Quito, Feb 1 (EFE).- The Waorani Indigenous people called Thursday for Ecuadorians to stand together to pressure the government to respect last year’s referendum that called for an end to oil exploration in the Yasuní National Park, a highly biodiverse area of the Amazon.
In a press conference from the Amazon, the Waorani recalled that the majority of Ecuadorians voted in favor of stopping oil exploitation from Block 43-ITT (Ishpingo-Tambococha-Tiputini) in 2023.
“We call for the unity of the people, that the consultation of Aug. 20 be respected, that the state, President (Daniel) Noboa, comply with the result,” they said in the press conference, where they warned that they will be watching what happens in the next few months.
The gradual withdrawal of all oil extraction operations was supposed to take place within a year of the referendum, but in January Noboa proposed extending the exploitation of Block 43-ITT, one of the country’s most productive oil fields located in the Yasuní National Park in the Amazon, for another year.
Noboa made this proposal as an initiative to ensure that the benefits generated by this oil field would not be interrupted while the country is engaged in the “internal armed conflict” that his government declared in early January against organized crime.
The president estimates that fighting the criminal gangs that have made Ecuador one of the deadliest countries in the world will cost the state more than a billion dollars.
Reserves worth millions
Block 43-ITT produces about 58,000 barrels of oil per day, or about 11% of Ecuador’s total oil production, and in 2022 will earned the state $1.2 billion, according to state-owned Petroecuador, which operates the field.
“I think a moratorium (on the withdrawl) is a viable way forward. We are at war, we are not in the same situation as two years ago,” said Noboa, who added that the moratorium should be discussed with experts but that he thought that “at least it should be for another year.”
Ecuadorians voted in favor of indefinitely leaving underground the oil reserves, worth about US$13.8 billion, according to estimates by the state company Petroecuador, which began exploiting the field in 2016.
During the election campaign, Noboa supported the abandonment of Block 43-ITT and the dismantling of its facilities, arguing that its profitability would decline over the years as international crude oil prices fell.
Legal action
In an assembly, the Waoranis decided to declare a “Waorani Territorial Emergency” for which they will conduct a demographic, socio-economic and environmental diagnostic study.
They said noboa’s proposal was an attack on democracy and a violation of “the sovereign decision of the Ecuadorian people” to stop oil drilling in the Yasuní National Park, part of the Waorani’s ancestral territory, and decided to promote legal action against the Ecuadorian state in national and international courts “so that the will of the people to protect Yasuní is respected.” EFE
sm/ics/mcd
