Indigenous and environmental organizations see contradictions in the environmental message issued by the current government. They claim that there is a risk of ethnocide.
The Yasuni National Park (PNY) is surrounded by oil blocks. To the north are 14, 16, 31 and 43. To the west are 65, 61, 55 and 66, and to the south 83, 84 and 87, although the latter have not yet been exploited for now. This delimitation shows the voracity there is for the so-called black gold that these mega-diverse lands possess.
Of all these blocks, the 43 it is the one that worries the environmental groups the most. Petroamazonas activities have not stopped in this area, not even with the pandemic. And the projections, located on maps of the state company itself, as of July 2020, indicate that the construction of the platforms will continue.
The problem is that platforms such as Ishpingo A, which has already been built, and B, whose construction is planned in the medium term, would be on the edge of the buffer zone, indicate environmental groups.
In fact, the Ishpingo C and D platforms would be built in the buffer zone. Even, the last one would be on the border with the intangible zone. This despite the fact that when the PNY’s intervention was authorized in 2013, the exploitation of the intangible zone and its buffer zone were prohibited.
The state oil company only has an environmental license for platforms A and B, but it would be managing the permits for the construction of the others.
All this extractive activity was allowed thanks to the decree 751 signed by former president Lenín Moreno and which has been maintained by current president Guillermo Lasso. Although this decree expanded the intangible zone, at the same time it opened the possibility of installing new platforms in the buffer zone.
They file a constitutional lawsuit against Guillermo Lasso for trying to expand the extractive frontier in the Ecuadorian Amazon
The signing of the document was controversial and Moreno’s own Minister of the Environment, Marcelo Mata, acknowledged that it was unconstitutional. All this increases the pressure on the biodiversity of the PNY and the risk of an ethnocide against the peoples in voluntary isolation, says Pedro Bermeo, spokesman for Yasunidos.
“What is currently being exploited is already reaching the edge of the buffer zone. There is a state policy of discrimination for all presidents. With the discourse that oil will lift us out of poverty, it does not matter that peoples in voluntary isolation die”Says Bermeo.
Yasunidos, along with other groups, seeks to have Decree 751 declared unconstitutional. “There are uncontacted groups that are very close to blocks 31 and 43. There are only 10 kilometers away from these towns,” says Bermeo.
All these platforms are connected by an “ecological access” as Petroamazonas calls it, although Bermeo affirms that it is a “superhighway”Where trucks and heavy machinery transit. The road already reaches a distance of 400 meters from the buffer zone and its extension is foreseen.
“When oil extraction was authorized in 2013 in the PNY, we were told that they would use state-of-the-art technology, but the construction of this highway shows us otherwise. There are the same technologies that Texaco and Chevron used to exploit the northern Amazon, ”he says. Although Petroamazonas reports say that “rigorous” care is taken.
The current government’s endorsement to continue with this exploitation is given to fulfill its proposal to double oil production in the long term. Decree 95 signed by Lasso, which has also drawn criticism from environmental groups, would further facilitate extractive activities.
Even indigenous groups presented, last Monday, a lawsuit of unconstitutionality against this decree and affirmed that it will be the first of “several” actions that they will take to stop mining and oil in the Amazon.
“We demand that the Government respect our decision to keep our territories free of oil and mining. Our territory is our decision, and we will never let the oil or mining companies enter and destroy our home and kill our culture, ”says Nemonte Nenquimo, a Waorani leader.
Manuel Bayón, from the Colectivo Geografía Crítica del Ecuador and who participated in the publication The exploitation of the Yasuní in the midst of the global oil collapse, affirms that “the machines” are already entering the heart of the PNY and that a “great illegality” is being committed.
“That exploiting the 1 x 1,000 was scientifically impossible. Then, in 2018, through popular consultation, it was lowered to 300 hectares of intervention, but what the previous government presented was a plan to build platforms up to the J within the buffer zone, the protection zone of the towns in isolation”, dice.
Bayón questions the ambiguity of Lasso’s environmental message, since he is authorizing extractive activities in sensitive areas: “There is continuity, the president is failing his word.”
Oil lobby after “bleeding” of the Amazon
The constant cases of corruption, which have arisen in past presidential administrations from both the left, right or center, show an oil lobby that seeks to benefit from oil extraction in the Ecuadorian Amazon, says Bayón.
“In the country it happens that governments are sustained by oil corruption. We have a stagnant class of civil servants, companies and contractors, and international pressures to continue exploiting. We have to get rid of that political and business class that does not mind building a well anywhere, since they participate in the corruption that is generated around”, dice.
He indicates that the argument that oil brings wealth, which has been managed by the different Ecuadorian governments, is false: “Today I am telling you all this from Lago Agrio, Sucumbíos, (oil extraction zone) and I can assure you that here you don’t see any wealth. In fact, not having clean water and air has generated impoverishment. The poverty rates in provinces like Orellana and Sucumbíos are the highest in the country ”. (I)
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