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Ecuador Wants Us to Pay for the Amazon

This dilemma cuts to the core of environmentalism today. Ecuador is asking for international compensation to leave alone a major oilfield in the heart of the Amazon. Ecuador's president says he will wait up to one year for a response before drilling. At stake are not only plant and animal species, but also the homeland of several tribes living in voluntary isolation. These tribes are among the fiercest on Earth, renowned for giant spears.

"Ecuador doesn't ask for charity," said President Rafael Correa, "but does ask that the international community share in the sacrifice and compensates us with at least half of what our country would receive, in recognition of the environmental benefits that would be generated by keeping this oil underground." That could come out to about $350 million per year.

Environmental groups are in disagreement. To pay or not to pay?

Arguments against: 1) Biodiversity is priceless. Destroying this part of the Amazon is evil. But paying for abstention would implicitly legitimize its exploitation. 2) Ecuador might be ethical enough to leave it alone anyway. If we pay, who else will come out of the woodwork to demand compensation what they might have left alone? There's no money pot to pay for everything. 3) Paying for what should be a given might exacerbate the situation. A slightly-related case: When well-meaning Christian groups bought modern-day slaves in Africa in order to set them free a few years ago, they put enough cash into the system to promote more slave raids, after the market would have died on its own. Talk about a road to hell paved with good intentions.

Argument for: 1) For environmentalism to work, we need to integrate it into the economy, not just morality and law. 2) With $4,500 income per capita, Ecuador is among the poorest half of nations. Oil is its biggest source of income. 3) Again, biodiversity is priceless. Ecologists and economists have estimated that the value of all natural ecosystems across the world--in terms of their services to humanity--is about 30 trillion dollars a year. That's more than the GNP of all nations combined. But in this case Ecuador is making it easy for us by asking for just half of potential oil revenue. So the question becomes, who would pay, and how?

Comments

More arguments against:

1) What guarantee is there that Ecuador won't turn around and allow drilling a few years down the road anyway? The kind of option rights over large territories that are being contemplated here are notoriously subject to being politically revoked.

2) Paying the government of Ecuador legitimates the idea that the drilling rights are the government's to sell. But the land rightfully belongs to the indigenous people (or "fierce tribes" with "big spears," to use the breezily racist terminology from the post and news story).

Posted by: Stentor on 04/26/07 at 10:19 PM Respond

Ecuador does have a pretty good record with the Galapagos.

Perhaps what we need is for the environmental groups to get together and follow the Nature Conservancy pattern of buying the land outright and making it a park.

Posted by: Misanthropic Scott on 04/27/07 at 5:12 AM Respond

Does this apply only to Ecuador or to poor nations? It seems the US could demand payment for not developing ANWR. China could demand payment for not building their planned coal plants. It's not like only Ecuador has to reconsider development.

Posted by: Eric Ferguson on 04/27/07 at 11:41 AM Respond

i've heard of this argument from the developing world as far back as 10 years ago. i think it's a provacative proposal and is a subliminal indictment of the developed world's appetite for cheap oil and transfer of the conservation burden to the developing world.

eric, alaskans get direct cash for the oil drilled annually...

it's about opportunity cost and the trend of some in using neoliberalism in turning as they say the tortilla over. in this case, using capitalism against the capitalist...intriguing..

Posted by: livingplanet on 04/27/07 at 12:30 PM Respond

I say the largest polluting corporations be taxed to pay any environmental efforts that ecuador or any other country requests. But then, who would enforce this? Is there/should there be some sort of world sustainability Council/Court

Posted by: sbuck on 04/27/07 at 8:09 PM Respond