Officials explain the minimal impacts on exploitation of the Yasuní

The members of the Biodiversity Committee of the Assembly have more arguments about te reasons to approve the exploitation of the block Ishpingo, Tambococha and Tiputini (ITT), located in the Yasuni National Park.

Yesterday, Rafael Poveda, Minister of strategic sectors, Pedro Merizalde, Minister of natural non-renewable resources, the Minister of environment, Lorena Tapia, and the Manager of Petroamazonas, Oswaldo Madrid, attended The Assembly to explain the technical foundations collected in the report which was submitted to the President of Ecuador, Rafael Correa, and which was delivered to the Assembly regarding the request to declare the blocks 31 and 43 of national interest.

Poveda said that the debate on the exploitation o blocks 31 and 43 was carried out within the framework of the new oil era in “harmony” with the community, the State, workers and the environment, and indicated that the infrastructure that will be  used for the oil exploitation of the ITT field will be underground, to thus avoid harmful effects on that area of the Amazon considered as one of the most megadiverse of the world.

For her part, Minister Tapia recalled that if the exploitation  causes destruction of the environment, the oil companies will have to take care of environmental remediation, since according to the official the priority will be to take care of the intangible zone of the Park.

However, these explanations did not pleased all the legislators, because several of them challenged, for example, the distance between  Ishpingo and Tiputini, as well as potential environmental impacts.