An indigenous man navagates along the Napo River as it runs through the Yasuni National Park in the Ecuadorean Amazon region, 300 km east of Quito in 2007. Ecuador said Saturday it had reached a deal with the United Nations Development Program under which donor countries will compensate Quito for leaving oil reserves in a national park untouched.(AFP/File/Rodrigo Buendia)
QUITO (AFP) - Ecuador said Saturday it had reached a deal with the United Nations Development Program under which donor countries will compensate Quito for leaving oil reserves in a national park untouched.
"The signing will be held next Tuesday," Ecuador's foreign ministry said of the deal, which prevents the country from exploiting the estimated 846 million barrels of crude in the Yasuni national park.
The deal was proposed by Ecuador's President Rafael Correa in 2007 as a way to compensate developing countries that take environmentally conscious steps.
Negotiations had centered on the amount of compensation Ecuador would receive, with Correa insisting his nation get at least 3.5 billion dollars -- about half the value of the estimated reserves in the protected area.
In January, an Ecuadoran official told AFP that between 1.5 and 1.7 billion dollars had been pledged so far, with Germany (910 million) and Spain (241.8 million) leading the pack of donors that included France, Sweden and Switzerland.
Correa has said that by preserving the Yasuni park, which is home to several nomadic Indian tribes, Ecuador will spare the Earth some 410 million metric tons of carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions that contribute to global warming.
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