Ecuador: Correa vows to ‘radicalise revolution’

In the aftermath of a failed coup attempt on September 30, left-wing Ecuadorian President Rafael Correa has vowed to deepen his “citizen’s revolution” in the small Andean country.
 

After the coup attempt by sections of the police and armed forces failed amid pro-government protests, Correa’s approval rate has surged as high as 75% in some polls.

In response, Correa, stating his government had not done enough to implement its pro-people program and would radicalise its project to build a “socialism of the 21st century”.

This call was echoed by Ecuador’s National Secretary of Planning and Development Rene Ramirez, who said after the coup: “We want to have a much more progressive government, more turned to the left.”

Correa, addressing the Fifth Congress of the Latin American Coalition of Rural Organisations in Quito on October 13, said Ecuador needed an “agrarian revolution” rather than small reforms in land ownership.

Addressing hundreds of peasant leaders from across Latin America, Correa said his government would either directly expropriate unused and unproductive agricultural land, or raise taxes on those properties to force its owners to sell.

Other measures proposed to deepen agricultural reform include allotting state-owned fallow land to poor farmers and a program of selective import substitution and incentives to increase local production.

Ecuador beläßt Erdöl im Boden

Yasuni Nationalpark

Am 3. August 2010 hat die ecuadorianische Regierung ein richtungsweisendes Dokument unterzeichnet, um Ölbohrungen in den ökologisch einzigartigen Gebieten Ishpingo-Tambococha-Tiputini des Yasuni Nationalparks (Yasuni-ITT) zu verhindern.

Das Abkommen, unterzeichnet von der Regierung des linken Präsidenten Rafael Correa und dem United Nations Development Program (UNDP), garantiert, dass die geschätzten 900 Millionen Barrel Erdöl, die unter der noch unberührten Amazonas-Region liegen, nicht angerührt werden, so wenig wie der Wald darüber.

Im Austausch erhält Ecuador 3.6 Mrd. $ als Kompensation für die Einnahmen, die es ansonsten durch das Öl gehabt hätte – etwa die Hälfte des geschätzten Wertes.

Der Yasuni Nationalpark ist einer der artenreichsten Plätze der Welt und besteht aus 982 000 ha Regenwald am Fuße der Anden. Er enthält mehr Baumarten auf einem Hektar als es in den ganzen USA und Kanada zusammen gibt.

Er beherbergt mindestens 28 höchst gefährdete Säugetiere, wie Jaguar, Weißstirnklammeraffe, Riesenotter und Rundschwanzseekühe sowie hunderte Arten, die es sonst nirgends auf der Erde gibt.

Yasuni ist auch die Urheimat der Huaorani und zwei weiterer indigener Völker, die in freiwilliger Isolation leben, die Tagaeri und die Taromenane.

Ecuador signs historic deal to "leave the oil in the soil"

On August 3, the Ecuadorian government signed a landmark deal to prevent drilling for oil in the ecologically unique Ishpingo-Tambococha-Tiputini areas of the Yasuni National Park (Yasuni-ITT).
 

The agreement, signed by the government of left-wing president Rafael Correa and the United Nations Development Program (UNDP), guarantees that the estimated 900 million barrels of oil that lie beneath the pristine Amazonian region will remain untouched, as will the forest above.

In exchange, Ecuador will receive US $3.6 billion as compensation for the revenue it would otherwise have made from the oil – about half its estimated value.

The Yasuni National Park is an area of world-significant biological diversity, covering 982,000 hectares in the Amazonian rainforest and Andean foothills. It is considered one of the most biodiverse sites on Earth, containing more tree species in one hectare than in the entire United States and Canada combined.

It shelters at least 28 highly endangered vertebrates including jaguars, the white-bellied spider monkey, the giant otter and the Amazonian manatee, and hundreds of species found nowhere else on Earth.

Yasuni is also the ancestral territory of the Huaorani people, as well as two other indigenous tribes who live in voluntary isolation, the Tagaeri and the Taromenane.