The day is approaching when a country with little information, with a lack of deeper analysis, as it usually happens in our country, will make a decision whether to give Yasuní oil to Peru (which with modern technology can extract it from its territory) or if it will continue to serve us so that we have important fiscal resources, and more importantly, an annual flow of $1,200 million to our balance of payments and our ability to import.

Fanatical environmentalism, which does not recognize that the current exploitation does not harm the environment, that the damage has already been done, that all incidents have been reported and repaired, that the best technology is used in production, rejects these arguments.

They talk about genocide, but they don’t say how many voluntarily isolated residents live in that area. Very credible experts confirm that there are only a few hundred of them. Can a population of a few hundred be cornered on 90,000 hectares? In other words, suppose there are 1,000 voluntarily isolated residents in Yasuní, each of whom would have 90 hectares. Is it genocide?

I’m sure that many, if not most, of the initial proponents of the non-production thesis never visited Yasuní. But in his mind is the technology of 50 years ago. How many mistakes have been made on the planet by ignoring what technology is capable of! Malthus ensured the hunger of humanity, with his projection that food production would grow linearly and population exponentially. He was wrong, not knowing that technology would grow super exponentially, not just exponentially. Marx was also wrong, ignoring what technology would do to the productivity of labor and thus to the great rise in the standard of living of the working class in countries that were doing things well, as opposed to ours that were doing things badly. The well-known mass impoverishment of the proletariat has not been fulfilled.

But beyond all these arguments there is something that those who want to protect Yasuní forget. Today, Petroecuador, a company that, with all its flaws, corruption and problems, has done a remarkable job of making Yasuní’s production environmentally sound, the only thing the country currently has in the area. No guards, no guards. Today’s oil operation is a watchful eye, it is the only way the state can find out what is happening, whether settlers are entering or not, whether there are infiltrated loggers or not, whether there are other activities or not, it is not Petroecuador’s own.

What will happen when Petroecuador goes there? Very simply, a gate will be opened for settlers to come in, so that those who are interested in the wood that is there, will remove it, in order to try to turn the park land into agricultural land.

In the name of “sovereignty”, the Manta base was prevented from being a support in the fight against drug trafficking. Already today, we know how “sovereign” the state is compared to the mafias that threaten the survival of that same state.

That will be the lack of Petroecuador’s presence in Yasuní. In the name of ecology, they will get them out of there, and in a few years we will see that ecological sovereignty will be lost, because the only institution that can warn, announce and condemn what is happening there will be removed from the country.

The sad territorial history of Ecuador is largely due to the fact that we were not physically present in the Amazon and the fact that, for political and ideological reasons, the religious missions that advanced down the Ecuadorian tributaries of the Amazon were dismantled. That historical mistake robbed us of a huge amount of territory that today’s ecologists would love to have as ours. Getting Petroecuador out of there will be the same as getting rid of the religious missions that were present in Amazonia in the 19th century.

Today, the best letter of ecological preservation is precisely the presence of Petroecuador in that area. In a few years we will cry over the mistake of winning the yes vote, but it will be too late. (OR)