Official plans for the extraction of natural resources is creating conflict between Ecuador’s President Rafael Correa and indigenous leaders of this Andean country. The issue is the new international bidding process for large-scale oil exploitation in the Ecuadorian.
Last March, the controversy the mining megaprojects announced by the Ecuadorian government. Now, the disagreement is the Oil Round XI that President Correa launched which is looking to e hire foreign companies to make investments in 13 oil fields in the southeast of the Ecuadorean Amazon.
“Enough of this childishness of ‘no oil’, ‘no to mining'” said Rafael Correa in advocating “use responsibly” nonrenewable natural resources possessing Ecuador.
Correa has warned that, according to its government, oil needs to be explored now in Ecuador, and insists that the State obtains resources from oil extraction in southeastern Ecuador will benefit the residents Amazonian communities in that sector.
However, for the Confederation of Indigenous Nationalities of the Ecuadorian Amazon (Confeniae), social and environmental costs of the new large-scale oil extraction in eastern Ecuador will outweigh the economic benefits to be obtained from the Oil Round XI.
The Amazon rainforest is one of the world’s greatest natural resources. Because its vegetation continuously recycles carbon dioxide into oxygen, it has been described as the “Lungs of our Planet” with about 20% of earth’s oxygen is produced by the Amazon rainforest.
The indigenous communities of the Amazon and especially in Ecuador have been slowly losing the battle to protect their habitat as more and more governmental regulation in conjunction with large corporations dissolve the rights of the indigenous .
The Costa Rica News (TCRN)
San Jose Costa Rica
