Yasuni National Park

Topics: National parks of Ecuador

Yasuni National Park is a national park in Ecuador that lies on 9,820 square kilometres between the Napo and Curaray rivers in Napo and Pastaza provinces in Amazonian Ecuador, around 250 km from Quito. The park was designated a UNESCO Biosphere Reserve in 1989. It is a territory of the Huaorani.

This national park is primarily a rain forest.

The bat Lophostoma yasuni is endemic to this park.

Drilling controversy

There has been some controversy with the construction of "oil" roads for the exploitation and production of petroleum within the park. Famous scientists including Jane Goodall have protested against this construction.

Galo Chiriboga, Ecuador's Minister of Oil, said on December 10 2007 that unless the international community provides Ecuador with at least $350 million dollars a year by June 15 2008 in compensation for money the country would gain through oil drilling, bidding on the park's Ishpingo-Tiputini-Tambococha oil fields would begin.

References

Greenberg, J. A., S. C. Kefauver, H. C. Stimson, C. J. Yeaton, and S. L. Ustin. 2005. Survival analysis of a neotropical rainforest using multitemporal satellite imagery. Remote Sensing of Environment 96(2):202-211.

Hennessy, L. A. (2000). Whither the Huaorani? competing interventions in indigenous Ecuador. Masters thesis, Berkeley, University of California, Berkeley.

Lu, F. E. (1999). Changes in subsistence patterns and resource use of the Huaorani Indians in the Ecuadorian Amazon. PhD dissertation. Chapel Hill, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Pitman, N. C. A. (2000). A large-scale inventory of two Amazonian tree communities. PhD dissertation. Durham, Duke University.