Oil extraction in the Ecuadoria Amazon has been taking place for a long time, and a new proyect has been aproved which is going to have a great impact for indigenous people as well as the most biodiverse place on Earth
The following paper analyses an article that contais the approval from the Ecuadorian government, and argues how our society shouldn’t be allowed to involve other separated communities of people or wild life on its problems.
Hugo Tello
08/10/2016
Oil Exploitation in The Ecuadorian National Park Yasuní
The article I chose was written by Paul Erazo and posted in BBC news, the tittle of it is “Why the environmental Yasuní project failed in Ecuador”. To sum up, the article was about the decision taken by the Ecuadorian government to put an end to the agreement that prevented the oil extraction over the national park Yasuní.
I’m going to use the so called imaginative geographies that derived from Edward Said, and refer to the different ways of understanding this world depending on the experiences people have had with their environment and history (Derek), to analyze the main issue of this article. Also, my goal is to argue that the Ecuadorian government has no right to interfere with the Yasuní National Park and everything that inhabits that place including animals, plants and indigenous people. To demonstrate this, I’m going to point out the differences and interests that our society has compared to other systems, the incorrect ways we tend to use for solving issues, and how according to our limited knowledge we should act with justice separately from law.
First of all, I would like to give a brief explanation of what is Yasuní. According to an article from the scientific magazine Plos One, this park has “the highest biodiversity per unit-area on the world” (Marrero). Also, it was declared by UNESCO as the “biosphere reserve” and it has indigenous communities like Tagaero and Taromenani that are voluntary isolated groups from our society (Erazo).This being said, we have one main actor which is the Ecuadorian government and some secondary but not less important actors like the plants, animals and indigenous people inhabiting this national park. The government represents our society and it sees Yasuní as a useful resource to explode and achieve progress, while for the other characters, this means life, home, ancestors, pacha-mama/mother-earth, between others. At this point, it’s interesting the way how we can look to the same thing from many points of view and this is what creates conflict.
In this specific case, the one that is creating the conflict is the government with his intention of extracting natural resources to solve its economic problems or personal interest, by affecting all the other components of the story. On the other hand, the indigenous people, animals, and plants are a completely separated from our issues and system, so why should they get involved on them. The worst part is that this project has no benefits for anyone that is not included on it and it is actually going against its own laws like its mention on the article 57 of the Ecuadorian republic that states “the territories in voluntary isolation are ancestral possession…any type of extractive activity is denied”. In other words, the indigenous people from that region are completely aside from our problems, therefore any intervention is a crime.
Thirdly, we have seen several times that laws can be violated and changed in our world depending on the interests behind them like the one mentioned before, but we also know what is correct and not from the point of view of justice, which is completely different from law. So it’s clear that if we as a society have a problem, we should deal with it by ourselves, because we don’t have any legitimate right to involve any other characters on issues that are completely separated from them.
To conclude, In the Yasuní case we can see how an institution from our society which is the Ecuadorian government, wants to take advantage of a place that works with its own laws, because from the point of view of the government, this national park is just a resource. Although that is not the only point of view that exists and matters, or even the correct one, because we have several other actors like indigenous communities, plants and animals that have nothing to do with us and are going to be included in this process. Finally, because there is no connection between one system and the other, it is not legal, right, fair or correct for the oil extraction on the Yasuní to take place.
Article Cited
Erazo Paul, BBC, 16 aug. 2013. Accessed 06 Aug. 2016
http://www.bbc.com/mundo/noticias/2013/08/130816_ecuador_yasuni_causas_fracaso_lps
Works Cited
Marrueno Ruiz, Alai, 12 Aug. 2015. Accessed 06 Aug.2016
http://www.alainet.org/es/articulo/171675
Yasunidos. Accessed 06 Aug.2016
http://sitio.yasunidos.org/es/yasunidos.html
Gregory Derek. Imaginative Geographies. Department of Geography: University of British Columbia, Vancouver.1995.