The Yasuni region of the Ecuadorian Amazon is one of the most biodiverse places on our planet. After failing to receive international financial pledges to reimburse Ecuador for not extracting oil from this region (Ecuador was seeking $3.6 billion to compensate for $7 billion in lost revenue), President Correa pledged to allow drilling to proceed. While the 800 million barrels under the Yasuni is only 10 days' worth of world oil consumption, retrieving it threatens this amazing ecosystem (on New Community Project Learning Tours, we see the damage wrought by existing oil extraction in the Ecuadorian Amazon--of which the US imports 200,000 bpd) and the people who live there (some uncontacted). Combusting this petroleum will release another 400 million tons of CO2 into the atmosphere.
This is historical material “frozen in time”. The website is no longer updated and links to external websites and some internal pages may not work.
