A “victory for Ecuador and for the planet”. In a historic referendum, 59% of Ecuadorians voted Sunday, August 20, to stop the exploitation of the oil resources of Block 43, a space located in the Amazon reserve of Yasuni. A local vote, held the same day, also decided to stop mining in six small towns on the outskirts of Quito, the capital, in order to preserve 287,000 hectares of forest there. In the aftermath, the national oil company Petroecuador announced that it would comply with the “sovereign decision” of the Ecuadorians.

“This is the first time that a country has decided to defend life and leave oil in the ground,” said the environmental group Yasunidos, which has been campaigning for the protection of this area for ten years. Located in the east of the country, this indigenous land extends over almost a million hectares of humid and primary forest, one of the richest in the world in terms of biodiversity. It is also the territory of the Tagaeri and the Taromenane, two of the last indigenous peoples refusing contact with the modern world.

Today we made history! This consultation, born from the citizenry, demonstrates the greatest national consensus in Ecuador. It is the first time that a country decides to defend life and leave oil underground. It is a historic victory for Ecuador and for the planet!

The referendum, obtained after a hard fight by civil society, took place on the same day as the first round of the early presidential election. An “important symbol”, for Gaspard Estrada, specialist in Latin America at Sciences Po, which testifies to the centrality taken by environmental issues in the country and on the continent.

“The fact that this referendum is being held alongside a presidential election shows how pioneering Ecuador is on the issue of oil exploitation, and that Yasuni has been on the political agenda for a long time,” says so Gaspard Estrada.

The protection of the Yasuni National Park had indeed been put on the agenda, as early as 2007, by former President Rafael Correa. He had then launched the Yasuni-ITT initiative – named after the three territories concerned, Ishpingo, Tambococha and Tiputini -, proposing to the UN not to exploit their important oil field provided that the international community compensates half of the financial losses caused.

Due to lack of sufficient funding – the fund only raised $13.3 million out of the expected $3.6 billion – the initiative ended up failing in 2013, and oil exploitation in the area began in 2016. Some two hundred wells had then been drilled in this UNESCO-listed biosphere reserve.

But the question has fizzled in the population. After a ten-year marathon, and despite government opposition, the Supreme Court finally recognized, last May, the validity of the 757,000 signatures collected by the environmental group Yasunidos to request the holding of a referendum. On the question.

This is the first experience of direct democracy in the country, Article 104 of the Ecuadorian Constitution allowing the organization of citizens’ initiative referendums provided that 5% of those registered on the electoral lists vote in favor of it. space of six months.

“Sunday’s referendum shows that things have changed since 2008 in Ecuador, in Latin America and in the world,” said Gaspard Estrada. This confirms that environmental and ecological concern has existed for a long time in the country, where it has been raised both by politicians and by the population. And this, even though security was at the center of the electoral campaign, during which a candidate was killed. This is not surprising: given the seriousness of the challenges of the energy transition in Latin America, the entire continent is directly concerned, and part of the solutions. »

From the Escazu agreement, which aims to protect environmental defenders, to the Belém summit, environmental issues, the issue of stopping the exploitation of hydrocarbons and that of the role of citizen participation are included in the public debate of a continent very exposed to natural disasters and guardian of the largest forest in the world.

But “if the junction between participatory democracy, climate change and environmental issues, which seems obvious, can take place somewhere, and that somewhere is likely to be in Latin America”, continues Gaspard Estrada, not everything is still not settled.

It remains to be seen how the winner of the presidential election, the second round of which will take place on October 15, will manage to compensate for the deadweight loss caused in the state budget. The oil field closed by the referendum represented about 12% of the 466,000 barrels/day produced by Ecuador, a third of whose income depends on the export of oil. The outgoing conservative government of Guillermo Lasso had thus estimated the financial loss caused at 16.47 billion dollars over twenty years.

The yes to the referendum will thus be “heavy with consequences and stakes for the country”, concludes Gaspard Estrada, even if it will undoubtedly be “difficult for the future leaders, of the right as of the left, to override the decision of the Ecuadorians . »