Taking risks
Speaking of robust and bold proposals, Ecuador's ambassador to Hungary, Juan Salazar Sancisi, wants people to take seriously his country's truly unique and potentially trendsetting proposal; namely, that his country be paid to 'not' exploit some of its natural resources.
By presidential decree, Ecuador declared in January 2007 that a 1.87 million hectare 'intangible zone' in the heart of the Ecuadorean Amazon be off limits to both logging and oil extraction. The intangible zone overlaps the country's Yasuni National Park, but oil extraction has been allowed in the past despite declared national park status. Aside from drilling and logging resulting in environmental damage to the delicate ecosystem, these industries have come into frequent contact, often violently, with members of two indigenous tribes (the Tageri and Taromenane) who choose to live in voluntary isolation from modern society. Thus the creation of an intangible zone is an effort to protect not only Ecuador's environment, but also to maintain a rich ethnic diversity.
Sancisi explained that oil accounted for an average of 40 percent of Ecuador's total exports from 1972 to 2006. This figure, however, rose in 2006 to 60 percent. Increased dependency on oil exports for national income will undoubtedly jeopardise the 18 percent of Ecuador's land that currently enjoys protected status, the ambassador claims, which is why he hopes that an international mechanism will be put in place to provide a proposed 50 percent in compensation to Ecuador for not tapping its oil reserves. As things stand now, Ecuadorians have the option of donating money of their own toward the fulfilment of this goal, but the real challenge will be to convince foreign governments that agreeing to such a proposal is the right thing to do. Sancisi asks, quite reasonably, why countries that consume fewer resources and cause less pollution per capita (Ecuador accounts for 1 percent of the world's emissions) should be forced to suffer the consequences of activities from the world's top polluters.