Colombia and Ecuador set out road map to normalize relations

Colombia Reports, February 23, 2010

Colombian President Alvaro Uribe and Ecuadorean President Rafael Correa set out a road map to begin normalizing broken diplomatic relations between their two nations at a summit in Mexico on Monday.

The two heads of state took advantage of their attendance at the Rio Group Summit to hold the first official meeting between their nations since diplomatic relations were broken in March 2008, following a Colombian attack on a FARC camp in Ecuadorean territory.

Correa told press that the meeting "met expectations, it is a decisive step towards normalizing relations" and all that remained was to reinstate the ambassadors.

"Without ever forgetting the past so as not to repeat it, but looking towards the future," Correa said he hoped that the nations would normalize relations "as soon as possible."

"There's no date, there's no time-line, but there is a road map and requests and requirements on Ecuadors's part, which the Colombian government has agreed to," the Ecuadorean president continued.

Correa said that Ecuador requires that Colombia provide information on the 2008 FARC camp bombing "to eliminate suspicion of intervention from a third country," in reference to the U.S.

Other requirements include that Ecuador be given access to FARC computer hard drives seized by Colombia in the raid, which supposedly link Correa's government to the guerrilla organization.

Correa said that the two nations will rely on the help of the human rights organization the Carter Center and the Organization of American States to address these "sensitive" topics.

Uribe said little to press at the summit except to comment that the meeting went well.

"The most important thing is that the presidents reiterated the desire to advance the mechanisms that allow the normalization of relations, since there is now a road map established because of the willingness of the two presidents," Colombian Foreign Minister Jaime Bermudez said.

"There will be a commission on sensitive topics, where themes of interest and concern from one side to the other side can be addressed... and it was agreed that this should be called as soon as possible, " Bermudez added.

Ecuador broke off relations with Colombia following the Colombian incursion into Ecuadorean territory while pursuing guerrillas on March 1, 2008. FARC leader "Raul Reyes" and 26 others, including an Ecuadorean, were killed in the raid, which Ecuador viewed as undermining its sovereignty.

Colombia accused Correa's government of links with the FARC due to evidence allegedly found on Raul Reyes' computer.

Both countries accused the other of failing to police the border region, which was plagued by illegal armed groups with links to drug trafficking. Relations between two countries began to improve after talks in September last year.

Ecuador’s Indians Announce Rupture of Dialogue with Government

QUITO – Organizations representing Ecuador’s indigenous peoples announced the rupture of the dialogue that they had been maintaining with government representatives and said they will await the decisions of the General Assembly of indigenous peoples set for later this week to call protest demonstrations.

Delfin Tenesaca, the president of the Andean branch of the Confederation of Indigenous Nationalities of Ecuador, or Conaie, confirmed the situation to the Teleamazonas television station and blamed the government for the breakdown of the talks.

“Dialogues without a response and without decision-making power” and executive orders about mining exploitation were some of the reasons why the Indians declared the talks over, he said.

“The government has no interest in what the constitution guarantees to be a plurinational state. It doesn’t want to implement it and that excludes the indigenous sector,” Tenesaca added.

He also said that over the weekend, the Amazonian branch of Conaie also decided to support the rupture of the dialogue.

“Achieving our interests has always required mobilizations,” said the Indian leader, who added that the decision to move to a national mobilization will be taken “by consensus” starting on Thursday as the Conaie General Assembly.

The government and the indigenous sectors undertook several months of talks and dialogue after the protests last September that ended with one demonstrator dead and 40 policemen injured.

Then, the government and Conaie began a dialogue process in which, at different working meetings, they studied their disagreements on several issues including a water resources law, a mining law and the procedure for schooling in both Spanish and indigenous languages. EFE

Main Rainforest Action Network Chevron CEO John Watson conspiring with Colonel Quaritch from the movie Avatar. Once upon a time there was a movie. H

From SFGate:
By Rebecca Tarbotton, Executive Director, Rainforest Action Network

Rainforest Action Network

Chevron CEO John Watson conspiring with Colonel Quaritch from the movie Avatar.

Once upon a time there was a movie.

Hundreds of millions of people around the world saw this movie. They were transported to the beautiful jungles of Pandora and introduced to the blue Na'vis and the evil RDA corporation.

Avatar (or unil-tìran-tokx in Na'vi) has been nominated for 9 Oscars. James Cameron, its infamous creator, has explicitly said he wants the highest grossing film in history to inspire mass environmental activism.

Fast forward to March 7. You're watching the Oscars and Avatar wins.

What if in his acceptance speech James Cameron mentioned the real-life Indigenous Ecuadorean heroes who are battling the real-life Chevron bad guys?

Retweet and help make it happen! I want Avatar director James Cameron to mention real-life Ecuador struggle against #Chevron at #Oscars:http://bit.ly/aOwuNI #realavatar

If James Cameron called out Chevron in his Oscars speech a world transfixed by this film phenomenon could take off the 3D glasses and step into a reality where they can make a difference.

The story of Chevron in Ecuador is no less dramatic, tragic, or inspiring than the fantasy world of Pandora.

The location: Avatar takes place in the beautiful jungles of Pandora where communities have been living in harmony with the Earth for centuries. Much like the communities depicted on Pandora, the Indigenous communities in the Ecuadorean Amazon rainforest relied on the Earth for clean water, healthy food and cultural heritage. They understood the secrets and medicines the forests held, and how invaluable it is to protect those ecosystems.

Enter the RDA corporation on Pandora and the Chevron oil corporation in the Amazon jungles of Ecuador. RDA built an extraction base, just as Chevron (then Texaco) built the oil boom-town Lago Agrio in the 1960s. Both corporations proceeded to drill like there was no tomorrow with no regard for the health of the environment or the communities.

During decades of drilling, Chevron (then Texaco) left 17 million gallons of crude oil spills, 917 unlined crude pits, and 18 billion (with a "B") gallons on toxic waste-water. That is about 9 gallons of toxics for every dollar Avatar (the highest grossing film in history) has made so far.

The Characters: In the fantasy, the Na'vi sit on the most sought after resources on Pandora. In real life, the Ecuadorean communities once sat atop a vast deposit of highly sought after crude oil. The Indigenous communities in the region where Chevron (then Texaco) operated have lost 95% of their ancestral land due to the impact of oil operations. People are suffering from birth defects, illness, cancer, and now death.

The Corporation: The RDA Corporation in Avatar is a money hungry, by-all-means, at-all-costs company that will stop at nothing to get their hands on the minerals of Pandora. Chevron (then Texaco) operated on the same mandate. Both RDA Corporation and Chevron refuse to acknowledge basic human rights and use cut-and-run operations that leave communities devastated. Chevron (then Texaco) deliberately used methods that were illegal in the US, that they knew would harm people, but allowed them to save a few dollars.

The Villain: Every action movie needs a villain, but not every corporation needs one. Chevron's new CEO John Watson is not a military man in the way the Colonel Miles Quaritch is, and has the chance right now to change course, to be a different character, in this story, and right the wrongs of his predecessors. John Watson can listen to the Ecuadorean people and the global community and clean up Ecuador.

The Ending: Courageous Ecuadoreans have been struggling for decades to force Chevron to clean up its toxic legacy. They are fighting for their right to drink clean water, for their families, for their communities to be restored and healed and for their cultural survival. They protest at home, travel to the US to confront Chevron CEOs and board members, and 30,000 are engaged in the largest environmental lawsuit of all time- a $27 billion liability for Chevron.

If Director James Cameron accepts an Academy Award next month, he should also let his legions of fans know that while Pandora is fictional, what is happening to communities in Ecuador because of Chevron's actions is as real as it gets.

Ecuador strongly defends relations with Iran, in spite of black list

MercoPress, Feb 22, 2010

Ecuador's inclusion on an international list of nations accused of lagging in the fight against money laundering is a hypocritical punishment for its relations with Iran, Ecuador's president said during his weekly television address.

Under Correa, Ecuador has strengthened diplomatic and commercial ties with Iran, which has opened an embassy in Quito and is forging wider relations across Latin America despite the concerns of Washington.

The United States and its European allies have been trying to pressure Iran to suspend its disputed nuclear program, which the West fears is a cover to build bombs. Tehran says it is for peaceful purposes.

“What arrogance! And why? Because we have relations with Iran, that's it; this has nothing to do with the struggle against money laundering”, said Correa during a political rally.

The Paris-based Financial Action Task Force, or FATF, comprising governments and regional organizations, named Ecuador this week among Iran and others as nations failing to comply with international regulations against money laundering and financing terrorism.

“We have been blacklisted along with Iran, Ethiopia, Angola and North Korea. We are the financiers of terrorism in the world!” Correa said indignantly. He added “it's a stick so you don't misbehave, naughty boy. You didn't do what I said, don't get involved with Iran. So because you went ahead, we'll put you on the blacklist, that's all.”

The FATF said in its report, released on Thursday, that Ecuador had not “constructively engaged” with it and had “not committed” to global standards on money crimes.

Correa said Ecuador's two dozen banks had perfectly adequate legislation to protect against laundering and terrorism financing and dismissed the report as “a huge lie.”

Drawing cheers from his audience, Correa asked why nobody had mentioned Brazil, which also has growing ties with Iran and hosted President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad late last year. He said international authorities should put pressure instead on rich nations like the United States and Switzerland over money laundering in their financial systems.

Ecuador's private bank association also said on Friday it thought the Iran factor was behind the nation's inclusion on the FATF list. It noted a 2009 agreement between Ecuador's Central Bank and some Iranian financial institutions.

Ecuador May Export Electricity to Colombia, Venezuela

QUITO – The Ecuadorian government said it has overcome an electricity crisis and may even be in a position to export power to Colombia and Venezuela.

“We can say we’ve overcome the power crisis in the country,” Electricity and Renewable Energy Minister Miguel Calahorrano said in statements posted on the Web site of the presidential press office.

The minister added that Ecuador currently has sufficient capacity to consider exporting power to Colombia, which he said may be interested because it is facing a problem of low water levels at its hydroelectric plants.

He said that Colombia’s Alvaro Uribe discussed the matter with Ecuadorian head of state Rafael Correa during the most recent gathering of Union of South American Nations, or Unasur, presidents in Quito.

“At the Unasur summit last week, the Colombian president, Alvaro Uribe, asked President Correa if we had the capacity sell them electricity, if necessary,” the Ecuadorian minister said.

Calahorrano told Correa that Ecuador does have that capability now that it has overcome an output shortfall caused by lack of rain in the southern Andean region, where the Paute hydroelectric plant – Ecuador’s largest – is located.

Colombia had sold electricity to Ecuador while the latter was struggling with power shortages.

The Paute Dam, which supplies roughly 35 percent of Ecuador’s electricity needs, is now operating normally and that has enabled Ecuador to suspend a power-rationing program that had been in effect from Nov. 4 to Jan. 20.

“I talked today with the Colombian energy minister (Hernan Martinez) and he told me that we could even sell electricity to Venezuela via Colombia,” Calahorrano said.

He stressed that his ministry’s priority is to finish construction of the Mazar and Baba hydroelectric plants so they are ready to come on stream by October at the latest and the country can avoid a new electricity crisis during the next end-of-year dry season.

Venezuelan media reported Wednesday that President Hugo Chavez’s government was considering offers by Brazil and Colombia to sell it electricity.

Venezuela is experiencing critical electricity shortages that experts warn could cause a collapse of the power grid in the short term.

The crisis has forced the government to declare a state of emergency and launch an energy-saving plan in Caracas that includes fines and even suspensions of service for excessive power consumers.

The Venezuelan government also said that starting March 1 consumers whose water use exceeds allowable levels will be punished with higher rates and even service cut-offs, part of a plan to preserve reservoir levels at hydroelectric dams amid a prolonged, severe drought. EFE

ANALYSIS: Ecuador's Biodiverse Paradise Could Still Be Lost to Oil

By Pamela L. Martin, PhD
ENS Newswire

CONWAY, South Carolina, February 16, 2010 (ENS) - In December 2009, as the world waited for a global climate change agreement at the UN Copenhagen climate summit that was never resolved, one bright spot for conservation remained - the protection of a paradise of biodiversity, a portion of Yasuni National Park in Ecuador's Amazon.

Ecuador's innovative plan to keep some 850 million barrels of oil underground and avoid nearly 410 million tons of the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide was heralded as a first step forward for the planetary protection of megadiverse areas.

Yasuni National Park (Photo courtesy Government of Ecuador)

In exchange for keeping the crude oil in the ground in the Ishpingo, Tampococha, Tiputini (ITT) region of the national park, the Ecuadorian government asked for compensation of $350 million a year for 10 years. The money was to go into The Yasuni Trust Fund to be managed by the United Nations Development Programme.

Overall, Ecuador's signing of the environmental trust fund agreement with the UN Development Program at Copenhagen would have stood as a symbol that pathways to protection for ecosystems of the developing world from the peoples of the developed world are possible.

However, on December 14, 2009, just two days before the scheduled signing by Ecuadorian government officials and UNDP representatives, President Rafael Correa sent word via e-mail to his team in Copenhagen not to sign the agreement that had been in high-level negotiations for months.

Roque Sevilla, president of the Ecuadorian Commission for the proposal, said that the group had met with President Correa on December 10, 2009 to review 33 observations that the government wanted to include in the negotiations.

The following Saturday, December 12, final Ecuadorian government observations from the Finance Ministry were included to prepare for the official signing in Copenhagen on December 16.

Yet the Ecuadorian negotiating team came home from Copenhagen without accomplishing their goal - the agreement was not signed.

The Yasuni-ITT proposal, named after the Ishpingo-Tambococha-Tiputini oil field, is pioneering in four ways:

• it calls on the world to avoid emissions, rather than pay for over-emitting
• it calls for co-responsibility between developing and industrialized countries to pay to keep global diversity hot spots intact
• it would form the largest environmental trust fund in the world
• it would protect not just the plethora of plant and animal species that inhabit Yasuni, but also the two uncontacted indigenous groups that live within its borders - the Tagaeri and Taromenane peoples

During his weekly radio address on January 9, President Correa criticized the Copenhagen team for accepting conditions in the UNDP trust fund that were "shameful" and "threatened the sovereignty" of their country.

President Rafael Correa (Photo courtesy Office of the President)

On January 27, President Correa declared, "We are the ones who have to put the conditions" in the trust fund. He claimed that the negotiating committee's error was in the terms of reference.

Correa said, "We are not asking for charity, but for just compensation for environmental services."

The president's criticisms centered on the composition of the international environmental trust fund board, which Yasuni-ITT Commission President Sevilla says, "Ecuador designed, not the donors, and he [President Correa] knows that."

The board was composed of three Ecuadorian government officials, two donors, and one UN member with voting rights, as well as two non-voting members: one indigenous member and one citizen delegate.

The shocking news of President Correa's pull-back after over two years of progress towards agreement prompted the resignations of Sevilla, President of the Commission Foreign Affairs Minister Fander Falconi, and Commission member Yolanda Kakabadse, a former environment minister.

Sevilla explained the basis of his discomfort with a question. "How do I go and say to the donors, at the last minute, now the plan is not the same?" he asked.

Falconi said after his resignation, "Evidently, there are oil interests that want to drill."

Less than one year earlier, in the same weekly Saturday radio address, President Correa said that "enthusiasm for the Yasuni-ITT initiative was contagious."

Yet those involved in the initiative from the beginning - like Esperanza Martinez of Accion Ecologica, and Alberto Acosta, the former Minister of Energy and Mines who originally proposed the initiative to President Correa - have been warning for over a year that the proposal was destined to failure because the government did not create clear policies to support it.

Indigenous woman in Yasuni National Park (Photo courtesy Government of Ecuador)

Acosta explained in a 2009 interview, "The government under President Correa has to be pressured from the inside by the Ecuadorian civil society and the outside by the international civil society. Both must pressure the government to change, act and consolidate."

"Something is clear and it is that we have to be conscious that this initiative could fail," Acosta said. "President Correa will blame the ecologists for not doing enough to gain the funds or that not enough outside money was given; but the real problem lies in the government's lack of clarity."

Even though government support for the initiative has waned, Acosta and Martinez assert that protecting Yasuni National Park is of vital importance.

"Yasuni is not going to be drilled in so easily," Martinez said.

One by one, President Correa has denounced former friends and members of his party, Alianza Pais, who have disagreed with him, like Falconi and Acosta.

While insulted by President Correa's comments, former Foreign Affairs Minister Falconi still supports the trust fund. "I think as a country we must push the initiative," he said. "We are defining the new ethics of conservation; it is the heart of Alianza Pais' political project. I am willing to sacrifice my own hide for this because I believe we are talking about building a different society."

For Acosta, who was president of the Constituent Assembly that wrote the new 2008 Constitution in which nature is granted rights, the issue is political.

Acosta asserts that President Correa "has consolidated a power of personality with authoritarian and messianic characteristics."

Both Falconi and Acosta are calling for broad societal mobilization in support of the Yasuni-ITT proposal.

Meanwhile, oil industry experts who doubted Correa's commitment to protect Yasuni National Park may have been right all along.

In a 2009 interview, one former oil industry member of a 2007 working group consisting of representatives from Enlap (Chile), Sinopec (China), and Petrobras (Brazil) to study oil extraction in the ITT block, commented that President Correa was pretending to pacify what he called "infantile ecologists" by giving them the chance to collect funds to support the initiative.

Gas flare in Yasuni National Park (Photo by Lore Priss)

Another working group member, who wishes to remain unnamed, said that President Correa was creating a competition in which he knew oil companies would win by telling both sides, "Perfect, there is a business interest put on the table by oil companies, you [environmentalists] do your thing too and we'll see who gets the most funding."

An industry expert involved in a multinational corporation that drills within the park, who requested anonymity, predicts that ultimately President Correa will tell environmentalists and industrialized countries, "OK, you cannot say anything; you had the chance to save oxygen for the world, you had the chance to be part of the solution to the climate change problem. We proposed, we traveled around the world; but you didn't accept it. So, don't ask me for more than I can give. I am responsible for my people. People of Ecuador you are aware of my proposal. I have given the opportunity, one year, six months, whatever, but I can't sit idle while my people are in need.

Joan Martinez Alier, a professor in the Department of Economics and Economic History, Universitat Autonoma de Barcelona, doubts that President Correa was pretending to support the Yasuni-ITT Initiative. Rather, he says that "pressures from the petroleum industry, the billions of dollars at play, and anxiety about poverty and implementing social programs, his ignorance and dislike for environmental issues as a leftist old-fashioned economist, and his vanity impede his ability to recognize other successes and lead him to opt for the sale of oil."

In late January 2010, as news of the latest scientific study confirming Yasuni National Park one of the richest biodiverse places on the planet made headlines, President Correa rolled out his Plan B - drilling in Yasuni National Park.

Petroamazonas SA, a unit of the state-run company Petroecuador, will receive government funding of $715 million over the next three years to develop Block 31, just next to the ITT block, and further concessions in 11 blocks in the southeastern portion of the Amazon, oil company manager Wilson Pastor announced at a press conference January 25.

Block 31 covers 200,000 hectares, most of them within Yasuni National Park, which UNESCO has declared a world biosphere reserve.

In mid-December when the government-led Yasuni-ITT team in Copenhagen was on the brink of signing the UNDP Environmental Trust Fund agreement to leave oil underground in the ITT block, Executive President of Petroecuador Admiral Luis Jaramillo suggested drilling in the southeastern section of the Amazon to feed more oil into the new refinery built with Venezuela in Manabi on the Pacific coast.

Acosta warns that now Ecuador has "a president that is each day a more isolated human being and is beginning to swing at the right and the left without thinking about how it is affecting his countrymen."

The effects of oil development in and around the Yasuni National Park are increasingly violent.

Take for example the 2009 slayings of Sandra Zabala and her two children, 11 and 16 years old, in the Los Reyes area near Yasuni National Park. The three were found speared to death in an area of farms and oil wells just 10 kilometers (six miles) from the delineation of the Zona Intangible that protects uncontacted indigenous groups.

Minister of National Heritage and Culture Maria Fernanda Espinosa (Photo courtesy Office of the President)

Researchers suspect that the killing was carried out by Taromenane, an indigenous group that went deeper into the forest to avoid contact with others. They claim that these groups are protesting incursions into their areas of the forest.

Pablo Fajardo, activist and attorney for the billion dollar lawsuit against Chevron-Texaco for environmental damages to the Northern Ecuadorian Amazon, says that these uncontacted groups have been telling us, "Do not pass here; it is dangerous," for years and we have not listened.

President Correa claims he still supports leaving oil underground in the ITT block and has appointed Minister of National Heritage and Culture Maria Fernanda Espinosa and well known former journalist and presidential candidate Freddy Ehlers to lead the new delegation.

Yet potential donors like Germany, Spain, and Belgium have certainly lost good faith in Correa's commitment to saving Ecuador's paradise of biodiversity.

The question remains as much political as economic. Can the 75 percent of Ecuadorians recently surveyed who say they oppose drilling in the ITT block of Yasuni National Park, convince their president to listen to them?

{Dr. Pamela L. Martin is an Associate Professor of Politics and International Relations at Coastal Carolina University in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina. She also has taught at La Universidad San Francisco de Quito, Ecuador. Her new book with the working title, "From Kyoto to Quito: Global Governance from the Amazon," is scheduled for publication later this year by Lynne Rienner Publishers of Boulder, Colorado.}

Doubt over Ecuador oil fund plan

Tamsin Carlisle

• February 15. 2010

An Ecuadorean cleans up an oil waste pit. A scenario which would be revisited if drilling for oil takes place in Yasuni National Park. Guillermo Granja / Reuters

The patch of Amazon rainforest overlying Ecuador’s ITT oil block may contain the richest concentration of flora and fauna on the planet, and the OPEC country’s government wants the rest of the world to pay it to keep some 850 million barrels of crude in the ground there.

After a rocky start, the 2007 Yasuni-ITT proposal to raise up to US$3 billion (Dh11.01bn) of international donations gained traction in Europe ahead of last December’s climate change summit in Copenhagen. Last month, however, the negotiations were halted amid allegations that the Ecuadorean president Rafael Correa was trying to derail an impending deal. Last Sunday, the country’s vice president, Lenin Moreno, said he would travel to the Near and Middle East in a further attempt to raise funds for the plan.

“We will be in Iran, Dubai and Turkey to ask for support for the initiative,” he said during a televised address. “We are going to go forward with this project.” Given the precarious financial state of all three of the new proposed donor governments, however, Mr Moreno’s announcement raises as many questions as his boss’s previous actions.

Last month, according to the Ecuadorean environmental advocate Paul Paz y Mino, Mr Correa undermined his own negotiating team by denouncing prospective foreign donors from Europe and threatening to drill the oil block if they failed to drop demands for oversight of their financial contributions. The president also publicly reprimanded his government’s negotiating team, led by the then minister of foreign affairs, Fander Falconi, for accepting “shameful” conditions for a deal for an international trust fund to be administered by the UN Development Programme.

“Let the northern countries keep their money,” Mr Correa said on January 9 in his weekly radio address. “If they don’t accept our conditions, they can keep their money and we’ll drill.” The affair led to the last-minute scuttling of the trust agreement, which would have paved the way for nearly $1.5bn of financial contributions from Spain, Germany, Belgium, France and Sweden, and to Mr Falconi’s resignation from the government. “Evidently there are oil interests wanting to drill,” he said at a press conference following his resignation. Ecuador claims that by not producing the heavy oil deposit beneath the north-east corner of its Yasuni National Park, it would forgo about $6bn in revenue while preventing 410 million tonnes of carbon dioxide from being released into the atmosphere. The emissions would result both from oil extraction activities and from deforestation.

Ecuador, which this year holds the OPEC presidency, depends on oil revenues for about a third of its national budget. Three oilfields within Yasuni park, including the ITT field, account for 20 per cent of the country’s crude reserves. Last month, Mr Correa had set a June deadline for reaching an agreement for the Yasuni-ITT initiative.

Yasuni park, a UNESCO world biosphere reserve, contains more species of amphibians, birds, mammals and flowering and spore-bearing plants than any other area in South America, according to a recent study US led study.

Ecuador pitches Amazon protection plan abroad

* Yasuni initiative aimed at countering climate change

* Govt proposes leaving oil underground in return for cash

QUITO, Feb 13 (Reuters) - Ecuadorean Vice President Lenin Moreno said on Saturday he will travel to Iran, Turkey and Dubai next month to pitch a plan for protecting the Amazon region by leaving 850 million barrels of oil underground.

Under the Yasuni initiative, OPEC-member Ecuador is looking to donor countries to pay it millions of dollars a year in return for not drilling in the area.

The government says not touching the oil, valued at about $6 billion, would avoid creating 410 million tonnes of carbon dioxide.

"We will be in Iran, Dubai and Turkey to ask for support for the initiative," Moreno said during a televised address. "We are going to go forward with this project."

Ecuador has been in talks with potential donor countries such as Germany, Belgium and Spain. But the Yasuni pact has proven difficult to negotiate.

Former foreign minister Fander Falconi, who had been in charge of the talks, quit last month after leftist President Rafael Correa said he was not properly handling the project.

Ecuador: Guayaquil Mayor Leads Massive March Against Government

QUITO (Dow Jones)--Opponents of President Rafael Correa protested Thursday in Guayaquil, the Ecuador's largest city and financial center, answering a call from the city's mayor, Jaime Nebot.

TV stations showed images of tens of thousands massed in Guayaquil's main street, "Nueve de Octubre" Avenue. Guayaquil is a bastion of the country's conservative groups and Nebot is the most important figure of opposition for Correa.

Ecuadorian media said that between 200,000 and 250,000 marched against Correa.

Nebot called the protest against the amount of money assigned to the city by the central government this year.

The government allocated $175 million for Guayaquil's administration rather than the $192 million that should go to the city, according to law, Nebot has said.

The Correa Government has rejected Nebot's accusations.

Before the march, President Correa said that Ecuador lives "in a full democracy" and that 2010 will be "extraordinary" for the Andean country.

According local pollsters, the conservative Nebot enjoys around 80% support in Guayaquil.

In his speech during the march, Nebot called "to fight together until the end of the dictatorship" because in Ecuador "there is no democracy."

Nebot also said that Correa is trying to copy in Ecuador the "failed model" of the Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez.

President Rafael Correa began in January his fourth year in office, facing widespread discontent and protests against his policies.

Correa, a left-leaning economist, came to office early in 2007 with plans to shake up Ecuador's economy and political structure.

That has led to steady confrontations, and the president now faces a backlash from various quarters.

Initially, Correa started with a four-year term. After a constitutional change he was elected again last year and could now stay in office until 2017 if he wins re-election in 2013.

Still, Correa's high popularity levels are slipping. Pollster Cedatos-Gallup International said that Correa's approval level fell to 41% in January, from 73% soon after he took office in 2007.

Last month, Correa said opposition groups are conspiring against his government and attempting to destabilize it.

Guayaquil march protests against Ecuador's gov't

By GONZALO SOLANO (AP) –

QUITO, Ecuador — Tens of thousands of protesters crowded into downtown Guayaquil on Thursday, answering a call from the mayor of Ecuador's biggest city to demonstrate against the national government.

Mayor Jaime Nebot, a conservative, accused President Rafael Correa of trying to build a system that Nebot called a copy of Venezuela's leftist leader, Hugo Chavez.

Supporters of Nebot filled about 20 blocks of coastal Guayaquil's October Avenue, a traditional site for protests and parades. Police said they had no estimate for the size of the crowd, while Ecuadorean media put it at 200,000 to 250,000.

Friction between the president and mayor has worsened since the national government allocated $175 million for Guayaquil's administration rather than the $192 million requested by the city of 2.5 million people.

Correa, like Chavez and Bolivia's Evo Morales, is a leftist seeking to remake his country by redistributing wealth and giving a stronger voice to the poor. That has made him popular with many Ecuadoreans, but also brought strong opposition.

In a speech to the demonstration, Nebot called on supporters to "fight together until the end of the dictatorship."

The mayor charged "there is no democracy" in Ecuador and said the government is trying to control everyone and everything.

"Are we going to continue tolerating that?" he asked, drawing a shout in unison from the crowd: "No!"

Nebot, who was the only speaker, said Correa's government "is a repulsive copy of that failed scheme that Chavez has imposed for the misfortune of Venezuelans."

"A nation like Venezuela that could and should swim in abundance, suffocates in misery and poverty," he said.

Both Venezuela and Ecuador are members of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries.

Ecuador Government May Acquire Noble Power Plant

By Heather Walsh

Feb. 10 (Bloomberg) -- Ecuador said it may buy a power plant from a unit of the U.S.’s Noble Energy Inc. as the government broadens state control of domestic energy production.

The government is in talks to acquire the natural gas- powered Machala plant on the nation’s Pacific coast, said Galo Borja, minister of strategic industries coordination. He declined to discuss financial terms of a possible transaction.

“They have proposed the sale and we are interested,” Borja said in a telephone interview yesterday from Guayaquil, Ecuador. “It will be negotiated.”

President Rafael Correa is tightening state control over the nation’s oil, natural gas and electricity production since taking office in 2007. Last month, the government said it began the process to cancel the natural-gas exploration and production contract belonging to Noble Energy’s EDC Ecuador Ltd. unit.

Gas from Noble’s field supplies Machala. The plant, which began production in 2002, is one of the nation’s lowest-cost producers, according to Houston-based Noble’s Web site. The government may more than triple Machala’s generating capacity, Borja said.

The government discussed a sale of the plant with officials from EDC Ecuador within the last two weeks, Borja said.

Noble Chief Executive Officer Charles Davidson said last year that the company was interested in selling the generation unit. David Larson, a spokesman for Noble, declined to comment today by telephone from Houston.

Production Capacity

Machala has capacity to produce 130 megawatts of power. Ecuador had generating capacity of 5,270 megawatts as of last June, according to data on the Web site of the state-run National Electricity Council.

The government is seeking to expand the Machala plant after a drought cut Ecuador’s hydroelectric power last year, leading to energy rationing that ended in January.

The outages probably cost the nation about $1 billion in lost factory output, Ramiro Crespo, president of Quito-based brokerage Analytica Securities CA Casa de Valores, said yesterday.

Noble Energy slid 1.5 percent to $73.35 in New York Stock Exchange composite trading at 10:25 a.m. New York time.

Ecuador May Develop $6 Billion Dam Project After Shortages

By Heather Walsh

Feb. 9 (Bloomberg) -- Ecuador may develop a $6 billion hydroelectric project to create energy supplies for new mines and avert power shortages similar to the ones the South American country experienced in 2009.

The Zamora, one of 17 hydroelectric projects Ecuador aims to build in the next decade to help end dependence on imported power project could include four dams, the first to be completed as soon as 2016, said Galo Borja, minister for coordination of strategic industries. The projects will require financing from state-run companies, he said.

“We are buying expensive energy,” Borja said in an interview in Quito on Feb. 3. “Not doing this will end up being very costly.”

A drought cut Ecuador’s hydroelectric power generation last year, prompting energy rationing that ended in January. The outages probably cost the nation about $1 billion in lost factory output, said Ramiro Crespo, president of Quito-based brokerage Analytica Securities CA Casa de Valores, in a telephone interview.

Zamora would help provide generation for copper and gold production by companies including Vancouver-based Corriente Resources Inc., Borja said. Corriente is developing the Mirador copper deposit in southeastern Ecuador, according to the company’s Web site.

In total, the Zamora project would generate 4,000 megawatts of electricity. Ecuador had generating capacity of 5,270 megawatts as of last June, according to data on the Web site of the state-run National Electricity Council.

Coca Codo Sinclair

A separate, $2 billion hydroelectric project to be built before Zamora, called Coca Codo Sinclair, will be funded by the government and the Export-Import Bank of China, Borja said. It will produce 1,500 megawatts of electricity, according to the Web site of Cia. Hidroelectrica Coca Codo Sinclair SA, the state-run company developing the project.

President Rafael Correa aims to extend the government’s control over the nation’s electricity and oil industries, said Crespo. Ecuador is negotiating contracts with oil companies by the end of March that will pay the companies fees based on costs and crude production, Borja said.

Current contracts don’t allow the state to benefit from higher oil prices, Julio Gonzalez, undersecretary of hydrocarbons policy, said last year.

Ecuador’s gross domestic product was about $53 billion in 2008, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. GDP contracted by 1 percent in 2009 and will expand by 1.5 percent this year, according to estimates by International Monetary Fund staff on the organization’s Web site.

Ecuador also seeks to expand exploration for natural gas and install more wind-powered turbines. The country is in early talks with South Korea about possible development of a nuclear power plant, Borja said. All new strategic energy projects will be government controlled, he said.

Chevron Caught Misrepresenting Facts about Expert Report in Ecuador Trial

Amazon Watch, Amazon Defense Coalition

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

2010-02-09

Ruxandra Guidi, 1.415.487.9600, ruxandra@amazonwatch.org

Chevron Caught Misrepresenting Facts
about Expert Report in Ecuador Trial

Oil Giant "Desperate" to Derail $27 Billion Liability

QUITO, Ecuador–(BUSINESS WIRE)–In its latest attempt to evade a $27 billion liability in Ecuador, Chevron is misrepresenting key facts about a court-appointed expert who conducted a damages assessment not to the company's liking, representatives of the plaintiffs announced.

"Chevron is again trying to strong-arm the court by misrepresenting facts," said Steven R. Donziger, an American legal advisor to the plaintiffs. "This is part of an underhanded attempt to derail a trial Chevron is losing based on the voluminous scientific evidence."

On Tuesday, Chevron in a press release announced it had "newly discovered" evidence that the court-appointed Special Master who conducted a damages assessment, Richard Cabrera, owns a remediation company in Ecuador that stands to benefit from a clean-up should the plaintiffs win the case. The filing is the 29th official motion Chevron has made to the court to disqualify Cabrera but the court has never accepted Chevron's arguments, said Donziger.

Chevron is accused in the underlying lawsuit of deliberately dumping more than 18 billion gallons of waste into Ecuador's Amazon when it operated oil fields in that country from 1964 to 1990, causing a spike in cancer rates and decimating indigenous groups. The communities claim the pollution left is still leaching into soils and groundwater and has poisoned an area the size of Rhode Island.

Cabrera, working with a team of 14 scientists, found damages could be as high as $27.3 billion. A court will make a final determination on liability and damages later this year.

According to Pablo Fajardo, the lead Ecuadorian lawyer in the case, in its latest court filing Chevron fails to note that:

• Cabrera disclosed to the court that he owned a clean-up company before his appointment as Special Master. This fact was properly cited by the court as one of the reasons he was qualified to do the damages assessment.

• Chevron thought so highly of Cabrera's qualifications that it accepted him as a court-appointed expert in an earlier part of the case and paid his fees as required by court rules.

• The fact Cabrera's company is qualified to bid on clean-up contracts offered by Ecuador's state-owned oil company is irrelevant. That company, Petroecuador, is not a party to the case against Chevron and would have no role in any eventual cleanup.

• Cabrera by virtue of his role in the case would be barred from having a role in a future clean-up.

• Chevron misrepresents Cabrera's role.

Contrary to Chevron's assertions, Cabrera did not rule on the critical question of liability and did not "exculpate" Petroecuador. Liability can only be determined by the court.
The case was transferred in 2002 to Ecuador from U.S. federal court (where it was originally filed in 1993) at Chevron's request. Once the trial began in Ecuador in 2003 and the evidence pointed to Chevron's culpability, the company began to try to delay the proceedings and discredit the court and Cabrera.

In the 1990s, in its effort to move the case to Ecuador, Chevron filed 14 sworn affidavits in U.S. federal court praising the fairness and competency of Ecuador's courts. Once it was clear the company could lose the trial in Ecuador, Chevron filed multiple legal actions in the U.S. to shift the potential liability to Ecuador's government, said Donziger.

Not one of the U.S.-based legal actions – including one that was denied by the U.S. Supreme Court – have succeeded. Chevron's latest move is to seek a closed-door international arbitration under a trade pact between the U.S. and Ecuador, but the Amazon communities and Ecuador's government have filed separate motions in U.S. federal court to block that proceeding, said Donziger.

"Chevron loses credibility in front of the court and the world each time it files a frivolous motion based on unsubstantiated facts," said Donziger. "Each of these motions is part of an evidentiary record that we will use to prove that Chevron completely abused the court process in Ecuador to evade a judgment, in violation of the law."
"We believe all of these Chevron attacks will backfire against the company in a later enforcement action to collect on any judgment," said Donziger. "Judges are not as naïve as Chevron seems to think they are."



About the Amazon Defense Coalition

The Amazon Defense Coalition represents dozens of rainforest communities and five indigenous groups that inhabit Ecuador's Northern Amazon region. The mission of the Coalition is to protect the environment and secure social justice through grass roots organizing, political advocacy, and litigation. Two of its leaders, Luis Yanza and Pablo Fajardo, are the 2008 winners of the prestigious Goldman Environmental Prize.

Ecuador May Rejoin Peru, Colombia in EU Trade Talks

By John Quigley

Feb. 9 (Bloomberg) -- Ecuador may rejoin Peru and Colombia in talks toward a free-trade agreement between the Andean nations and the European Union, Peruvian Foreign Trade Minister Martin Perez said.

Ecuador, which abandoned the talks in 2008, will probably rejoin negotiations in the “coming weeks,” slowing efforts to reach an agreement with the EU, Perez said today.

“This could delay the whole negotiation process,” Perez said in a speech to business executives in Lima. “We’ll have to become a bloc and that will cause certain delays in the implementation and activation of the accord.”

Peru’s government wants to complete free-trade agreements with the EU, Japan and South Korea this year, leaving the Andean country with about 95 percent of its exports covered by free trade accords, Perez said. Negotiations with South Korea could be concluded within 90 days, he said. Peru’s free trade agreement with China may take effect next month, he said.

Peru’s exports declined 14 percent to $26.6 billion in 2009, the best performance among the biggest Latin American economies, Perez said. The region’s exports fell 23 percent to $673 billion last year, he said.

The South American country is seeking to expand trade ties with Mexico and Brazil to spur exports by small and medium-sized producers, Perez said.

Court in Sucumbíos Manipulated by Chevron

Amazon Watch and Frente de Defensa de la Amazonía

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

2010-02-05

Kevin Koenig, kevin@amazonwatch.org
Ruxandra Guidi, ruxandra@amazonwatch.org

Court in Sucumbíos Manipulated by Chevron

Once Again Shows Evidence of Company's Abuse of the Law

Quito


The coordinator of the Assembly of People Affected by Texaco, Luis Yanza, showed his indignation over the decision by the deputy president of Sucumbíos' Provincial Court, Nicolás Zambrano, for allowing the abuse of the law and the delay in sentencing in the Chevron case. There are thousands of affected peoples from the Amazon asking Chevron for reparations over serious environmental, health and cultural damages, which were caused by Texaco's oil operations in the region for 26 years.

Judge Zambrano, in his last ruling on February 2nd, gave into demands that the three experts in charge of the latest research on the case present new work plans. The judge granted the request, and gave the experts 8 more days to present their plans. The plaintiffs perceive this as both illegal and inappropriate, given that these experts were legally brought in to the case in December of last year and they have yet been able to begin their labor due to the pressures and obstacles created by Chevron.

According to Luis Yanza, this is one of many acts of corruption and pressure by the oil company in order to delay the case, and in giving in, the judge has turned into an accomplice. Yanza recalled that the research by the three experts was solicited by Chevron itself in October of 2003, but Chevron never showed interest in their work.

Humberto Piaguaje, leader of the Secoya community, called on Judge Zambrano to not be fooled by the oil company, adding that by accepting Chevron's unreasonable demands, it is leaving 30,000 Ecuadoreans defenseless in the worst environmental crime committed by Texaco.

Furthermore, Emergildo Criollo, spokesperson of the Cofán community, warned the court not to allow itself to be manipulated by Chevron, considering how corrupt the oil company is and everything it has already done to try to influence the judges. Criollo called on all Ecuadoreans and the judicial authorities to monitor the judicial process to avoid Chevron from escaping the law.

The leaders of the local affected communities will gather in a general assembly in the next few days to analyze the current situation in the Chevron case.

Ecuador Sends Note to El Nuevo Herald Protesting Article

QUITO – The Ecuadorian Embassy in the United States sent a note of protest to the newspaper El Nuevo Herald for the publication of a report saying that the country has become a hotbed of criminal activities by guerrillas, drug traffickers and mafias, the official Andes news agency said on Saturday.

According to Andes, the ambassador to the U.S., Luis Gallegos, sent a note to the editor of the Miami newspaper El Nuevo Herald protesting the article by Gerardo Reyes in which, based on a “new” study by the International Assessment and Strategy Center, or IASC, he includes allegations that, he said, have no basis in reality.

The missive, published in the opinion section of the newspaper this Saturday, rejects the content of the press article and describes the study as “slanted.”

“Ecuador, Colombia and in general the entire region are scourged by the violence of drug trafficking, which has its main incentive – drug consumption – in the United States and Europe,” Gallegos said in the letter.

He said that “unfortunately, Ecuador, being next to Colombia, is in effect suffering many of the problems created by the drug trade.”

“The negative impact caused by the infiltration of irregular Colombian groups and of multinational organized crime linked to drug trafficking is a consequence of the way the Colombian government has decided to deal with those groups on its territory – by displacing those problems to its borders,” he said.

He said that “the government regrets that those problems have still not been resolved on Colombian territory,” and added that Ecuador “is the only country that is free of coca crops in the Andean region.”

“The government of Ecuador does not deny that it is facing problems to its internal peace and security, which have been the principle heritage of my country, due to drug trafficking,” he said.

Nonetheless, he said, “Ecuador has had the highest rate of drug seizures in the region and it is precisely the government of President Rafael Correa that has taken the most diligent action against irregular Columbian groups entering the country.”

He added that “neither the IASC study nor the article in El Nuevo Herald” has gathered all the information about Ecuador’s work in the war on drugs nor “have they been in contact with Ecuadorian authorities to hear” their version of the matters described.

That, in Gallegos’ opinion, shows “how slanted the study is, the lack of impartiality and objectivity that a serious analysis must have.”

“For that reason, I consider this study to be part of a campaign aimed at discrediting the country and the government of President Correa and that, furthermore, contributes absolutely nothing to finding solutions for the serious problems Ecuador suffers because of drug trafficking,” the letter said.

The Ecuadorian government rejected Friday the article in the U.S. daily and announced that it does not rule out bringing legal action.

According to the Andes news agency, the Ecuadorian administration is analyzing the content and origin of the report, while the Foreign Ministry is considering taking legal action “against the authors of the note through its embassy in the U.S.,” without specifying whether that meant the newspaper or the authors of the report.

Ecuador’s minister for coordinating domestic and foreign security, Miguel Carvajal, said that behind the IASC report is hidden “political bad faith” and an international campaign aimed at creating a negative image of his country.

Ecuador Delivers Land Titles to Andean Indians

QUITO – Ecuadorian President Rafael Correa granted 2,500 property titles to peasants and Indians in the central Andean province of Chimborazo as part of a government plan to redistribute land that is not being put to productive use.

Roughly 1,000 peasants in the Guano and Chambo districts of Chimborazo were beneficiaries of the titles, and the government also awarded low-interest loans for improving production and strengthening agricultural associations, the presidential press office said.

The leftist president, in a ceremony Friday in the Cuatro Esquinas community of Guano, recalled that during the last three years of his presidential term in office, more than 50,000 land titles have been granted in a number of provinces around the country.

“That is much more than in the last 30 years,” he said, adding that it is an example of what amounts to a “citizens’ revolution” under his administration.

He added that his plan to transform Ecuadorian society includes the principle of no more landless peasants, which the government hopes to achieve by granting 250,000 land titles over the next three years.

The ceremony also featured authorities of the state-run BNF development bank awarding a $1.5 million loan to peasants and Indians associated in the agricultural cooperative for the purchase of 164.8 hectares (407 acres) of land from a ranch in the area, which will be dedicated to farming.

That project, which will benefit some 65 families, Correa said, will allow agricultural work of the cooperative, aided by technology and infrastructure works, to achieve “maximum productivity.”

The leader of that association, Daniel Quishpe, said that the project will spur greater production in the area and improve the quality of life of the inhabitants, since it will serve to promote education, health care and housing for the families involved.

For his part, Agriculture Minister Ramon Espinel said that the granting of land titles to peasants seeks “to reduce the inequality that exists between rich and poor.”

He recalled that loans have also been awarded to local peasants to improve their sheep breeding, which forms part of a cooperation agreement with the government of Uruguay to restore flocks of sheep to that Andean area.

The awarding of loans, the minister said, is directed to small producers and is part of a vision entitled “Sumak Kausay” (Buen Vivir in Quechua), established by the nation’s Constitution in an effort to redirect Ecuador’s rural development.

The new system, he said, will help farm families prosper and will democratize access to the means of production, particularly the land.

Ecuadorian President Opens Job Network

QUITO - Ecuadorian President Rafael Correa opened in this capital the first center of the "Socio Empleo" Network to make the labor insertion for unemployed persons easier.

"This is the government of the workers", said Correa on Wednesday to those who attended the opening of the center that will be on charge of the Labour Relations Ministry.

Regarding the opening of the "Socio Empleo" Network, he said that this place advanced technology.

"The human work is not merchandise, it is life, dignity, must be protected by collective actions and must have ethic norms that regulate work conditions", said the Head of State.

He insisted in maintaining this change and stressed that important steps were done, such as the part-time contract and the increase in the basic wage.

Ecuador to Use Gas By-Product of Oil Drilling to Make Electricity

QUITO – Petroproduccion, a unit of state-owned oil company Petroecuador, plans to use the gas by-product of crude drilling to generate electricity and produce derivatives, the Ecuadorian government said Thursday.

The project will be carried out at wells located in the Amazonian fields of Lago Agrio, Secoya, Shushufindi and Culebra and the goal is to generate 30 MW of electricity at a cost of $96 million, with the money to be spent on building gas pipelines and capture plants and on the electrical system.

The power that is generated will be fed into Petroproduccion’s electrical grid and avoid the consumption of around 48,000 gallons of diesel, which currently are used to generate electricity and keep the company’s oil wells in operation, the Web site of the presidential press office said.

Petroproduccion currently has an electricity deficit of 12.67 MW and projected demand through 2024 is 57 MW. A series of projects are therefore needed for the company to “operate reliably and maintain levels of crude production in the Amazon region,” the text added.

The project to generate electricity from gas by-product will be put into practice over a period of two years and, according to the presidential press office, will save the country close to $35 million per year.

The gas that is captured will also be industrialized to produce derivatives such as liquefied petroleum gas and gasoline.

The main goal “is to efficiently use the gas associated with oil (production) in the Amazon region, since burning it not only harms the environment but also wastes an energy source that can be used to generate electricity and reduce diesel consumption,” the text said.

In addition, the project “will reduce gas imports ... and the country will obtain carbon credits.” EFE

Texas State scholar participates in Ecuador study

February 3rd, 2010

Amazonian Rain Forest in Ecuador. Photo from Finding Species.

STAFF REPORT

According to a Nature Conservancy report on biodiversity in 2002, Texas ranks second in the nation in biodiversity — that is, the totality of genera, species, and ecosystems of a region. California ranks first.

But the most biodiverse place on the earth just may be Yasuni National Park in Ecuador, according to a team of scientists led by Peter H. English of the University of Texas and which included a member of the biology faculty at Texas State, Shawn McCracken.

Yasuni, in the core of the Ecuadorian Amazon, breaks all world records for the number of plant and animal groups, from amphibians to insects to trees.

Their research is published in the open-access scientific journal PLoSOne and can be visited at http://dx.plos.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0008767. The paper’s research may have contributed to Petroamazona’s recent decision to not build an oil facility in the park in January of 2010.

“The 150 amphibian species documented to date throughout Yasuní is a world record for an area of this size,” said McCracken. “There are more species of frogs and toads within Yasuní than are native to the United States and Canada combined.”

For comparison, the entire state of Texas has 71 documented amphibian species, so the Ecuadorian region has double the amount on roughly five square miles of land.

Participating University of Maryland scientist Clinton Jenkins said, “Yasuní is at the center of a small zone where South America’s amphibians, birds, mammals, and vascular plants all reach maximum diversity. We dubbed this area the ‘quadruple richness center.’ ”

The research confirms that an average upland hectare (2.47 acres) in Yasuní contains more tree species, 655, than are native to the continental United States and Canada combined. The number of tree species rises to more than 1,100 for an area of 25 hectares. Again, for comparison, the entire state of Texas has between 255 and 281 species of native trees.

Gorky Villa, an Ecuadorian botanist working with both the Smithsonian Institute and Finding Species said, “In just one hectare in Yasuní, there are more tree, shrub, and liana (woody vines) species than anywhere else in the world”

The state of Texas has more insect diversity than any other state in the union, coming in at a whopping 30,000 to 40,ooo species. However, a single hectare of forest in Yasuni is projected to contain 100,000 insect species. This is, according to entomologist Terry Erwin, the highest estimated diversity per unit area for any plant or animal group. Insects are, and always have been, the most successful species on the planet.

Finding Species is a non-profit organization with offices in Maryland and Quito, Ecuador. President of Finding Species Margot Bass said, “One of our most important findings about Yasuní is that small areas of forest harbor extremely high numbers of animals and plants. Yasuní is probably unmatched by any other park in the world for total numbers of species.”

There is one specific corner of Yasumi that has the overall world record for biodiversity — the Tiputini Biodiversity Station in the north of Yasumi National Park.

Kelly Swing of the University of San Francisco in Quito Ecuador explains, “The Tiputini Biodiversity Station is home to 247 amphibian and reptile species, 550 bird species, and around 200 mammal species, including 10 primates and an array of large predators.”

Again, for comparison, Texas has 159 mammal species, and ranks number one in the nation with 477 bird species and 149 reptile species.

Texas knows something about bats, as home to 32 species in the state. This isn’t even one third of the amount in Yasuni. Researcher Thomas Kunz of Boston University says, “We estimate that over 100 different bat species inhabit this small area.”

For 40 years, the International Union for Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources (IUCN) has assessed the conservation status of species, subspecies and varieties on a global scale in order to highlight those threatened with extinction and promote their conservation. The clearly endangered species are put on a “red list.” Yasuni contains 28 endangered vertebrates on the red list. They include large primates, the White-bellied Spider Monkey and Poeppog’s Wooly Monkey, and aquatic mammals, the Giant Otter and the Amazonian Manatee, in addition to a number of species found nowhere else on earth.

Matt Finer of Save America’s Forests said, “What makes Yasuní especially important is its potential to sustain this extraordinary biodiversity in the long term. For example, the Yasuní region is predicted to maintain wet, rainforest conditions as climate change-induced drought intensifies in the eastern Amazon.”

The research paper said that the greatest threat to Yasuni is the current and potential oil development projects.

The paper gives a number of science-based policy recommendations at its conclusion. One of these is a moratorium on new oil exploration or development projects within the park, most particularly in the remote and relatively intact, but oil-rich, northeast corner.

Most at risk are oil block 31 and Ishpingo Tambococha Tiputini oil field or ITT. The Ecuadorian government is currently promoting a plan, the Yasuni-ITT Initiative, which would leave the largest part of the park’s oil reserves in the ITT Block permanently under the ground.

Finer said, ““This plan, however, urgently needs international funders to step up and make it a success, or else more drilling in Yasuní may become a tragic reality.”

Dow Jones Newswire reported on Jan. 25 that Petroamazonas SA, a unit of the state-run Petroecuador, plans to invest around $550 million to develop oil block 31, and hopes to produce up to 35,000 barrels per day. However the company will not build an oil facility in the Yasuni National Park.

Petroamazonas will use helicopters to transport equipment to the Apaika and Nenke fields, instead of building a road. Block 31 has 200,000 hectares, most of them within the Yasuni National Park. Unesco has declared the park a world biosphere reserve.

While the area still faces danger, the research paper done by the team of scientists was noted and may have had an impact in reaffirming the Ecuadorian government’s policy on oil drilling and exploration.

For more information on the Yasuni research, contact Shawn McCracken at the Texas State Department of Biology at smccracken@txstate.edu.

The red-listed White-bellied Spider Monkey native to Yasuni. Photo from Finding Species.

ECUADOR’S PARLIAMENT PASSES CITIZEN INVOLVEMENT BILL

QUITO, Feb 3 (NNN-PRENSA LATINA) – Ecuador’s National Assembly (Parliament) has passed the Citizen Involvement bill with 82 votes in favour from a total of 109 assembly members. It now will be sent to the executive for approval or objection.

The law guarantees citizens’ involvement and right to take decisions to an autonomous collective organisation and practices public management in government.

The bill establishes the vacant seat procedure to take decisions, in which citizen’s representatives will have a say.

It will guarantee municipalities, towns and indigenous communities the right to previous consultation in a reasonable term.

Ecuador hosts Unasur meeting in support of reconstructing Haiti

MercoPress, Feb 3, 2010
Six presidents will be participating in the coming Union of South American Nations, Unasur, extraordinary meeting to he hosted by Ecuador next week and which will address mainly how to better coordinate relief efforts for earthquake devastated Haiti.

The meeting was convened by Ecuadorian president Rafael Correa, whose country currently holds the Unasur chair.

Ecuadorian Foreign Affairs minister Ricardo Patiño revealed that over the weekend Haitian president René Preval held a meeting with Correa in Quito when he outlined the priorities to boost international aid in reconstructing the country.

Preval said that the immediate need was humanitarian aid which is gradually reaching most of the Haitian population through improved distribution, but the mid and long term goal is rebuilding the country’s virtually non existent infrastructure for which “Unasur could play a leading role”.

“The idea is that the enormous support effort from the Latinamerican community and its governments in support of Haiti does not dilute in lack of coordination and is done in direct contact with the elected authorities of Haiti”, said Patiño.

When asked about possible on the side meetings between some of the announced leaders who have been involved in diplomatic disputes, Patiño insisted the main issue of the summit is aid and long term support for Haiti, the hemisphere’s poorest country.

“The main issue of the agenda refers to solidarity with Haiti. So far we have not considered the possibility of bilateral agendas”, underlined Patiño.

Cubans have so far Performed 100,000 Free Eye Surgeries in Ecuador

HAVANA, Cuba, Feb 2 (acn) Cuban doctors arrived on Tuesday to the figure of 100,000 free eye surgeries in Ecuador, by way of the Operation Miracle project.
The first Cuban ophthalmologists arrived in that South American country in October 2005 and for eight months saw over 12,000 patients in the province of Esmeraldas, of which 2,101 were operated on in Cuba, the Prensa Latina news agency reports.

In 2006, a first team made up by a doctor and two engineers rebuilt facilities in Latacunga and Ballenitas and turned them into modern eye centers, and later on they refurbished another building in Machala.

Until Monday, 35,321 surgeries had been performed at the Eloy Alfaro Center of Latacunga, in the province of Cotopaxi; 33,599 at Santa Elena’s Jose Marti Center; and 28,947 at the Machala-Cuba Solidarity Center in the territory of El Oro. These figures, including the first 2,101, and the 32 patients programmed for Tuesday, complete the figure of 100,000 patients operated on in that nation, where so far 152 Cuban medical voluntary workers have offered their services.

The coordinator of the Mission in Ecuador, Milagros Mata, congratulated these doctors and reiterated their commitment to continue contributing their best, offering high quality services for the benefit of the Latin American peoples.

Ecuador's Neo-Liberal Model

Indigenous Groups Confront Rafael Correa

By Roger Burbach
CounterPunch, 29-31 January, 2010

Quito, Ecuador:
Beginning his fourth year as president of Ecuador, Rafael Correa confronts a major challenge from some of the very social actors that propelled him into office. In an address to the country in early January, Correa expressed his ire with a "coming series of conflicts this month, including indigenous mobilizations, workers, media communications, and even a level of the armed forces."

While the country, amidst the global crisis, is facing a downturn in the economy and chronic electrical outages, the roots of the current confrontation run much deeper, to the growing disenchantment with the "Citizens Revolution" that propelled Correa into office in 2007 and formed the basis for his political organization, the Alianza Pais, or Country Alliance. Correa promised to re-found the country with a new magna carta and to rid the country of the corrupt partidocracia comprised of the financial and political elites that had imposed disastrous neoliberal economic policies on Ecuador for almost two decades.

Early on he enacted a series of social spending programs that have in part tapped the country's oil revenues to assist the poorest and convened a constituent assembly that drafted a pluri-national constitution providing for ample public participation in the country's social and economic institutions. Reelected president under the new constitution, he declared in his inaugural address last August 10 that the Citizens Revolution "adheres to the socialist revolution of the twenty-first century."

But his actions and relations with the social movements have been confrontational and belie a commitment to an authentic participatory socialism. As Rene Baez, a long time activist and coordinator of the Center for Alternative Thought of the Central University of Quito told me, "Correa advocates a statist model of development that allows for no real popular participation. His actions are a violation of the new constitution. Workers, teachers, indigenous organizations, and ecologists have no say in this government."

Among the groups that are planning for a national mobilization against the government are the National Union of Educators, the National Confederation of Indigenous Nationalities of Ecuador (CONAIE), the Federation of University Students, and a number of trade unions, including the Ecuadoran Confederation of Class Organizations. When ECUARUNARI, a large federation within CONAIE based in the Andean highlands, installed its new leadership on January 8 at the National Theater in Quito, the departing president, declare, "This is a message of unity [against the government], for this reason we have invited leaders and activists of all the organizations and movements of the left."

He then asked Alberto Acosta to take the podium. Acosta is one of the country's most respected economists, the Minister of Energy and Mines in Correa's first government, and the president of the constituent assembly until he was forced to resign by Correa. Acosta, calling for unity between the social and indigenous organizations, declared, "The new constitution "is becoming a straight jacket for the government because the transformations it requires are to be carried out by the people." He added: "Revolutions are not the product of two or three governing divas but of organizations and struggles."

The central struggle between Correa and the social movements is over control of the country's economy, particularly its extractive resources, petroleum and the rich mining deposits that have recently been uncovered. The conflict intensified a year ago when the legislative commission of the National Assembly approved a new mining law.

According to Accion Ecologica, a highly respected Ecuadorian organization with over a decade and a half of experience, the law was "written in the neoliberal model," favoring foreign investment over social and environmental concerns, putting the extraction of minerals over the rights of communities, as well as allowing for open pit mining and the destruction of biodiversity, including the unlimited tapping of water resources in the process of mining operations. (1) The law also "criminalized protest and the right to exercise resistance."

Protests over the law took place in January 2009, organized by indigenous groups and urban, environmental, and humanitarian organizations, along with the federation of evangelical indigenous peoples. Demonstrators were met with tear gas and outright repression. All questioned the mining law, considering it an unconstitutional piece of legislation, rushed into law without ample national debate. In mid-March, 2009, CONAIE filed a lawsuit asserting that the law flagrantly violated the new constitution's recognition of indigenous land rights. This occurred as Canadian mining corporations received the go-ahead to survey for gold and copper deposits.

Correa, who the year before had declared that "the major danger" to the country's national development lay with "left and ecological infantilism," as well as "infantile indigenism," now asserted that the social movements were "promoting an uprising against the mining companies. ...With the law in hand we will not allow these abuses, we cannot allow uprisings, which block paths, threaten private property, and impede the development of a legal activity, mining."

Tensions reached a boiling point in September with the government's proposed new water law. Opponents claimed that it violated the constitution's provisions for absolute public and community control over water resources. The law allows for the privatization of water, set limits on community participation in water management, prioritizes access for industrial users, and above all place no real restraints on the ravaging of rivers and aquifers by the mining companies.

Once again protests broke out, this time mainly in the Andean city of Cuenca and the Amazonic town of Macas. As the police tried to dislodge two road blockades near Macas on September 30, violence erupted leading to the death of a bilingual teacher from the Shuar indigenous federation and the injury of several dozen others. To diffuse the explosive situation, the two sides agreed to a comprehensive dialogue that included discussion of the water and mining laws as well as the provisions for the pluri-national state that had been proclaimed in the new constitution. (2)

But the talks have gone nowhere. At the turn of the year a representative of the ECUARUNARI, reflecting the general sentiments of CONAIE and other social movements declared that the Correa government "continues its right wing politics, its privatization of the country's national resources, and its general lack of political will to carry out the changes the country needs." He went on to call for a general mobilization to bring the government "to its senses." Along with the mining and water laws, the proposed law of communications also became a point of contention as the government shut down a Shuar radio station for allegedly "inciting violence."

The dispute over the proper exploitation of Ecuador's resources erupted within the government this past week when Foreign Minister Fander Faconi was forced to resign by Correa for "environmental infantilism" in his negotiations with the United Nations Development Program (UNDP). Fander Faconi had agreed to set aside the untapped oil reserves of the Yasuni National Park in the Amazonic region in exchange for $3.6 billion in payments from international donors. Ironically, when he took office in 2007, Correa, under the guidance of then-Minister of Energy and Mines Alberto Acosta, had made this a signatory project of his administration, demonstrating how the global south and north could collaborate to forge agreements over environmental issues.

But Correa has also allowed the state company, Petroecucador, to continue surveying and drawing up possible plans for the oil reserves in the park, while admitting that another state enterprise, Petroamazonas, was being charged with any actual exploitation and drilling. As Fander Faconi was in the process of setting up the trust agreement with the UNDP this month, Correa declared that the trust was severely flawed and that "neither international bureaucracies nor international usurpers" would be allowed to dictate to Ecuador. He accused Fander and Acosta of conspiring with others in his government and the Country Alliance to put up "barriers" around him to stop oil exploration.

Correa gave instructions to a new negotiating team not to allow the UNDP any role in administering the $3.6 billion, saying, "This money is ours and it will be put directly in the state budget." Acosta says the project will fail if Correa continues to hold this attitude, adding that, "if a trust is not set up, there will be no agreement." (3) The Shuar federation, in an assembly this weekend took a broader stance, passing a resolution calling for the revocation of Correa's presidential mandate, and proclaiming that if the government attempts to exploit non-renewable resources on their lands, "we will defend our territory."

Roger Burbach is the director of the Center for the Study of the Americas (CENSA) and a Visiting Scholar at the University of California, Berkeley and author of The Pinochet Affair.

This article first appeared on the NACLA Web page: www.nacla.org.

Notes.

1.http://upsidedownworld.org/main/ecuador-archives-49/1772-ecuador-the-logic-of-development-clashes-with-movements

2. http://upsidedownworld.org/main/ecuador-archives-49/2146-ecuador-conaie-and-correa-begin-dialogue

3. http://www.elmercurio.com.ec/229071-acosta-sin-un-fideicomiso-el-yasuni-%E2%80%93itt-no-funciona.html