Yasuni National Park

e crux of the issue began in 1986 when then, Conoco Inc. entered into an agreement with the government of Ecuador to explore for oil in Block 16. Block 16 was a 500,000-acre area of untouched rainforest in the Amazon Forest (Wasserstrom, R., & Reider, S., 1997, August 18). Conoco’s plan included prospecting for oil and if oil was found to build two more tributary pipelines to tie into the already existing Trans-Ecuadorian Pipeline System (SOTE). Their plans also included a 120 km road that was to run alongside the pipelines to help with access and egress into the site. Opposition to the proposed plan was almost immediate due to the location of the site. Block 16 included the Yasuni National Park and bordered the indigenous Huaorani Indians land just 50 km to the south. The Yasuni National Park is known as one of the most biodiverse areas on the planet and the Huaorani Indians are one of six indigenous Indian tribes located in the northern Amazon basin. At the time of the incident the Huaorani Indians numbered between 850-900 and were the most isolated of the six tribes (Cummings, C., Marcus, B., Freeman, R., & Lunday, J., 1996). Conoco’s prospecting in the area paid off within three years. They found nearly 200 …show more content…
The company had developed a detailed environmental management plan (EMP), which they believed protected the environment while letting them produce oil. In May of 1990, Conoco convened a meeting at the Napo River of more than 30 Non-Governmental Organizations to analyze and tweak their EMP. The meeting backfired on Conoco and resulted in one of the NGO’s filing a writ with the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (Wasserstrom, R., & Reider, S., 1997, August 18). In January of 1991, Conoco convened a second meeting of all of the stakeholders to try and save the project by asking for help to develop a plan that everyone could agree on, but that too failed and in September of 1991 Conoco abandoned oil prospecting in