Just two days ago, Ecuadorians voted to stop oil drilling in the Amazon’s Yasuní National Park by a margin of nearly 20 per cent, in a landmark referendum that is the result of more than a decade of campaigning from indigenous communities across the country.
This historic result means that oil drilling in the Ishpingo-Tambococha-Tiputini oil project, responsible for 12 per cent of Ecuador’s oil production, will be permanently banned and the project’s infrastructure dismantled. Not only this, but the government must now implement a remediation process to try to make up for the damage caused by the oil field within the next year.
Yasuní is often described as one of the greatest areas of biodiversity in the world, covering a region of over 2.5 million hectares and housing over 610 types of birds and hundreds of species of reptiles and amphibians. It is home to many indigenous communities, including the Tagaeri and Taromenane people, who have been fighting relentlessly to protect their homes from the destruction caused by oil extraction and the climate crisis.
