The vote affords Indigenous tribes and the complete nation the potential for “a unique future,” stated one advocate.
Ecuadorian voters on Sunday headed to the polls to forged their votes in each a snap presidential election and to take what environmental justice campaigners stated was a “once-in-a-lifetime” alternative to assist defend one of many world’s most important ecosystems.
Indicators urging the general public to vote “Sí al Yasuni” or “sure” for the Yasuní Nationwide Park within the Amazon rainforest have been plastered throughout the nation in current weeks, as organizers name on voters to help a referendum that will cease oil drilling within the Yasuní Ishpingo-Tambococha-Tiputini oilfield.
The 198,000-hectare park is Ecuador’s largest protected space and is home to 1,130 species of timber — greater than america and Canada mixed — 165 mammal species, 630 species of birds, and over 100,000 insect species per hectare.
The Indigenous Waorani, Kichwa, and Shuar folks coexist within the area, in addition to the uncontacted Tagaeri and Taromenan tribes.
As Indigenous rights group Survival Worldwide stated in a video posted to social media on Saturday, oil drilling within the tribes’ territory “poses an enormous menace to their survival” in addition to perpetuating an power system that scientists have warned is heating the planet and inflicting harmful sea degree rise and excessive climate occasions.
In Ecuador Aug twentieth, there’ll be a referendum asking whether or not oil drilling needs to be stopped within the uncontacted tribes’ territory within the Yasuní Nationwide Park.
If you happen to’re from Ecuador, vote “SÍ” for the survival of #UncontactedTribes!
If you happen to’re not, share the #SÍalYasuní hashtag! pic.twitter.com/Bq4nqYAvpa
— Survival Worldwide (@Survival) August 19, 2023
Former Ecuadorian President Rafael Correa began an initiative after taking workplace in 2007 to maintain the oil within the floor in Yasuní Nationwide Park, making a fund equal to half of the oilfield’s reserves and asking different international locations to pay into the fund in change for not drilling.
However the initiative led to 2013 and state oil agency Petroecuador has extracted as many as 57,000 barrels of oil per day from the park since then.
The grassroots motion Yasunidos has spent a decade gathering 750,000 signatures to help the inserting of the referendum on ballots and Ecuador’s prime electoral court docket ruled final 12 months that the vote may go ahead.
If the referendum is profitable, stated human rights group International Justice Now, Ecuador may “grow to be the primary nation to restrict fossil gasoline extraction via direct democracy.”
Immediately marks a monumental referendum in Ecuador which may see it grow to be the primary nation to restrict fossil gasoline extraction via direct democracy
Solidarity to campaigners who’ve fought tirelessly to make this occur ✊🏽 #YestoYasuni #YestoLifehttps://t.co/8PBR5VxXdN
— International Justice Now (@GlobalJusticeUK) August 20, 2023
“Ecuadorian campaigners are defending their native surroundings whereas standing on the frontline of the worldwide battle to maintain fossil fuels within the floor,” stated Izzie McIntosh, local weather marketing campaign supervisor for the group. “Whichever method the vote goes, they’ve despatched a transparent message to polluting multinationals: communities won’t stand by whereas firms revenue on the expense of the Amazon, and our planet’s collective well-being.”
After 10 years of oil extraction within the fragile rainforest, the referendum affords Indigenous tribes and the complete nation the potential for “a unique future,” Hueiya Cayuiya, founding father of the Waorani Girls’s Affiliation of the Ecuadorian Amazon, told The Guardian.
“If we win, it will likely be a triumph for Ecuador,” stated Cahuiya. “We don’t need any extra contamination in our rivers, any extra extraction on our land.”
