Urgent Warning From Ecuador
The Nature
Conservancy Plots With United States Embassy and
USAID to Have the Biodiversity Bill Adopted
CECILIA CHERREZ / Accion Ecologica (Ecuador) 4mar04
On Thursday, 15th January 2004, a meeting was held at the offices of The Nature Conservancy (TNC) in Quito, among national environmental NGOs, Fundación Natura, CEDA, Ecociencia, some of them TNC "partners", besides USAID and the United States Embassy in Ecuador.
The objective was to plan a strategy for high-level lobbying, to assign roles and tasks to these organizations, with the aim of putting pressure on the Minister of the Environment and the members of the National Congress to get them to adopt the Biodiversity Bill at the second debate. This Bill will allow privatization of protected areas, disregarding collective rights, enabling transgenic organisms to enter our agricultural system and live organisms to be patented.
The United States Embassy representatives in our country, including Ambassador Kristy Kenney and Larry Memmott, head of the Embassy's Economic Sector, have stated that if Ecuador wants to sit at the table in order to negotiate a bilateral free trade agreement, a series of changes must be made in our legislation regarding the environment, biodiversity, intellectual property, labour legislation, and others. Memmott has emphasized that this bilateral treaty is not only a trade agreement but also a political one.
TNC is a United States NGO, perhaps one of the wealthiest ones, which has launched a strategy for access and management of protected areas on a worldwide level. It is part of the United States strategy to control areas in countries such as Ecuador, having rich biodiversity. The donations TNC has received from the United States government amounted to 147 million dollars between 1997 and 2001, and another 142 million dollars during the year 2000, for contracts or the sale of land to the government.
TNC seeks to work with corporations, to "make environmental results coincide with business". With Chevron Texaco, a company facing a court case in Ecuador, it established a partnership for a new project covering approximately 1,000 hectares of rainforest on the southern coast of Brazil. During the launching of this agreement in September 2001, the vice-president of Texaco Brazil Exploration and Production, Antonio Correia de Pinho, stated that "Texaco has provided support to The Nature Conservancy for over 10 years." Additionally, TNC is an important part of the "Energy and Biodiversity Initiative" (EBI) among NGOs and oil companies.
At the forthcoming COP of the Biodiversity Convention, to be held in Malaysia, TNC appears together with governments, in the implementation plan of the Convention, carrying out activities in policies, finance, administration and protected areas management. It is ironic that a United States NGO should implement a convention that its country has not ratified.
TNC wants to take on the planning, coordination and control of protected areas, supported by Article 21 of the Biodiversity Law it is attempting to have adopted in Ecuador, and to have access to concessions or delegation of goods and services of the Protected Areas Heritage, as established under Article 29 of the Bill.
TNC is one of the largest landowners in the world, both regarding its contracts for the management of protected areas and the purchase of lands it is promoting. TNC possesses over 36.9 million hectares of land all around the world.
We demand that pressure on Ecuador should be stopped. We need to establish a common front to stop the arrogance, abuse and impositions made by the United States; we need to dismantle the political and military strategy controlling areas. We need to unmask institutions such as TNC, which are a part of this strategy. Please, send a letter stating your protest to:
- The Nature Conservancy: comment@tnc.org
- Ecuadorian Ministry of Foreign Affairs: gabminis@mmrree.gov.ec
- Presidency of the Republic: monica.iza@presidencia.gov.ec
This letter was originally sent by Cecilia Cherrez, Accion Ecologica in Ecuador, email: <instituto@accionecologica.org
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