Ecuador voted with the rejection of oil reserves

When the people of Ecuador went to the polls last Sunday for the first round of the presidential election, they, too, were able to vote in a historic referendum.

The question on the ballot: Should all new oil well development work in Yasuni National Park be halted?

Located within the Amazon region near the borders with Peru and Colombia, the national park is not only home to animals and plants. Many indigenous peoples also live within the forest, including two of the world’s last “uncontacted” indigenous peoples: the Tajiri and Taruminan peoples.

With 90 percent of the votes counted, Ecuador clearly rejected the oil companies. 58% of the votes supported the proposal to stop oil extraction and 42% voted against it.

Finally, we will expel the oil companies from our lands! This is a great victory for all the indigenous peoples, for the animals, the plants, the spirit of the jungle and our climate,” says Nemonte Ninquemo, an indigenous activist in Ecuador.

A permanent ban on oil exploration in the region

The proposal banned all oil exploration in the Ishpingo-Tambococha-Tiputini project which would extract oil in the eastern part of Yasuni. The ban is also permanent.

The referendum is binding and now the government must halt operations and dismantle infrastructure in the area within a year. They also have to restore nature and reintroduce the forest in which it was destroyed.

Thus Ecuador is one of the first countries in the world to limit resource extraction through direct democracy.

Today is a historic day! As a Waorani woman and mother, I am thrilled with Ecuadorians’ decision to stop drilling for oil in the sacred homeland of my people, says Nemonte Ninquemo.

In 1989, Yasuni was named a Biosphere Reserve by UNESCO. It spans nearly 10,000 square kilometers and there are 610 species of birds, 139 different species of amphibians, and 121 different species of reptiles. At least three undiscovered animal species are found only in Yasuni.

The region also contains 40 percent of Ecuador’s oil reserves, an estimated 1.7 billion barrels of crude oil.

The battle to stop oil extraction in the region has been going on since 2005. In 2007, then-President Rafael Correa promised to stop oil exploration if the countries of the world promised to pay the country $3.6 billion to compensate part of the lost income from oil. It failed and the fight continues, including by suing the Norwegian Non-Renewable Natural Resources Authority.

It also voted to stop gold mining

In the Quito region, another local referendum was held on resource extraction in sensitive environments. There, people had their say on stopping gold mining at the Choco Andino Nature Reserve near the capital, Quito.

There, too, they chose to say yes to stopping the project, with 60 percent voting in favor and 31 percent voting against.

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