Pay To Preserve: The Global Politics of Ecuador’s Yasuní–Itt Proposal

Abstract

The case to leave nearly 900 million barrels of oil underground inEcuador's Amazonian Yasuni National Park demonstrates the significanceof transnational networks in the institutionalisation of alternativenorms for global environmental governance. Through complex local andglobal networks, the Yasuni Fund, governed with UNDP, has created apotential model of replication for other developing, megadiversecountries that are trapped in the petro-curse and yet seek solutionscontributing towards sustainable development and social justice. Whatmakes the Yasuni-ITT initiative unique is its call to protect theenvironment and the indigenous societies that live within it by payingfor avoided carbon emissions. Such a plan unites global climate changegoals for a post-Kyoto solution that involves the South with Ecuador'sconstitutional and normative base of living in harmony with nature,sumak kawsay in Quichua (el buen vivir in Spanish) or `the good life'.