Lori Gorczynski

Chapter 1

Key Players and Conflicting Goals in the Development Trajectory

In 2007 President Rafael Correa proposed a new idea in the fight against climate change:

The Yasuni-ITT Initiative. The Yasuni-ITT initiative was a plan to keep Ecuadors untapped oil

reserves in the ground if other countries would contribute 50 percent of the revenues that

Ecuador would have made from twenty years of extraction in a trust fund. If this plan had

succeeded, the trust fund would have been used for projects related to the environmental

goals of the country. International conservations supported the Yasuni-ITT initiative because it

was a win-win situation. The initiative would have protected the global environment and

would also have provided an economic resource to a country who has an economy built on

natural resource extraction and environmental degradation.

Like other counties of the Global South, Ecuadors governments environmental goals

are not aligning with the economic growth goals. What sets Ecuador apart from the Global

South and makes it an interesting place to study environmental issues is the fact that it is

extremely biodiverse and attracts the attention of transnational environmentalists with

resources. In addition, its 2008 Constitution upholds the rights of nature to a level that no other

constitution had granted before. Under these conditions Ecuador has a higher chance of

developing in a sustainable manor as compared to other countries in the Global South.

Sustainability is the idea that environmental protection and economic growth are not

incompatible (Lewis, 5). The triple bottom line of sustainability is a framework consisting of

environmental protection, economic development, and social justice. This framework coincides
with the Plan Nacional para el Buen Vivir (National Plan for Good Living). The plan rejects the

traditional development trajectory where economic growth is placed above all, and instead

focuses on good living. Buen vivir and Sumak Kawsay are concepts that utilize sustainable

development to create a better quality of life for the people of Ecuador.

The treadmill of production (TOP) theory includes three key actors: corporations, the

state, and citizen workers. The theory explains how the powerful political and economic elites

benefit from increased production, which in turn causes environmental degradation and social

dislocation. Corporations exist for profit, and so they favor economic growth and resist

regulations that protect the environment and citizen workers. The state favors economic

growth to accumulate tax revenues from corporations, but it also has a responsibility to protect

the citizen-workers. Citizen workers have the potential to be the change-makers and can apply

pressure to the state through nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) and social movement

actors (SMAs).

Schainbergs original formulation described the relationship between production

expansion and ecological limits as socioenvironmental dialectic. He explained three types of

syntheses which all depend on how the actors manipulate the TOP. Economic synthesis refers

to a state where there are barely any regulations concerning the environment and there is

unregulated production. Managed scarcity synthesis refers to the state creating and enforcing

regulations to protect the environment, while ecological synthesis is a state that limits

producers access to the environment based on sustainability and buen vivir.

 Reflection

Although the Yasuni-ITT initiative failed, I would have supported it if I were Ecuadorian.

This proposal, along with similar proposals Ecuador had made in the past such as debt-for-

nature swaps, would do nothing but good for Ecuador and the global community. I can only

imagine the Ecuadorians who had issues with it were the ones who worked in resource

extraction, but in order to move down as sustainable path changes will have to be made to the

development trajectory that would not please everyone.

After the proposal failed, Correa stated that the world had failed Ecuador. On the

contrary, according to Americas Quarterly, President Correa is partially to blame. An article

states, The governments inflexibility and lack of transparency over how to administer Yasun-

ITTs funds discouraged potential donors. Similarly, his efforts to attract investment and expand

the countrys oil sector invited their mistrust (Marchan and Vallejo, 2013). When the initiative

was established Germany and other countries were ready to donate nearly 50 percent of the

desired goal, but only under the condition that the funds be managed with their input by a third

party. Correa refused this, which led many Ecuadorian environmentalists to drop out of the

initiative and discredit it.

The economic synthesis discussed in this chapter is the synthesis most industrial

societies follow prior to the rise of environmental protest and activists. The managed scarcity

synthesis most closely characterizes the modern era of environmental protection in the US.

The ecological synthesis is rarely supported by modern U.S. policies. (Schnaiberg, 1993). Citizen

workers in the U.S also have a range of views on the environment, and will be able to apply
pressure to the TOP. As we become more educated about environmental issues I can only hope

my generation push towards sustainable development and buen vivir.

 References

Marchan, E., & Vallejo, J. (2013, August 27). Ecuador's Yasun-ITT Initiative: The Fate of

One of the World's Most Biodiverse Regions. Retrieved September 12, 2017, from

http://www.americasquarterly.org/ecuador-yasuni-itt-initiative-fate-of-biodiverse-regions

Schnaiberg, Allan. The Political Economy of Environmental Problems and Policies:

Consciousness, Conflict, and Control Capacity. Advances in Human Ecology, vol. 3, May 1993.