars was thus established as the
condition for the protection of the area. Distinct mechanisms and
justifications for implementing this international fund were
designed, so that governments, industries or individuals could
deposit money. The idea was intelligent, since there are already
many arguments for other governments, especially in the
industrialized global North, to support the protection of
biodiversity, abandoning the classical position of voraciously
expropriating the resources of the South.
However, with the passage of time, the conceptual framework of the
government began to fall apart. On the one hand, there was
increasing insistence on the notion of economic compensation or
recompense. On the other hand, the basic grounding in the rights of
Nature began to give way to prioritizing arguments centred on
limiting global climate change. The argument was that the oil
should stay in the ground in order to avoid its being burned and
producing greenhouse gasses that would increase global warming.
With this, the proposal was above all an economic compensation to
avoid an increase in planetary environmental change.
The Yasuní-ITT initiative was watched with much interest in the
international community, and awakened many illusions among various
social movements, as an example of a post-petroleum transition. But
it always was burdened with tensions, such as the constant
governmental reminder of moving to a "plan B", which would involve
exploiting the Amazonian oil, as well as contradictions, such as
presidential declarations against possible international donors.
President Correa has now presented various arguments for cancelling
this moratorium in Yasuní-ITT. One of them was to denounce the lack
of support on the part of the international community, qualifying it
as hypocritical. In part this was based on sound reasoning, since
many industrialized nations had grown thanks to the spoliation of
resources of the South, and the Yasuní-ITT initiative would allow
them to begin to pay off these debts. But we cannot overlook the
fact that making economic compensation a condition for the
moratorium involved an insurmountable contradiction. The Ecuadorian
Constitutional mandate obliges the State to protect these areas,
both in order to protect the rights of indigenous people as well as
those of Nature. It is difficult to ask other governments to provide
economic compensation for the fulfilment of their own Constitutional
obligations. An adequate analogy would be that of a country asking
for economic compensation for its expenses in providing health care
for its children.
Another presidential argument was based on an attitude of
technological optimism, maintaining that now it is possible to
undertake exploitation of petroleum in Amazonia minimizing the
environmental impact. This attitude is common among various
governments, but is particularly paradoxical in Ecuador, since they
suffered severe impacts of petroleum extraction in Amazonia. All
this became evident in the court case against Texaco-Chevron. All
available scientific information clearly shows the serious impact of
petroleum extraction in tropical environments.
The struggle against poverty is another presidential argument for
the cancellation of the moratorium. This is a position that enjoys
considerable support, and it is certainly commendable that these
natural resources are exploited for the benefit of the country,
rather than to expand the profits of transnational corporations.
But saying this does not resolve the problem of assuring that this
can happen. More or less the same thing is announced by the
enterprises (when, for example, they say that mining will resolve
local poverty and generate employment), and certain governments that
are ideologically very different say the same thing (the "mining
locomotive" of Santos will reduce poverty in Colombia), and this is
in the conceptual nucleus of conventional development (believing
that any increase in exports will increase internal production, and
this will reduce poverty).
There are many intermediate steps between extracting a natural
resource and reducing poverty, and it is in these stages that a
great many problems arise. These go from the very doubtful economic
benefits of these kinds of extractive industry (since on the one
hand the State profits from exporting oil, but loses on the other
due to the need to attend to social and environmental impacts), to
the role of intermediary (where the enterprises, whether state or
private, from the North or from southern friends, can only succeed
when they maximize profits, and this is almost always at the cost of
the environment and local communities).
Correa's decision makes shock waves at several levels. Opening the
way to petroleum extraction, there is an immediate threat to an
ecosystem of very high biodiversity, as well as to the indigenous
peoples who live in the region (including some who are completely
isolated). The notion of applying a post-petroleum alternative and
the ability to serve as a good example to other countries
disappears. The Ecuadorian measure will without doubt increase
pressure on protected areas, for example, in Peru and Bolivia. They
also demonstrate that the country will not fulfil the promises of
productive diversity, and will fall back into a role of being a
provider of primary resources for export.
With all this, it is possible that the strongest impact has been on
the Constitutional framework of the rights of Nature. At the end of
his discourse, Correa returned to the traditional opposition of the
1970s between development and environmental conservation, when he
said that "the greatest attack on Human Rights is poverty, and the
greatest error is to subordinate these Human Rights to the supposed
rights of nature: never mind that there is hunger, a lack of
services... the important thing is conservationism in the extreme."
No one in the environmental movement defends extreme poverty.
Rather they point out that under the promotion of economic growth
there is not only greater social inequality, but the destruction of
the natural environment.
Beyond this clarification, the problem is that in this phrase the
rights of Nature are reduced to a supposition. If these rights are
put aside, conventional development will prevail, with a new triumph
of the oil business, since social and environmental impacts have no
economic value. The rights of Nature are a reaction to this kind of
reasoning. They are not a concession to plants and animals, or to
environmentalists, but rather a need to protect peoples and their
natural patrimony.
All this means that we are left to anxiously wonder whether, when
the moratorium on petroleum in the Amazonia of Ecuador was
abolished, the rights of Nature may not also have begun to collapse.
(Translated for Alai by Jordan Bishop)
- Eduardo Gudynas is a member of the CLAES team (Centro Latino
Americano de Ecologia Social. His twitter is: @EGudynas.
