NATIONAL PARK YASUNI

The Yasuni National Park has an area of 9820 km2 between the Napo and Curaray rivers in Napo
and Pastaza provinces in Amazon Ecuador. The park is about 250 km from Quito and was
designated by UNESCO as Biosphere reserve in 1989. It is territory of ancestral Huaorani
indigenous people. Yasuni is home to two uncontacted indigenous tribes, the Tagaeri and the
Taromenane.

Plants and trees

Yasun is home to thousands of species of trees and plants. The park has one of the worlds
richest levels of vascular plants. It is one of nine places in the world that has over 4,000 vascular
plant species per 10,000 km2. The park contains many species of trees and shrubs and holds at
least four world records for documented tree and liana richness as well as three world records
for diversity in woody plant species. The varieties of plants include trees, bromeliads, vines,
orchids, ferns and much, much more.

Wildlife

Yasuni has the most biodiverse place on Earth, Yasun is home to thousands of species of
mammals, birds, reptiles, amphibians and insects.

The park is in the middle of a small zone where is home of amphibian, bird and plants. The park
holds a world record 150 amphibian species for places with the same landscapes. The Park has
a lot of diversity of fish with 382 species, 596 species of birds, 121 reptile species, 117 bat species
and 100000 species of insects, jaguars.

Oil reserves

Yasuni National Park is home to an estimated 800 million barrels of crude oil 20% of Ecuador's
reserves in the Ishpingo-Tiputini-Tambococha (ITT) oil fields.

In the year 2007, President Rafael Correa of Ecuador, initiated the Yasuni-ITT project. The aim
of the initiative is to conserve biodiversity, protect indigenous peoples living in voluntary
isolation, and avoid the release of CO2 emissions.

Currently the oil companies are extracting the oil using directional drilling which does not affect
biodiversity because drilled several kilometers away from Yasuni.