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TIPUTINI BIODIVERSITY STATION, Ecuador, August 23, 2013 (ENS) -- We're all extremely disappointed by the decision of President Rafael Correa to approve oil drilling in the Ishpingo-Tambococha-Tiputini area of Yasuni National Park and cancel the trust fund that would have compensated the country for leaving the oil underground, although it certainly did not come as a surprise.
Various fronts are already planning protests and next-step strategies.
The easiest thing in the world is to point fingers. Just whose fault is the failure of the Yasuní-ITT Initiative? At one level, it's yours and mine because we are materialistic consumers, and not enough of us saw fit to give the idea our financial support.
Dr. Kelly Swing canoeing in Yasuni National Park (Photo courtesy Kelly Swing)
At another level, it's the fault of the initiative's promoters who somehow didn't manage to connect with those willing or wanting to be convinced.
At still another level, maybe it was just a question of bad timing and a tight global economy.
In the end, laying blame doesn't fix things, but we do need to reflect on what happened and where we go from here. It's definitely time to wake up from the dream, escape from these years of being in a daze of blind hope and complacency, when we so wanted this plan to be the salvation of Yasuní National Park and didn't want to believe that it could fail.
One important positive outcome of the Yasuní-ITT Initiative is that it brought attention to the overall situation in eastern Ecuador. And now, our hope is that the world will not be able to ignore what's going on here. We can no longer plead ignorance.
From near the beginning, the initiative was fraught...