QUITO, ECUADOR – In a small corner of Ecuador’s Yasuní national park is the village of Llanchama. This Indigenous Quichua community is carved out of the dense Amazonian rainforest along the Tiputini River. But for nearly 10 years an entirely different development has been attempting to establish itself on the village’s borders: the Ishpingo-Tambococha-Tiputini (ITT) oilfield.
Holmer Machoa Grefa grew up in Llanchama, and since 2013 has been fighting to get the oil industry out of his territory. Last August, he and his family were overjoyed when Ecuadorians voted to halt oil extraction in a historic referendum.
“When I found out about the results, for me, it was a joy that this was achieved after 10 years,” says Machoa.
But he and his family celebrated quietly. Not everyone in the community was happy. Many remember the $3,000 (£2,300) each person received when the oil company arrived in 2013, and the promise of jobs they still hope will come. Many voted for extraction to continue.
“This is something that divides us here more than anything, the issue of economics,” says Machoa.
Many in Ecuador are hopeful that the results of the Yasuní referendum last year, in which 59% of the population voted against oil, will mark the beginning of the end for Ecuador’s extraction economy. But many continue to see oil as a solution to the country’s economic crisis.
Oil revenue has been the backbone of Ecuador’s economy since it began exporting crude in the 1970s. Oil now accounts for nearly one-third of the country’s GDP. Since Ecuador is burdened with large debt and a fiscal deficit of more than $5bn, policymakers are reluctant to shift away from the traditional oil economy.
During last year’s election campaign, Daniel Noboa, now the president, promised to vote against extraction in the Yasuní referendum. However, like his predecessors, Noboa announced plans to increase oil production when he took office in November. The goal is to increase output by 20% above the roughly 500,000 barrels a day that Ecuador produces.
With this decision, Ecuador has joined other Latin American and Caribbean countries towards increasing oil and gas production.
Then in January, as his government struggled to fund its clampdown on criminal gangs, Noboa proposed a moratorium on the result of the referendum.
At a press conference in February, the then minister of energy and mines, Andrea Arrobo Peña, said the loss from ceasing production in ITT, plus the cost of dismantling the infrastructure (which should be completed within a year of the referendum), would cause “a worse economic crisis than the one we are living in”.
Kimberley Michelle Brown 