Joy and hope are all too rarely associated with the environmental movement, but both have been in abundant supply since Ecuador’s people voted on Sunday to keep the country’s oil in the subsoil of the Yasuní national park. The question now is whether this is a one-off triumph, or something that can be replicated in other countries.
The referendum result obliges the state oil company to dismantle operations – 12 drilling platforms and 225 wells that produce up to 57,000 barrels a day – in block 43 of the Ishpingo-Tambococha-Tiputini (ITT) project, an area of the Amazon rainforest famed for its ecological diversity, and which is home to two tribes that live in voluntary isolation. With more than 5.4 million votes in favour of halting production and 3.7 million against, this is the most decisive democratic victory against the fossil fuel industry in Latin America and, arguably, the world.
