| A Toronto-based environmental organization is calling for a complete moratorium on oil development in Ecuador because of ecological and human-rights concerns, something that could have major implications for Calgary-based oil company Encana’s operations in the country.
The Toronto Environmental Alliance is echoing the call for a moratorium first made by a number of organizations in Ecuador, saying the delay will give the country a chance to rethink plans for oil exploration in the sensitive Amazon basin.
"The goal is to create some breathing space," says Keith Stewart of the Toronto Environmental Alliance. "The oil is not going anywhere… and there’s a lot of questions about how things are being done right now and that’s not the context in which you want to have such a debate."
Stewart says indigenous groups within the country opposed to oil development need time to examine more sustainable revenue-generating alternatives, such as eco-tourism, and debate the fundamental idea of oil exploration. He’s optimistic the recent election of President Lucio Gutierrez with support from aboriginal groups will make the Ecuadorian government more open to the idea.
Annette Hester, a University of Calgary expert on Latin America, however, says optimism about any moratorium may be misdirected wishful thinking. She says she has heard the complaints levied against oil and pipeline companies in the country, but says oil revenue is simply too important to the fragile economy of the economically depressed country to prevent exploration.
"Ecuador, for all intents and purposes, is in a very delicate economic balance," Hester says. "To call for a moratorium on exploration, the practical consequence is you have a severe curtailment of GDP (gross domestic product). I can’t imagine how that would benefit Ecuador as a whole."
Hester says organizations concerned about oil production should instead work with oil companies to ensure oil exploration and production is undertaken cleanly and safely.
"I think (Gutierrez’s) first responsibility is to the people of Ecuador as a whole and the economic consequences are dire," Hester says. "I go to conferences… and all the northern delegates talk about the environment and all the southern delegates talk about hunger. I think people have to keep it in perspective."
Encana says it doesn’t understand all the fuss. The company is one of the biggest foreign investors in the country, and provides most of the financial backing for a pipeline recently built in Ecuador to transport future oil. It also has plans to take part in exploration in the Amazon basin and denies that its operations are destroying the environment or infringing human rights
It says it’s employing the same environmental and human rights standards its uses in Canada and says oil production will benefit the whole country.
"When we operate in Ecuador... Chad or Timbuktu, we’re going to operate with the same set of values we use at home," says Encana’s Dick Wilson. "We want to be able to point back and say ‘This is how we do things.’"
Stewart, however, says he doesn’t think the call for a moratorium is unrealistic, even considering about a billion dollars was just spend building the new pipeline. He says most of the money generated by oil production will be whittled away on corruption and foreign debt before it makes it to citizens of the country anyway.
"There are alternative community-based developments that don’t involve such huge dollars but keep a lot more in the community," Wilson says. "There is oil in... other places. Why are we going looking for oil in a UNESCO (United Nations Educational, Social and Cultural Organization) biosphere reserve?" |
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