By Obiabin Onukwugha
Environmentalists have hailed the people of Yasuni in Ecuador for voting to keep the oil in the soil.
In the vote which took place on 20th August 2023, 5.2 million citizens of Ecuador voted in a national referendum to keep the oil in the soil at Yasuni National Park, while 3.6 million others voted to extract the oil.
Yasuni is a fragile rainforest ecosystem and isolated indigenous communities. The referendum held 10 years after the original petition by the indigenous people to fight for their rights.
Reacting to the development, Oilwatch International saluted the people of Ecuador on the historic victory, noting that the larger mission of the Yasuni people is to heal their land and restore the collective rights of peoples, and nature.
In his submission, Chairman Oilwatch International Steering Committee, Dr. Nnimmo Bassey stated that voting to keep the oil in the souls in the face of opposition from vested interests, affirms restorative justice for the entirety of the wounded Amazon and its people and sends a strong signal that another world is possible.
Continuing, Bassey argued that that the victory of the people of Ecuador is one that should be shared largely across the globe.
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“The vote on Yasuni is the real climate leadership the world sorely needs. After a long wait, we celebrate the victory of the people of Ecuador. This is a major step towards depetrolizing the world and combating climate change and its ravages. This victory is a strong signal to polluters that their impunity must stop”, he said.
He stated that the decision of the Ecuador people will now stand as a reference point for the recognition of citizens rights to protect their environment.
“This is a great lesson in the meaning of democracy and participation that places care for life at the center of the struggle to overcome multiple crises. Activists from around the world recognize that Ecuador is now a reference point for forging citizenship that looks to the future in a new and visionary way.
“For the world, and particularly for Latin America, a just transition for people and nature. Throughout Latin America, the people especially the Indigenous peoples, through resistance struggles, are confronting the pollution and damage caused by oil extraction and moving to protect territories that must be liberated”, he stated.
On his part, Coordinator of Oilwatch International, Kentebe Ebiaridor, while celebrating the outcome of the referendum stated that it is a huge victory not just for the indigenous people but for nature as well.
He applauded the bravery of the Ecuadorians and urged other communities around the world to emulate the same gesture.
“With efforts such as these, there is hope that the rights of nature can be respected and endangered species will gradually recover.
“Oilwatch agrees with the broad network of activists calling for an end to fossil fuels expansion that it is time for the fulfillment of the common but differentiated responsibilities of the polluting countries, the payment of the ecological debt from the North to the South, and the battle against false solutions to the climate crisis should see Yasuní as the territory from which genuine and just transition has signaled a start that cannot be postponed”, he added.
