The billion dollar bid to stop oil drilling in the Amazon

Witness History

BBC

History, Personal Journals, Society & Culture

4.4 • 1.6K Ratings

🗓️ 30 October 2023

⏱️ 10 minutes

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Summary

In 2010, a $3.6billion fund was launched to stop oil drilling in the most biodiverse place on the planet: the Yasuni national park in Ecuador. The Yasuni covers 10,000 square kilometres of Amazon rainforest and is home to thousands of species of plants and animals but underneath the soil lies another important resource - 20% of Ecuador’s oil reserves. It was feared that any drilling would cause pollution, deforestation and soil erosion so in a pioneering deal – known as the Yasuni ITT iniatitive - rich nations were asked to pay Ecuador not to remove the oil. Chief negotiator Yvonne A-Baki was put in charge of raising funds from around the globe but securing money was not an easy task, as she tells Jane Wilkinson. (Photo: A brown woolly monkey in the Yasuni National Park. Credit: Pablo Cozzaglio/AFP via Getty Images)

Transcript

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0:00.0	Hello, welcome to the witness history podcast from the BBC Will Service with me, Jane Wilkinson.
0:11.0	I'm taking you back to Ecuador in 2010 and a $3.6 billion bid to stop oil drilling in the
0:18.7	most biodeverse place on the planet, the Yusuni National Park.
0:24.2	And we're also going to meet the woman who talks for the first time about the pressure
0:28.6	of raising that money.
0:30.8	I didn't know about the Yusuni at that time.
0:33.4	So we arrived and it was at night.
0:35.7	It was magical.
0:36.7	It was a night to the full moon and around in the river there were this Luciernagas.
0:41.3	It's like a light in the dark and we arrived in this beautiful, beautiful big lake.
0:46.2	And the sounds were wonderful of nature and how the rain comes.
0:51.3	This is the music of the Amazon at night.
0:54.4	So it was magical and you believe in God and you believe in creation when you are in
0:59.9	a place like that because it's unique.
1:02.3	So I really fell in love with it from that day.
1:05.0	That's the diplomat, Avon Abaki, describing her first visit to the Yusuni National Park
1:10.6	more than 10,000 square kilometres of Amazon rainforest in northern Ecuador.
1:16.7	And as reported by the BBC, home to thousands of varieties of plants, birds and animals.
1:23.7	This is one of the most biodiverse places on the entire planet.
1:27.9	In just one hectare, there are more species of trees and bushes than there are in the
1:31.9	whole of North America.
1:33.8	It's absolutely unique.
	...

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