This episode is brought to you by earth Breeze. Earthbreeze looks like a dryer sheet, but it's ultra concentrated laundry detergent. You just tear off a sheet, you throw it in with your laundry and that's it. It cleans really well. It's hypoallergenic, free of bleach and dyes. It gets rid of all the plastic in your laundry situation. Right now, my listeners can get forty percent off earth Breeze plus a free welcome bundle. Just go to earthbreeze dot com
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You might remember a few years back we did a season on Chevron and Ecuador and the long drawn out Saga of Folks living in the Ecuadorian Amazon, trying to get compensation for damages from Texico and then Chevron for dumping oil there. We talked in that episode about former Equadorian President Rafael Correa and his plan about a decade ago to try to get the world to pay Ecuador to keep oil in the ground in Yasuni National Park. Yasuni is one of the most biodiverse places on Earth.
It's also been a hotspot of oil production for quite some time. Last year, a big election made headlines all over the world when Ecuadorians voted to stop drilling in Yasuni National Park, or at least that's how it was reported. Today, reporter Macy Lipkin brings us the story of what's really been going on in Ecuador and Yasuni and what this vote meant, means, and will mean for the future of Ecuador and oil.
Welcome to Northeast Ecuador, one of the most biodiverse places on Earth. Kelly Swing founded Tippuccini Biodiversity Station here in the nineteen nineties. He'd be the first to tell you how special this region is. Yasuni National Park is right across the river.
A hectare of rainforest in Yasuni has probably around or maybe even over six hundred species of trees per hectare in the US, if you're in a mature forest in the eastern part of the country, you could walk in the entire morning and maybe not see ten species of trees. If we talk about birds, the Yese has close to six hundred species. If you look at the US and Canada together about eight hundred species cats. There are five species of felines in Yeseny, which is also pretty spectacular.
Of course, when you say five, that doesn't sound like a gigang number, but if you're talking about cat species is an enormous number. Any place you impact, it's gonna affect more species than it would anywhere else on the planet.
This biodiversity doesn't just make for a spectacular way through the jungle. It also bodes well from medicine.
In business, people use hundreds of species of plants for different kinds of remedies. There are pharmaceutical products that have been derived from those things that are worth lots of money. Why couldn't there be one of those plants, you know, in Yasuni.
Yasuni Is importance goes beyond even its biodiversity and potential for pharmaceuticals. Gonzalo Rivas Torres teaches ecology at the University of San Francisco in Quito. He says that Yasuni is key for human survival. Plants in the rainforest conduct photosynthesis and produce water vapor.
Water vapor is then transforming into humidity that will go up right in the sky and then through winds will move towards the west and then it will hit theyend this right that is literally at this wall to the west. Then their you know, temperature drops. Also pressure is going to be different, and then you have precipitation, and all that precipitation is then filling up aquifers or the high and the enforced here we called paramols that are naterally
sponges of this water. Un dam is going to be yield to big water resterours that is the main source for like millions of Equadorians, millions of South Americans.
On paper, Yasnuni looks pretty well protected. It became a National park in nineteen seventy nine and the UNESCO Biosphere Reserve in nineteen eighty nine, but oil had already been discovered in the park by then. Currently seven active oil blocks overlap with the boundaries of the national park. That's despite the fact that in two thousand and eight, Ecuador became the first country in the world to ratify rights
of nature and its constitution. You can learn more about that in detail in the first season of our sister podcast, Damages For Our Purposes. It's important to understand that the Ecuadorian Constitution states that nature or pachamama, where life is reproduced and occurs, has the right to integral respect for its existence and for the maintenance and regeneration of its life cycles, structure, functions, and evolutionary processes. But any underground
resources belong to the government, so drilling happens anyway. Rights of nature be damned. Oil extraction has become less invasive over the years, but it still impacts everything that makes Yasuni special.
The oil industry is far less extensive and expansive in its operations and impacts today than they were decades ago.
Back then, deforestation was rampant, oil spills were more common. Oil companies built roads that led to overhunting, colonization, and noise pollution, all impacts that the region is still dealing with today.
Technology has changed, They've incorporated different strategies, and a lot of those strategies benefit them financially too. But it's it's better, but it does not approach an idea that Rafael Coorea talked about during his time of we're only going to impact Uno porm, which is one tenth of one percent of the land area. It's like, how do you do that?
Oil extraction produces natural gas, and oil companies burn that extra gas in big flames called gas flares. Ecuador banned gas flares in twenty twenty one because they appeared to cause cancer and the people who live nearby. But I saw multiple flames coming from different oil blocks in October twenty twenty three, so I know that at least some polluting practices persist. That brings us back to twenty thirteen Ecuador.
As president at the time, Rafael Correa made one of yasuin these oil blocks famous with his initiative to leave its oil underground. It was called Block forty three or the itt Block, named for the three oil fields inside it. Korea asked other countries to pay Ecuador three and a half billion dollars, about half the value of the oil to leave the forest there. Intact, the plan failed, and the ITT block opened in twenty sixteen. It's the most recent block to open in Yasuni and one of Ecuador's
most productive. It's controversial because some of its crude is low quality and expensive to extract, meaning that it brings in little profit, and because it overlaps with what's called the Intangible Zone, an area designed to protect the rights of indigenous groups living in the forest involuntary isolation. When the ITT initiative failed, a group of young people called Yasunilos rallied to get Yasuni on the ballot. It took
ten years, but it finally happened. This past August, Ecuadorians voted whether or not to stop drilling in the ITT block. Environmentalists argue that the rainforest was worth protecting. Petro Ecuador, the state run oil company that operates ITT, argued that the lost income would be catastrophic for the economy. The results were decisive. Almost sixty percent of Ecuadorians voted to stop drilling in ITT. This made international headlines as a win for the Amazon.
Ecuadorians have voted to stop oil drilling in the Yasuni National Park, one of the most biodiverse places on the planet, which is part of the Amazon Rainforest.
It was an environmental dilemma for an oil producing country, a dilemma of voters faced in last Sunday's vote. In the end, nearly six out of every ten voters chose to protect the Yasuni. We have saved that the greatest biodiversity that has been recognized and nationally and internationally. The leader of one of Yasunie indigenous community said.
Hey, y but in Ecuador, even conservationists didn't know what would come of it after the break. What the referendum actually means for the itt block and for Yasuni as a whole.
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The ballot question asked voters, do you agree that the Ecuadorian government should keep the crude in itt known as Block forty three underground indefinitely? In Spanish is daves de coude and guilbirno ecoano mantinga elkuns indefini de mine nossulo. Below the yes and no boxes was the fine print. If the yes vote wins, it said, there will be an organized progressive withdrawal of all activity related to oil
extraction within a year of the notification of the official results. Additionally, the state will not be able to take action toward initiating new contracts to continue the exploitation of it. The vote passed, but some loud voices said the government could ignore it. In early September, a video surfaced of then President Guillermo Lasso saying the vote was unenforceable. Separately, the Minister of Energy and Minds said the outcome depended only on the vote in the province where it is located,
not in the country as a whole. Odajana, province home to it, voted to keep drilling, so did its neighbors. Sukum more on that in a minute, Ecuador's twenty two other provinces voted to stop. If the minister were correct, then drilling would continue. In itt Environmental lawyer Ugo Achividia says the government was talking about a consulta previa, a different kind of vote that allows indigenous Equadorians and Afro Ecuadorians to vote on projects that may impact their ancestral homelands.
He says that the vote on drilling was a consulta popular, a national vote that is final madraza de los pronoun regardless of what the politicians say. It's a final decision that has to be obeyed. Legally, it has to be obeyed and will be obeyed. The timeline for closing down ITT caused even more confusion. PetroEcuador asked the Constitutional Court for three years to stop drilling, but the court stuck
to one. The court also demanded that within the same time frame, the oil company start repairing the forest where it had drilled. In mid November, Petro Ecuador announced that it will stop drilling in ITT on August thirty first, twenty twenty four, that's the day of the court's deadline. It plans to extract eleven million more barrels of oil by them, which is slower than peak production, but it's still unclear how long Petro Ecuador has to remove its
equipment and what it means to repair the forest. Fifty nine percent of voters across Ecuador voted to stop drilling in ITT, but in the province of Vodajana, where the ITT block is located, residents voted to keep drilling fifty eight to forty two percent. The big reason was jobs. Ramiro San Miguel has worked as a guide at Tipputini Biodiversity Station for more than twenty years. His face lights up when he spots monkeys. He led my group trampling off the trail just to get a better look. That's
Ramiro imitating the wily monkeys call. In some of my recordings, I can't tell which noises come from Ramiro and which are for monkeys. Before coming to Tipputini, Romeiro capped in the barge for an oil company. He's seen firsthand what oil extraction does to the forest is.
Simpre the guy.
Whenever there's drilling, there's a big impact, primarily in deforestation.
Habitais yes, I'll gok okay.
They destroy certain animals' habitats. Now we're dealing with global warming from so much deforestation, so much burning of gases.
Sequences.
But when it came to the I t T referendum, Romiro voted to keep drilling. He worries about what his sons will do if they lose their jobs.
Then go.
And lunus capitatos maginista transportang los Caro.
I have two sons who work at Block forty three. They work on the barges. One's a captain and the others an engineer. If they're going to stop drilling, what will they do? Where will they work? It's something I've asked myself and sometimes mentioned to my colleagues. These people, where are they going to find work? It's a little complicated.
Other folks I talked to were frustrated that people far away in Quito who work off his jobs and don't understand life in the Amazon voted to stop drilling when they benefit from oil money too, and some people were confused by the wording of the referendum. One man he voted yes because the region needed oil jobs, but the yes vote was to stop drilling. Others suspected that the
government would ignore the vote and drill anyway. Some cited a debunked conspiracy theory that Peru could extract the oil with some kind of horizontal pipe. My taxi driver voted to stop drilling, but thought the vote to keep drilling had won. PetroEcuador has argued that it's helped the communities where it drills. It has built hospitals and schools, and provided water filters. To indigenous families, but some folks in Coca, the capital of Odajana Province, are frustrated because they don't
feel the benefits. They only see oil money leave the region. One man pointed out that there's not a single university in the province of Odajana. Other residents have experienced the downsides of oil extraction, like oil spills firsthand. Jose Makania is also a guide. It to Buccini. He grew up in an indigenous Quichua community moved to Coca for high school. One morning, he went to bathe in the river before walking the two hours to school.
Mayana Ante saliarmi Io fil Rio Scuro viving in trail Rio.
I got in the river to bathe one morning and came out a little black. The river was full of oil. The pipeline had broken your Coca. My dad saw me covered in that black stuff and told.
Me it was oil Petrolia.
Jose later worked for an oil exploration company. His job was to make sure the other workers didn't do too much damage to the forest while creating trails, but he saw how underground explosions which were set off to find out whether there was oil in the ground scared the animals.
Los animos borquesta group was esperando but yeahando, yeah says yeah, you're kles pass.
The animals were scared. They went crazy, running in all directions without knowing where to go. The monkeys screamed. It made me so sad that I.
Said no more, no mass, no mas.
Jose left the.
Oil company and became a guide to Tippuccini sixteen years ago. Four years in he came face to face with a black panther. That's his favorite wildlife encounter to date. It was like a dream for me seeing the black jaguar, the black panther. Jose voted to stop drilling in the I T T Block and was glad the referendum passed.
Is tamo vibn tiendos impacto los cambia klimatic pediril mundo uyatos.
Well living and feeling the effects of climate change. I'd ask the world to promote caring for nature, because it's everybody's lung, not just Latin Americans or Amazonians. The world is for everyone. Indeed, the referendum was celebrated around the world as a step toward protecting nature and slowing climate change, but the vote only stops extraction in one oil block. When ITT closes, six others will still overlap Yasuni National Park, and there are dozens more around Ecuador. The vote doesn't
affect trilling in any of those blocks. The good news is that closing ITT will leave about seven hundred million barrels of oil underground. That oil alone means three million metric tons of carbon dioxide won't be emitted to the atmosphere. But the symbolic impact of this referendum maybe even stronger. Here's Kelly swing again.
Yes to me, probably eighty percent of that land area is still pretty much what it was one hundred years ago or three hundred years ago. When you see, you know, the people turn out and vote for something like this, you say, oh, this is not a lost cause. There's plenty out there to save, and there's plenty of interest in saving it.
Oil has been Ecuador's biggest export for fifty years. It spurred huge economic growth in the seventies. The country sends a good chunk of oil to the US too. It's California's second largest source of crude. But that oil won't last forever. By some estimates, Ecuador will become a net importer of oil by twenty thirty one. Ecuador will have to outgrow its oil dependency sooner or later. The referendum
means that that move is coming early for itt. Carlos Larrea is an economist to help design Gorrea's proposal to leave the IT block untouched back in two thousand and seven. He says the most important thing for Ecuador's economy is to diversify.
Oil has been the most important single export product for about fifty years, and Ecuador badly needs a policy of economic diversification. And our position is that actually the most important endowments of ecuadors its biodiversity and its cultural diversity and richness. Ecuador needs to preserve nature in the future in order to survive as a peaceable country.
Larrea points to growing exports from the Amazon, like chocolate and guayusa, a plant that's brewed like tea. The region could also expand its tourism sector, though Ecuador's recent increase in crime might scare off potential visitors. La ree stress that diversification is key, not just shifting dependence from one export to another. He doesn't want to see Ecuador rely too heavily on another product or service that could run out, lose value, or get shut down by a popular vote.
Gonzolo Rivestors. The ecologist sees the ITT result as an opportunity for Ecuador to take control of its future.
It is a precedent for whatever can happen, and I think also opens now the door to have the discussion on what to do next, because in twenty years is not going to be Ecuadorians voting to the old companies to leave. The old companies are are going to be gone because there's not going to be more oil to stract. So I think now is a good moment. If you ask me once you know I tit or wild ITTs retired that we said, okay, what is coming next for Jamison.
Drilled is an original Critical Frequency production. This episode was reported and written by me Macy Lipkin. Our senior editors are Alien Brown and Sarah Ventry.
Our senior producer is Martin Saltz.
Austwick, who also does our sound design and compose most of the music in this episode.
The episode was mixed and mastered by Peter Duff.
Fact checking by Wudan jan Al Atwick is by Matt Fleming.
Our first time in My attorney is James Wheedon.
The show was created by Amy Westerboldt, who also helped edit this episode.
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