“Ecuador is rich and its currency is biodiversity,” says foreign minister after debt swap

Ecuador finalized last May debt swap largest conservation grant in history to protect the Galapagos Islandswhich for his Minister of Foreign Affairs and Human Mobility, Gustavo Manrique, showed that his country is “as rich as any rich country in the world, except that the currency is called biodiversity”.

In total, there were US$1,628 million in sovereign bonds from Ecuador that ended up being repurchased for US$656 million, which meant savings for the State of some US$1,121 million, including interest, which it will stop paying to the new creditors.

At the same time, the Galapagos Life Fund (GLF) was created to administer US$ 450 million that will be donated by private entities for conservation and protection projects of the Galapagos Marine Reserve and the annexed Hermandad Reserve, recently created to form a corridor between the Ecuadorian archipelago and the Costa Rican Isla del Coco.

Additionally, the chancellor revealed that donors “they have just signed the donation of US$ 20 million for potable water and sanitation projects on the islands of Santa Cruz, Isabela and San Cristóbal, the three most populous in the archipelago, where some 35,000 people live”,

“The typical thing is that to generate economic resources you take the fish (from the ocean), but here Ecuador said ‘I’m not going to touch’ (the sea) and they sent it US$ 1,121 million (in debt forgiveness) and also another US$ 450 million (to conserve Galapagos)”, highlighted Manrique.

International recognition

For the minister, this meant international recognition of the expansion of the protected area of ​​Galapagos with the Brotherhood Reserve and the sacrifice of restricting that area to fishing, “Having the largest fishing fleet in the Eastern Tropical Pacific and with unsatisfied basic needs and needing all the money it needs.”

The foreign minister highlighted as very advantageous the payment conditions of the US$ 656 million, due in 2041, instead of the original bonds that went to 2030, 2035 and 2040; and with an interest rate of 6.98% instead of one close to 18%, which would correspond as a result of the high risk premium (country risk) that Ecuador currently registers, oscillating between 1,800 and 2,000 points.

Meanwhile, the GLF will have US$ 13 million per year for conservation projects in the Galapagos during those eighteen and a half years and another 5 will go each year to a trust so that, starting in 2041, it can continue to obtain resources with the interests of those savings in perpetuity.

“We have developed a formula in which we have broken a paradigm where, by not exploiting, you have income in perpetuity”Manrique emphasized.

Ecuadorian majority

The foreign minister categorically denied that the creation of the GLF, whose founders are the American organizations Pew Bertarelli Ocean Legacy and Oceans Finance Company (OFC), violates Ecuador’s national sovereignty over the Galapagos Islands, as has slipped from some sectors critical of government.

Manrique affirmed that, although the GLF established its headquarters in Delaware (United States), it will have a subsidiary in the Galapagos and stressed that the funds it will manage are not fiscal resources from Ecuador but private money, while its board of directors will have eleven members, of which eight are Ecuadorian, and of those there are five representatives of the Government.

“I don’t know how it occurs to me in which way it could violate sovereignty, which is also protected by the Constitution,” he pointed.

The minister explained that, after its first two meetings, the GLF is defining its governance and signing agreements that protect it from conflicts of interest and promote ethics and anti-corruption.

seven priorities

Once structured, the GLF will work on seven priorities: monitoring, traceability, control, change of productive activities, consulting, education and solid waste management, with projects that can be submitted by anyone, from individuals and groups, to companies, organizations without for profit or schools.

Manrique assured that the Galapagos are the nucleus of the migratory corridor of marine species of the Eastern Tropical Pacific. “(The other neighboring countries) have beautiful and rich islands too, but Galapagos is Galapagos,” concluded.

Located about a thousand kilometers west of the continental coast of Ecuador, the Galapagos are considered a natural laboratory that allowed the English scientist Charles Darwin to develop his theory on the natural selection of species in the 19th century.

This archipelago, made up of 13 large islands, 6 smaller ones, and 107 islets and rocks, was declared a World Heritage Site by Unesco in 1978 and is one of the best-preserved marine reserves in the world, as well as the main tourist attraction. from Ecuador.

Source: EFE