Ecuadorians Vote on 'Monumental Referendum' to End Oil Drilling in Yasun National Park

[Judi Lynn]

The vote comes after a decade of campaigning by organizers who want to protect the park's biodiversity and the tribes who live there.

JULIA CONLEY
Aug 20, 2023

Ecuadorian voters on Sunday headed to the polls to cast their votes in both a snap presidential election and to take what environmental justice campaigners said was a "once-in-a-lifetime" opportunity to help protect one of the world's most vital ecosystems.

Signs urging the public to vote "Sí al Yasuni" or "yes" for the Yasuní National Park in the Amazon rainforest have been plastered across the country in recent weeks, as organizers call on voters to support a referendum that would stop oil drilling in the Yasuní Ishpingo-Tambococha-Tiputini oilfield.

The 198,000-hectare park is Ecuador's largest protected area and is home to 1,130 species of trees—more than the United States and Canada combined—165 mammal species, 630 species of birds, and over 100,000 insect species per hectare.

The Indigenous Waorani, Kichwa, and Shuar people coexist in the region, as well as the uncontacted Tagaeri and Taromenan tribes.

As Indigenous rights group Survival International said in a video posted to social media on Saturday, oil drilling in the tribes' territory "poses a huge threat to their survival" as well as perpetuating an energy system that scientists have warned is heating the planet and causing dangerous sea level rise and extreme weather events.

More:
https://www.commondreams.org/news/ecuador-yasuni-drilling-referendum