Yasuní National Park, located in the core of the Ecuadorian Amazon, is the most biodiverse area in all of South America, a team of Ecuadorean, American, and European scientists concludes in the first major peer-reviewed study of life forms in the park, published today.
But the 13 scientists warn that proposed oil development in Yasuní threatens to destroy one of the world’s last high-biodiversity wilderness areas.
An agreement between the Ecuadorian government and the United Nations for a $3 billion trust fund that would compensate Ecuador for protecting the most vulnerable area of Yasuní by leaving the oil underground has begun to unravel.
Videos posted online by US oil company Chevron purporting to show rampant corruption among Ecuadoran officials are actually a set-up meant to taint an ongoing trial against the energy giant, an attorney in the case alleged.
“By releasing the videos, in my opinion Chevron is trying to taint a trial process that they knew they were going to lose, with the hope that the case would be dismissed in Ecuador,” Steven Donziger, an attorney for Ecuadoran Amazon communities who are suing the oil giant told reporters.
Chevron at the end of August released several grainy videos purporting to show “a three-million-dollar bribery scheme implicating the judge presiding over the environmental lawsuit” against the US oil major.
The Ecuadorans allege that Chevron dumped billions of gallons of toxic waste into the Amazon.
But a report released Thursday by the Amazon Defense Coalition found that one of the individuals said to have produced the videos was a convicted felon with “a habit of breaking the law” and with longstanding ties to the oil company.
