August 20 will mark a year since Ecuadorians voted to keep over 700 million barrels of crude oil permanently in the ground in Yasunà National Park. The country’s Constitutional Court gave the government and state-run Petroecuador just one year to end oil activities, close all wells and roads, dismantle existing infrastructure, and remediate and restore the area.
While that time frame was always considered daunting, they are nowhere close to meeting the deadline, putting the region’s isolated Indigenous peoples and the country’s democracy at great peril.
The 2023 vote was heralded as the first time that any county chose to leave significant oil reserves in the ground and retire producing wells by popular referendum, with over 60% voting in favor.
Widely considered to be the most biodiverse place on the planet, YasunĂ is a UNESCO World Biosphere Reserve and also the ancestral territory of the Waorani Indigenous people and the Tagaeri and Taromenane, two clans living in voluntary isolation.
The popular referendum to protect it was a hard-won victory that posed a challenge to wealthier nations: if a country like Ecuador whose economy relies on oil revenues could keep its largest reserve in the ground, then why couldn’t countries in the global north like the U.S., Canada, or Norway?
But the precedent-setting nature of the vote is in jeopardy if the government refuses to implement it, and the Indigenous movement and civil society are mobilizing to hold it to account.
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