Monday, February 7, 2011

What happens when a Socialist with a degree in Economics becomes President?

The Answer: Rafael Correa.

3 comments:

Colin Elliott said...

The ITT initiative to protect the Yasani park and nearby forested locations is a powerful model for developing countries. The challenge will be maintaining their promises or Certificates of Guarantee with great pressure from oil companies to drill into their billion plus barrels of oil. Certain natives see the illegal lumber trade as a more dangerous problem than oil drilling, but with the ITT initiative protecting 20 percent of Ecuador's land, the policy may save hot spots of mammal, amphibian, reptile, bird, and forest from certain loss if oil rigs were to contaminate the forest. Hopefully international institutions and other countries devoted to the green movement can look past political agenda in drilling more oil and pay Ecuador to prevent deforestation and preserve valuable habitat. It seems Rafael Correa has found a genius model to be payed half of what his nation would earn were they to drill, a model in the world's best interest, the interest of his people, and maintaining ecotourism by protecting one of the world's most diverse places.

Peter O'Donnell said...

This is an amazing compromise between the Ecuadorian government and the rest of the world and as mentioned in the article this will hopefully set a trend for other developing countries. However, the countries mentioned in the article all sit on top of huge fossil fuel reservoirs, but what about developing countries that are rich in biodiversity or another environmental service but lack fossil fuel deposits? Would they be able to collect funds from developed countries by expressing interest in logging a forest or damning a river? It will be interesting to see over the next decade if this does become a trend or other countries decide to take alternative routes.

Peter O'Donnell said...

This is an amazing compromise between the Ecuadorian government and the rest of the world and as mentioned in the article this will hopefully set a trend for other developing countries. However, the countries mentioned in the article all sit on top of huge fossil fuel reservoirs, but what about developing countries that are rich in biodiversity or another environmental service but lack fossil fuel deposits? Would they be able to collect funds from developed countries by expressing interest in logging a forest or damming a river? It will be interesting to see over the next decade if this does become a trend or other countries decide to take alternative routes.