Ecuador tries novel balance of oil and environment - Reuters

[Eugene]

Source: Reuters

Ecuador tries novel balance of oil and environment
Sun Jul 22, 2007 8:29PM EDT

By Alonso Soto

EL COCA, Ecuador (Reuters) - Under pressure to preserve the
environment while at the same time ease the poverty of his
people, Ecuadorean President Rafael Correa has come up with
an unusual solution.

Correa wants wealthy nations to pay Ecuador $350 million a
year in exchange for leaving an estimated 1 billion barrels of
oil under the ground in the pristine Yasuni rainforest.

-snip-

Environmentalists around the world have celebrated the idea,
apparently the first of its kind, as a way to preserve a delicate
environment without creating an economic burden for the cash-
strapped nation where six in ten people are poor.

-snip-

But critics wonder if the politically unstable Ecuador, which relies
on oil for nearly half of its export revenues, can keep this promise
to the international community or whether authorities are trying
to have their cake and eat it too.

-snip-

Read more: http://www.reuters.com/article/inDepthNews/idUSN1130935920070723

[phantom power]

1. That's interesting. So the idea is, "we need to make money..."

if you can pay us some money, we can keep the oil in the ground. Otherwise, we have to pump it out and sell it for revenue."

It reminds me a bit of that couple on the intertubes who was asking for $50K in donations to keep their baby. Otherwise, they were going to have an abortion, for financial-viability reasons.