Latest Yasuni National Park Stories

HARRISON, N.J., Oct. 8, 2012 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- The biggest rivalry in Ecuadorian club soccer is coming to New York's Red Bull Arena next week to raise awareness and support for Ecuador's innovative and global project, the Yasuni-ITT Initiative, to protect one of the most bio-diverse regions on Earth. Ecuadorian clubs Club Sport Emelec and Barcelona Sporting Club will go head to head on Wednesday, October 10 at 7:00pm ET in a historic game organized by the Ecuadorian...

QUITO, Ecuador, Jan. 6, 2012 /PRNewswire/ -- Following a December 20 end-of-year evaluation meeting, Ecuador's President Rafael Correa resolved his commitment to extend the country's Yasuni-ITT Initiative by setting a new fundraising challenge of securing US$291 million in contributions annually in 2012 and 2013. The decision came prior to an assessment required by the terms of the Trust Fund agreement signed with the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) as part of...

QUITO, Ecuador, Nov. 18, 2011 /PRNewswire/ --With less than two months remaining to reach its year-end fundraising goal, the Yasuni-ITT campaign is launching a global civic engagement campaign with major events on November 20th to raise awareness of Ecuador's Yasuni-ITT plan. The campaign will allow individuals in Ecuador and around the globe to contribute to the initiative to keep underground nearly 1 billion barrels of oil located in the most biodiverse section of rainforest in...

NEW YORK, Sept. 27, 2011 /PRNewswire/ -- US$ 52.9 million in public and private sector donations in support of Ecuador's unique Yasuni-ITT conservation project were announced Friday, September 23, at the United Nations in front of an audience that included international dignitaries, business leaders, environmentalists, and members of Ecuador's indigenous Huaorani tribe. The high-level meeting was co-hosted by United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon and Ecuadorian President Rafael...

NEW YORK, Sept. 12, 2011 /PRNewswire/ -- With only four months remaining to raise $100 million, the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) announced today that it is now accepting donations of all sizes to its trust fund to preserve in perpetuity a vital section of Ecuador's Yasuni National Park in the Amazon Rainforest, under which lie nearly 1 billion barrels of oil. The effort, part of Ecuador's Yasuni-ITT Initiative, seeks to channel global support to save this unique piece of land...

Hunters are emptying Ecuador's Yasuni National Park of wildlife via a single road built by oil companies, scientists say. Communities existing inside and around the park are changing their customs to a lifestyle of commercial hunting, said Esteban Suarez, lead author of a Wildlife Conservation Society study. The road is being used to carry large numbers of peccaries, tapirs, monkeys and other species to markets in more populated areas, Suarez said in the journal Animal Conservation. The...

WCS study reveals that road construction for oil extraction in park becomes a wildlife pipelineWhat harm can a simple road do in a pristine place such as Ecuador's Yasuni National Park, home to peccaries, tapirs, monkeys and myriad other wildlife species? A great deal, it turns out. Specifically, it can turn subsistence communities into commercial hunting camps that empty rainforests of their wildlife, researchers from the Wildlife Conservation Society and the IDEAS-Universidad San Francisco...

By Ilene Cox, Redlands resident; owner of Redlands Travel Service on West State Street In the past few weeks many Redlands Daily Facts readers have come up to me in markets and stores telling me how much they enjoyed my articles on driving across the U.S. with my daughter Erin. I'm complimented they enjoyed the articles and decided to share my articles on Ecuador and the Galapagos Islands when I traveled with my older daughter, Heather, in August 2005. When the girls were growing up we...

QUITO, Ecuador (Reuters) - Indians and environmental protesters marched through Ecuador's capital on Tuesday to demand that Brazilian state oil firm Petrobras suspend operations in an oil block located in one of the Andean nation's most important Amazon national parks. More than 150 members of the Huaorani tribe joined representatives from other indigenous and ecological groups in Quito to press Petrobras to stop activity they said was damaging the Yasuni National Park's fragile ecosystem....