Oil Over Amazon - We Are So Dumb
Are we really letting this happen? One of the most biodiverse areas in the world, the Amazon rainforest in Ecuador, is being handed over to an oil company.
Roads will now be built, camps constructed and drilling may begin as soon as 2016. Transforming the protected area called Yasuní into a money making machine.
"The world has failed us", says president Rafael Correa, and Ecuador has failed the world. Last year, Correa proposed to keep the oil in the ground, if the international community would pay half of the worth of the estimated 800 million barrels of crude oil.
As 'the world' has only paid $13 million rather than the proposed $3.6 billion, this plan is off the table. Despite huge uproar, represented by a multitude of petitions to prevent the drilling signed by close to 1 million people.
As the Amazon is literally the lung of our planet - yes, yours too - we gotta ask: have we completely lost our mind?!
P.S. Want to read more? This is an informed blog by Lavinia.