Ecuador wins the first battle of climate democracy

While political and media attention has been focused on the troubled Ecuadorian presidential elections, which have decided a second-round run-off between the Correa candidate Luisa González and the businessman Álvaro Noboa, great news not only for the country but also for the entire planet has remained in the background. It was the first referendum, held simultaneously with the elections, by which Ecuadorians decided to continue or stop the exploitation of the oil fields in the Yasuni Amazonian reserve. The consultation focused more specifically on the so-called Block 43, which includes the Ishpingo, Tambococha and Tiputini areas, where the company Petroecuador has so far extracted 12% of the 500,000 barrels of crude oil per day produced by Ecuador, which accounts for 10% of the GDP of the country that gives its name to the planet's parallel zero.

Well, 59% of Ecuadorians consulted on the issue voted for the preservation of the million hectares of primary rainforest, i.e. for the oil to continue sleeping peacefully in the subsoil, thus preserving this unique biodiversity reserve, declared as such by Unesco. The victory of the nature conservationists is all the more valuable because it required a favourable ruling by the country's Supreme Court, against the government of the current incumbent president Guillermo Lasso, who had opted to double the country's oil production. The result of the referendum, which Petroecuador has immediately complied with, will, according to the government, result in financial losses of $16.5 billion, which will increase if the initiative is extended to the other extraction areas.

The issue will inevitably be on the agenda of the candidates vying for the presidency on 22 October. Ecuador is an oil-producing country, whose oil extraction and transport infrastructure from the northeastern Amazon to Pacific ports punctuates the jungle with pipelines, tanker trains and pumping stations, destroying the habitat of numerous species.  

The jubilation shown at the referendum result by the indigenous umbrella organisations Confeniae and Conaie is a warning that they will use this first "democratic triumph of the climate struggle" to restore the balance of values. Yasunidos, the group that promoted the referendum, together with Amazon Frontlines and Alianza Ceibo, signed a communiqué in which they expressed that "the result of the consultation permanently protects one of the richest places in biodiversity on the planet, at the same time as it represents a great victory for the indigenous peoples for the preservation of their rights, the conservation of the rainforest and the fight against climate change".  

A similar popular consultation was also held in the Andean Choco, where inhabitants also voted to put an end to mining operations, which affect six villages around the country's capital, Quito. In fact, the area, which covers 287,000 hectares of forest, is known as the lungs of Quito, home to the rich biodiversity of the Andean bear. In this case, 68% of voters voted for the closure of the deposits and the closure of the mines.  

It is no secret that now comes the hardest part: enforcing what has been agreed in a scrupulously democratic manner in a country shaken by a tragic wave of violence. Whoever wins the presidency, the pro-Correa (a variant of Chavismo) González or the conservative Noboa, it will not be easy to enforce democracy when narco-terrorism has infiltrated much, if not all, of the country's institutions. In any case, let it be noted that Ecuador, from the modesty of its size, has been the first to win the first democratic battle to counteract the planet's climate emergency. In this case, allowing the law of the (Amazonian) jungle to reign supreme would be a great achievement in the face of the jungle that corruption derived from drug trafficking is turning the beloved Ibero-American continent into.