Bo derek oil drilling
Actress Bo Derek is an ambassador for a new initiative to save part of the Amazon rainforest and the last remaining voluntary isolated communities, including the Waorani tribe that currently lives there.
The Guardian reported that the recent discovery by the state oil company Petroecuador at Ecuador's Yasuni National Park's Ishpingo Tambococha Tiputini (ITT) oil field is valued at up to $10 billion.
Derek told The Huffington Post that Ecuadorian President Raphael Correa called on the world in 2006 to contribute half of what the oil was then worth to the country. If successful, $3.6 billion over 12 years would be contributed towards social development, renewable energy, clean up and reforestation. The country's sacrifice: drilling would be banned at Yasuni, which sits on 20 percent of the country's oil reserves.
To get the project under way, $100 million dollars is needed by the end of 2011. Derek said achieving this has been a relatively easy process. Last year, the United Nations Development Programme jumped on board and established the Yasuni ITT Trust Fund where donations can be securely made and managed.
"Unfortunately, this hit during this economic crisis, so it it is really impressive how many countries are contributing. I think it's symbolic and a show of good faith that the world cares about this," Derek said.
"I think the easy route would be to let an oil company come in and drill, but [the president] won't have it," she said. "As a developing country, it is a big sacrifice for them. Yet 70 percent of the people support this initiative in Ecuador."
Conserving the rainforest will also prevent the release of 1,207 million metric tons of CO2 emissions from drilling, the burning of oil and deforestation, according to yasunisupport.org.
In 2008, Ecuador became the first country to give constitutional rights to nature, Rights of Nature reported.
In 2010, Ivonne Baki, who created the Galapagos Conservancy Foundation after the 2001 oil spill, was called by Correa to lead the Yasuni National Park ITT negotiations. She told HuffPost that support for the project was even coming from oil companies.
Ecuador is the home of a battle raging since 1998 with oil company Texaco, now Chevron. The company has been blamed for "environmental contamination and illnesses resulting from its operation of an oil consortium from 1972 to 1990 in the Amazon," according to the Associated Press.
Read more: huffingtonpost
