Funding for Paradise
Ecuador has come up with an innovative plan to persuade the wealthy countries of the world that it is incumbent upon them to assist this member of OPEC to maintain a paradisaical area of the country free of exploitation for oil, and in the process refrain from sending millions of tonnes of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere.Ecuador will withhold drilling activities for crude oil in a 200,000 hectare area of a national park rich in birds, monkeys, jaguars, giant armadillos and pink-coloured dolphins, if the country can be guaranteed that goodwill funding can be anticipated from wealthy international communities eager to do their part to be good stewards of the world's jungles.
Ecuador, under this plan, hopes to raise $100-million in seed money to launch the envisioned initiative. Which will ensure that secretive tribal Ecuadorean aboriginals who prefer to have no contact with the outside world, and to continue to live their primitive lifestyle will be left free to do so without oil-well-drilling incursions.
Ecuador is looking for an investment of $3.6-billion from abroad, representing approximately half of what the country might expect to earn through drilling in protected areas for crude oil. The area in question is a vast national park on the equator enjoying constant sun and rain resulting in a region rich in bio-diversity. Its river networks represent natural barriers separating plants and animals, isolated to develop into unique species.
"These three factors interact to give us a region that is probably the richest in biodiversity in the world. The park can be seen as a kind of magic garden that contains plants that cannot be found anywhere else."The fund, if it materializes, would be administered by the United Nations Development Program. Scientists claim that Yasuni has more species of flora and trees than exist in the whole of North America, as well as an immense variety of insects, snakes and other wildlife.
It's a gentle kind of blackmail, but one that appears bio-irresistible.
Labels: Economy, Environment, Particularities/Peculiarities
posted by Pieface @ Thursday, September 16, 2010
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