Race to save Ecuador's 'lungs of the world'

The Yasuni National Park, known as

"the lungs of the world" and one of the most bio-diverse places on earth, is

under threat from oil drilling. The race is on to find the funds required to

develop new sustainable energy programmes that would leave the oil - and the

forest - untouched.

In the early light of dawn, the Napo River, running swiftly from its

headwaters in the high Andes, swirled powerfully past the bow of our motorised

canoe.

Suddenly, a dense cloud of green parrots swooped down from the canopy of the

jungle and in a cackling din started scooping tiny beakfuls from the exposed

muddy bank.

The heavy mineral rich clay, the birds seem to know, is an antidote to the

toxins present in the seeds of the forest which are a major part of their daily

diets.

As if on cue at 07:30 local time, as the first rays of

the sun touched the water, they took flight and were gone and one of the most

wonderful spectacles of Amazonian Ecuador was over.

We were drifting on the fringes of the Yasuni National Park, which has more

plant species in its million hectares (3,860 sq miles) of swamps, jungle and

marsh, than the entirety of North America.

The pygmy marmoset - the world's smallest monkey - sloths and giant otters

are among many other threatened species to find home in the park.

There are also some 300 members of the last nomadic hunter-gatherers on

earth, who choose to live in total isolation as they have for thousands of

years.

Fund-raising mission

It was a strange thought that people who have no concept of modern life could

be watching us from the impenetrable jungle close by.

In Quito, Ecuador's capital, talking to Yvonne Baki,

the government special envoy who now heads the Yasuni fund-raising mission to

save the forest from oil drilling.

Wasn't it strange to expect the global community to pay Ecuadoreans not to

despoil one their most valuable natural assets? I asked Ms Baki.

"Yasuni and the Amazon are the lungs of the world," she told me.

"The Yasuni fund will be used to finance reforestation, develop new sources

of alternative energy and other strategic sustainable development programs.

"Now we've opened it to everyone in the world, from private individuals to

corporations, as well as national governments. We are not a rich country, yet in

one day here we raised $3m - most of it from ordinary people.

"This is a unique project - what other country even thinks of leaving its oil

wealth in the ground?" Ms Baki continued.

The clock though is still ticking for Yasuni.

The government initially demanded that $100m (£64m) had to be donated by the

end of December 2011. If not oil drilling would get the green light.

The deadline has been put back but Rocque Sevilla, a former politician and

conservationist who was the first director of the Yasuni Ishpingo Tambococha

Tiputini (ITT) project, thinks that the world is not yet ready for such an

innovative concept.

Cash contributions

"It is perfectly achievable if we give enough time to the industrialised

countries to understand the huge advance in international environmental policy

that the ITT project represents," Mr Sevilla said.

"We in Ecuador too have to understand that, with the rich alternative sources

of energy we have, from hydro-electricity to solar power, we can use far less

oil," Mr Sevilla concluded.

Small yellow boxes for donors to give cash contributions are now in place in

Ecuadorean post offices and government offices. Marco Toscano, a friend who

drove me to Quito's airport to catch the plane to the jungle region, told me he

would stop by on the way home to put $100 into the fund.

"Many people in Ecuador had no idea about the importance of Yasuni. Now many

of us are determined to help in any way we can," Mr Toscano said.

In the bustling oil town of Coca, on the banks of the Napo river, I meet

Eduardo Pichilingue, who has worked monitoring the uncontacted tribes of

Yasuni.

For him it is simply a matter of payback time.

"There are areas of Ecuadorean Amazonia which have already been ruined by oil

exploitation," Mr Pichilingue said as I boarded my canoe.

"The Yasuni ITT fund will save biodiversity, isolated tribal communities, and

prevent millions of tons of carbon going into the atmosphere. I think the world

really owes us this," Mr Pichilingue continued.

Two hours downstream from Coca, I land on the edge of the Yasuni park. There

the Curi Muyu co-operative run by Kichwa Indian women demonstrates to visitors

how tribal people can live in total harmony with the jungle.

Antonia Aguinda, a small vibrant woman, shows me a fine earthenware bowl

which she made and fired in the simple kiln at the centre of the cool thatched

living space.

"The oil business is bad for us," Ms Aguinda said.

"Some people get jobs and money - some don't. It divides us against each

other. And how long will oil last - maybe 10 years?

"If we can save Yasuni then we all will have work and can continue to share

this beautiful place with people from far away."