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Ecuador: Pais Petrolero!

Ecuador: Pais Petrolero!. Matt Taylor GGS 12(2) Mrs. Aliphat. Oil and the Economy. Oil, in short, makes the world go around. Our oil reserves are drying up. As such, oil is becoming more and more sought after, and more and more expensive.

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Ecuador: Pais Petrolero!

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  1. Ecuador: Pais Petrolero! Matt Taylor GGS 12(2) Mrs. Aliphat

  2. Oil and the Economy • Oil, in short, makes the world go around. • Our oil reserves are drying up. • As such, oil is becoming more and more sought after, and more and more expensive. • Oil companies are searching for new, not yet exploited oil reserves within which they can drill for oil. Such is the case in a section of the Amazon rainforest located in Ecuador.

  3. Oil and Ecuador’s Economy • When oil was first discovered in Ecuador in the 1960s, the country was ill-prepared to handle the sudden onset of easy money. • As such, the government overspent thinking they had found a sustainable income, which was not the case. • When the reserves which were being exploited ran dry, the country couldn’t handle the lack of money to which they had become so accustomed. • As a result, the country had to borrow heavily from foreign creditors in order to keep up their newly acquired lifestyle. • This created a huge national debt. • The quality of life in Ecuador plummeted, as everyone went from rich to poor so quickly. • The government became corrupt, and things got steadily worse.

  4. There are an estimated 775 million barrels of oil left underground in a section of the Amazon rainforest. Ecuador has authorized oil companies, both domestic and foreign, to explore the area in search of oil. This is a bad thing. The profits from the oil will, at best, equal less than a fifth of the nation’s debt. This will ultimately make the country’s situation worse, as it won’t really alleviate their debt, forcing them to continue borrowing, and making the debt almost insurmountable. Oil in the Amazon

  5. The Environment • Obviously, oil is bad for the environment. • In this situation though, the oil expedition will destroy a large piece of the already disappearing rainforest. • Not only that, but it will put the lives of several indigenous peoples at risk. • On a global scale, the pollutants from the oil will only make global warming and other similar problems even worse than they already are.

  6. A Sustainable Alternative • The sustainable use of the rainforest could be valued at up to $2000 an acre. • The area being explored for oil could be used primarily as a carbon sink, but also for ecotourism. • This could translate into a sustainable income, equal to much more than the oil expedition’s expected profits in the long run. • Not only would this be better for the country and its debt, but for the entire world. The area’s use as a carbon sink would help to combat global warming.

  7. Sources • www.uweb.ucsb.edu/ ~eschniter/AMAZONIA/oil.html • www.texacorainforest.org/ culprit.htm • “Perilous Prosperity” by Chris Jochnick from the New Internationalist

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