Ecuador has shut down one well and began dismantling infrastructure in a drilling site in a protected area of the Amazon, a year after Ecuadorians voted in a referendum to end oil drilling in a national park.
The Ecuadorian government shut down the Ishpingo B-56 well, one of nearly 250 oil wells in the 43-ITT block in the Yasuni National Park, the country’s Energy and Mines Ministry said this week.
In August last year, Ecuadorians voted against drilling for oil in the protected area of the Amazon that’s home to two uncontacted tribes and is a hotspot of biodiversity. Around 60% of voters in a referendum voted against continued oil drilling in the Yasuni National Park, which is home to the Tagaeri and Taromenani who live in self-isolation. The park was designated a UNESCO World Biosphere Reserve in 1989.
As a result of the referendum, state oil company Petroecuador is now forced to dismantle its operations.
However, the beginning of the first such dismantling took place a year after the popular vote expressed clear willingness to end oil drilling in the environmentally sensitive area.
The government has asked for an extension of five years to dismantle all operations in the Yasuni National Park and has been criticized for failing to implement the constitutional court’s order to close more than 200 wells within a year after the referendum from August 2023.
Commenting on the start of well closures, Ecuador’s Energy and Mines Minister Antonio Goncalves said in a statement, as carried by the Associated Press, “I have come to verify that the decision of last year’s referendum, where the citizens voted in favor of the closure of this field, is being complied with.”
“To comply with the closure of the ITT is not an easy job, it requires special and technical planning,” the minister added.
Amazon Watch’s climate and energy director Kevin Koenig responded to the start of the well closures that “The government is bound by its obligations to the constitutional court, which gave it a year to close 227 wells. ... The fact that they closed one yesterday does not mean that they are complying with the court order.”
By Tsvetana Paraskova for Oilprice.com
