Ecuador is the first country in the world to announce plans to leave the oil reserves beneath its rainforests in the ground. The country wants foreign businesses, including German companies, to compensate it for making this sacrifice.
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Until now, the West's appeals to developing countries to get involved in the fight against global warming and protect their biodiversity have fallen largely on deaf ears. The temptation to follow conventional paths to wealth is too great. And now one of South America's poorest countries is calling upon industrialized nations to pony up so that its fossil fuel wealth can remain in the ground.
"The crude oil under Yasuni National Park is worth many billions of dollars," says Aguiñaga. In the summer of 2008, Ecuadoran President Rafael Correa made a first attempt to protect the rainforest and resources. He proposed that Western and Ecuadoran taxpayers each foot half the bill for the decision not to tap crude oil reserves in the environmentally sensitive area. But the initiative never bore fruit.
Now Correa is under pressure to give in to the oil companies after all. Hoping to prevent this from happening, Aguiñaga submitted a new, and final, offer during a trip to Europe: that Ecuador be compensated mainly by Western companies, which could then sell the Yasuni oil in the virtual form of CO2 certificates.
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