This story was originally published by The Guardian and is reproduced here as part of the Climate Desk collaboration.

For Muskan, the arrival of summer in Delhi is the “beginning of hell.” As temperatures in her cramped, densely populated east Delhi neighborhood often soar above 45 degrees Celsius (113 Fahrenheit), she dreams of only one thing: air conditioning.

During the day, in the tiny, windowless kitchen where she cooks for her family, she often feels like she will collapse from the heat and her health deteriorates. Nights are even more painful. Sleep becomes almost impossible in their single-room apartment.

Her three children, sticky and uncomfortable, cry out begging to be cooled down, and she wakes every five minutes to douse them and herself with cold water and wet scarves.

The single fan hanging from the flaking yellow ceiling does little to ease their woes and the putrid stench from the sewage and festering rubbish means opening a window is impossible. In any case, as she points out: “It’s usually even hotter outside.”

In her previous marriage, the 30-year-old had tasted the sweet relief of air conditioning in Delhi’s increasingly blistering summers. But after her husband died, her family remarried her to a scrap dealer, whose earnings are barely enough to pay for rent and food. The costs involved in renting or buying an air conditioner (AC) are far beyond their means, yet she fears for her family without one.

“I can’t keep seeing my children suffer like this,” she says. “I keep promising that next summer we will get an AC but the reality is I know we can’t afford it. But as more and more people around us buy ACs, the hotter it gets outside. Soon, I don’t know how we will survive.”

India’s market for ACs is growing faster than almost anywhere else in the world. A mixture of rising incomes, rising temperatures in an already hot and humid climate, and increasing affordability and access are driving more and more Indians towards buying or renting one as soon as they can afford it – and sometimes even when they cannot.

Between 8 percent and 10 percent of the country’s 300 million households – home to 1.4 billion people – have an AC, but that number is expected to hit close to 50 percent by 2037, according to government projections. A report by the International Energy Agency (IEA) predicts that by 2050, India will have more than 1 billion ACs in operation.

Vaibhav Chaturvedi, a fellow at the council on energy, environment and water, a Delhi thinktank, was among those who believed AC penetration would exceed all current predictions.

“Traditionally, air conditioning was viewed as a luxury commodity but not any more,” he said. “It is seen as a necessity to survive. The way the market is developing, it could be that 100 percent of households have AC by 2050.”

Others are more sceptical that ACs will become so widespread among India’s poor people, and have raised concerns that access to sufficient cooling, particularly to work, sleep, and stay healthy, could drive up the already rampant inequality in the country even further.

The problem of keeping cool in increasingly hotter temperatures — while not exacerbating the climate crisis in the process — is not India’s alone. Globally, AC numbers have increased to more than 2 billion. More than 20 percent of all the world’s electricity is used by fans or ACs, a proportion that is expected to soar further in coming years.

It could have significant implications for the global effort to keep temperature rises within 1.5 degrees C. Around the world, ACs are still largely inefficient and use a huge amount of electricity mostly generated by fossil fuels.

En masse, they can drive up outside temperatures as they pump out heat from indoors to outdoors. They contain chemical refrigerants which, if leaked, can be almost 1,500 times more environmentally destructive than CO₂.

At this year’s UN COP28 climate summit, which took place in Dubai, the issue was at the forefront of discussions as some of the world’s largest economies signed up to the first ever global cooling pledge, led by the UN environment program.

So far, more than 60 signatories including the US, UK, Nigeria, and Brazil have signed on to cut their cooling emissions by 68 percent by 2050. India, however, has not joined.

There is little doubt in the minds of experts and citizens that India’s need for ACs is both essential and unstoppable. March 2022 was the hottest since 1901 and there were more than 200 heatwave days across the whole year. This February was the hottest in 122 years and in June a deadly heatwave in the states of Uttar Pradesh and Bihar killed at least 100 people, which is probably a radical undercount.

In July, during the pre-monsoon humidity in Delhi the wet bulb temperature hit a record high of 30 degrees C — when it hits 35 degrees C, the human body, no matter how healthy, can not survive for more than a few hours as it can no longer cool itself down.

Experts commonly point to “cooling degree days” to demonstrate India’s overwhelming – and largely unmet — requirement for cooling: a figure calculated by the number of hours in a day that temperatures go above 18 degrees C.

By this calculation, India has more than 3,000 cooling degree days per year, one of the highest in the world. If applied to all 1.4 billion people in the country, it comes to more than 3 trillion annually — a figure four times higher than China and five times higher than the US.

“People are going to buy ACs, that’s a given,” says Satish Kumar, president and executive director of the Alliance for an Energy Efficient Economy.

“The latent demand for cooling is massive. What we have to focus on is how to chart a more sustainable and energy efficient path, one where air conditioning is not the be all and end all solution.”

Extreme heat is particularly problematic in cities such as Delhi, home to 32 million people, where the number of hot days is expected to increase by 33 percent, heatwaves will be 30 times more likely and overall temperatures could rise by as much as 5 degrees C. By 2028, it will also become the most populous city on the planet, according to UN projections.

A phenomenon known as “urban heat islands” has already emerged across India’s capital. Here, surfaces of homes, roads and rooftops are predominantly covered with concrete, brick, steel and tarmac, which absorb and trap the heat. Homes are often high-rise buildings packed tightly together and there are few trees to provide shade.

With an increasing number of ACs also belching out hot air into these confined, unventilated urban areas, temperatures sometimes rise 6 degrees C above the city average.

In the congested alleyways of old Delhi, in a neighbourhood known as Chandni Chowk, historically people have had ways of adapting to Delhi’s hot summers. Kamla, 65, a chai seller, lives in a traditional courtyard home, about a century old, which has thick walls to keep the inside cool, as well as several terraces and an outdoor kitchen for ventilation. Though Chandni Chowk is deemed an urban heat island, and often becomes one of the hottest places in Delhi, in the hot summer months Kamla and her children and grandchildren rely only on a single fan and sleep outside at night.

“AC is not a necessity for me, I have lived with this heat all my life” she says. “It is difficult but it is life. But people are different now, they can’t bear the summers for even a few days. I have seen many people are buying ACs as a status symbol even when they can’t afford it.”

But in Shaheen Bagh, another heat island neighborhood in Delhi where people mostly live in small modern high-rise buildings, Nazim Khan, 54, who has run his AC-rental business for more than a decade, described the rise in temperatures, desperation and demand he had witnessed first-hand.

“It’s a matter of survival,” he says. “I would say 50 percent of the apartments in this neighborhood are unlivable without an AC: they are small with no windows or ventilation even for cooking. I see families making huge sacrifices to afford one.”

For most families in this neighborhood, renting a secondhand AC is the only affordable option, though it often leaves them with the most inefficient models, which come with much higher electricity costs and are more prone to leaking gas.

It has become common for several families or groups to collectively rent out an AC to share the cost and then all sleep together in a single room for the summer months.

Khan rents out each of his 50 ACs, which are more than eight years old, for 7,000 rupees ($84) for a season that runs from April to October. During those months, his team of laborers run around the city non-stop installing and repairing the machines, which often break down in the extreme temperatures.

“We are like emergency workers,” he said. “Every summer I see more people dying. They say it was from one disease or another but we all know that it’s the terrible heat that leads to their death.”

The vast amount of electricity that India’s growing number of ACs will require presents a significant challenge. Already during peak summertime hours, ACs have accounted for 40 percent to 60 percent of total power demand in the cities of Delhi and Mumbai. According to the IEA, by 2050, the amount of power India consumes solely for air conditioning is expected to exceed the total power consumption of all of Africa.

Most of this electricity is produced by burning coal, and while India’s capacity from renewables such as solar power is expanding, it is happening nowhere near as fast as the growth of the AC market, which will soon outpace all other household appliances.

India already struggles to meet its current power demand, with long power outages and load-shedding inflicted mostly on poorer districts during peak summer hours.

With peak demand likely to increase by another 60 percent in the next seven years – half of which would come from ACs, fans, and coolers – the government has also looked to boost coal production to help fill in the gaps, which is likely to drive up India’s CO₂ emissions even as it commits to net zero by 2070.

Nonetheless, many are working to ensure that India does not become overwhelmed by its growing cooling demand. In 2019, the Indian government became the first in the world to implement a national cooling action plan, which was described as ambitious in scope even if the subsequent implementation is moving slowly.

Individual states such as Tamil Nadu have also recently announced their own. The efficiency of ACs, seen as crucial to reducing the energy demand, is also increasing faster every year thanks to various initiatives, which will gradually also make the secondhand market more efficient.

Yet Rajan Rawal, a professor in energy performance at CEPT University in Ahmedabad, was among those emphasizing that ACs should not be considered the only solution to staying cool. “Buildings and urban planning, urban design have an important role to play,” he says.

India’s cities may already be hot and overcrowded, but estimates say that the number of buildings in India is expected to double in the next 20 years.

As India undergoes this huge, largely unregulated development boom, vast numbers of new homes and buildings are being constructed in the cheapest and quickest way possible; mostly from brick, steel, and concrete, which can quickly turn homes to ovens in the summer.

Little thought is given how to keep them cool or ventilated, except by assuming residents will install an AC. Meanwhile, the materials traditionally used in India to build heat-deflecting houses are largely being neglected.

While new building efficiency codes have been introduced, they are not mandatory. In India’s market, where price drives everything, few developers are willing to voluntarily take on any extra cost or added time to make new homes more suitable to extreme heat. Even cheap measures such as painting roofs white to deflect heat are still not widespread.

“Modern buildings are not a good skin,” says Rawal. “They are inefficient and drive up temperatures. Wherever the possibility exists, we must build climate response-sustainable or energy-efficient buildings to reduce the individual need required to cool down.”

Rajan also said that growing over-reliance on ACs in India put people at risk of losing their high tolerance and adaptation to heat, which will become increasingly more vital in coming years.

“It is a scientific fact that we will have more and more heatwaves, more and more severe conditions,” he says. “What AC does is it stops providing an opportunity to adapt. If we don’t sweat, if we don’t shiver for a few minutes every day, we will land ourselves in trouble.”

Aakash Hassan contributed reporting.

This story was originally published by Grist with the headline ‘A matter of survival’: India’s unstoppable need for air conditioners on Dec 16, 2023.

Esta nota fue producida por Grist y fue publicada en colaboración con InfoAmazonia. Read this story in English.

Albeiro Mendúa estaba todavía en la escuela primaria cuando el bloqueo empezó. Durante diez días, en octubre de 1998, centenas de indígenas A’i Cofán se unieron para impedir que trabajadores petroleros ingresaran a la comunidad. Indignados por el crudo que se había derramado en sus arroyos y ríos, los A’i Cofán demandaban el cierre de Dureno 1, el pozo responsable de la contaminación, y que Petroecuador — la empresa petrolera estatal de Ecuador — abandonara el área.

“Antes de que llegaran las compañías petroleras, la comunidad siempre vivió en paz y todos éramos amigos”, dijo Mendúa. “Cuando era niño, salía a jugar y había armonía entre las familias y los líderes, pero ahora eso ha cambiado”.

En el transcurso de la protesta, el ejército ecuatoriano fue llamado para vigilar la situación. Pero al final, la presión ejercida por A’i Cofán se volvió demasiado para la dirección de la empresa: el gobierno aceptó sus demandas y accedió a cerrar temporalmente el pozo.

En 1969, Texaco perforó el pozo Dureno 1 dentro del territorio del pueblo indígena A’i Cofán. Pero para 1992, el pozo cambió de manos, convirtiéndose eventualmente en propiedad de Petroecuador, al igual que el patrimonio mineral; en Ecuador, las comunidades indígenas como A’i Cofán suelen tener títulos de propiedad de la tierra, pero los minerales subyacentes, como el petróleo y el gas, el cobre y el oro, pertenecen al Estado.

Desde el descubrimiento del petróleo, la aldea A’i Cofán de Dureno en la parte noreste de la Amazonía ecuatoriana ha sido amenazada por una creciente industria energética junto con un explosivo aumento de la población, la expansión de la agricultura e intensa deforestación. Más de dos tercios de la deforestación de las últimas dos décadas ocurrieron entre 1990 y 2000. Al mismo tiempo, la población de la región aumentó a un ritmo del cinco por ciento cada año.

Tras el cierre del pozo Dureno 1, los A’i Cofán vivieron en paz. A la edad de 18, Mendúa recibió una beca para asistir a la universidad en la ciudad de Cuenca, a 432 millas (695 km) de distancia. Se graduó en 2010, con la Licenciatura en Ciencias de la Educación e Investigación en Culturas Amazónicas. Su siguiente meta: llevar lo que aprendió de vuelta a casa en defensa de su comunidad.

Cuando llegó a su hogar, notó un cambio. Petroecuador había regresado, y esta vez, tenían una nueva táctica: ofrecer incentivos a la comunidad, dividir y perforar. En lo que se refería al desarrollo económico o la protección de las tierras, las familias comenzaron a pelear y los amigos estaban en conflicto.

En aquella época, su comunidad sobrevivía cazando, pescando y recolectando frutos, y Mendúa trabajó para desarrollar proyectos que protegieran su forma de vida y sus derechos. Durante algún tiempo, Mendúa fue vicepresidente de la Confederación de Nacionalidades Indígenas de la Amazonía Ecuatoriana, una organización indígena que representa a cerca de 1,500 comunidades en toda la Amazonía, y ahora es líder de la Fundación Hijos de la Selva, una organización ambiental enfocada en los derechos indígenas.

“Seguimos luchando y resistiendo”, señaló Mendúa. “Pero los líderes deben estar atentos y nosotros necesitamos defendernos”. 

El pueblo A’i Cofán posee títulos legales de más de 1,500 millas cuadradas (3,885 km²) de tierra en cinco territorios soberanos del noreste, a lo largo de los ríos Aguarico y San Miguel, que albergan densos bosques tropicales ricos en plantas y animales. A lo largo de Aguarico, que comienza en las montañas de los Andes y recorre 230 millas (370 km), canales estrechos y lagunas sirven de hogar a delfines, manatíes y caimanes.

En 2008, el Ministerio del Ambiente, Agua y Transición Ecológica de Ecuador, también conocido por su acrónimo MAE, se acercó a los A’i Cofán con una propuesta para proteger sus tierras de origen, pagando a los habitantes para que cuiden sus bosques.

Al principio, muchos de los pobladores rechazaron la idea, temiendo que fuera una estrategia del gobierno ecuatoriano para obtener control de su territorio. Sin embargo, después de varios intentos de cortejar a los A’i Cofán y de reunirse con miembros de la comunidad durante asambleas abiertas, el pueblo A’i Cofán decidió de manera unánime firmar un acuerdo con el MAE, y en 2008, hicieron precisamente eso, uniéndose al proyecto nacional llamado Socio Bosque, un programa crucial en la promesa del gobierno para desarrollar iniciativas que protejan la naturaleza y los ecosistemas ante el desarrollo.

“La decisión se tomó en conjunto, con la participación de los jóvenes, ancianos, mujeres, expertos y líderes”, contó Mendúa. “Comenzamos con 27 millas cuadradas (70 km²)  de área de conservación, y fue allí donde levantamos la guardia. Trabajamos duro en la recuperación de la flora y fauna, y la comunidad respetó los términos”.

Hoy en día, la región de Dureno es uno de los 222 sitios de Socio Bosque a lo largo de Ecuador, y consta de 6,330 millas cuadradas (16,395 km²) de tierra protegida, de las cuales, casi 5,605 millas cuadradas (14,517km²) pertenecen a comunidades indígenas y a otros convenios de terratenientes. En Dureno, los A’i Cofán reciben alrededor de $54,000 cada año a través de Socio Bosque, y el dinero se usa para capacitar a guardias forestales, mejorar las estrategias de vigilancia, y proteger el territorio de mineros ilegales y otras amenazas.

“Los A’i Cofán siempre han sido guardianes de los bosques sin recibir nada a cambio”, dijo Medardo Ortiz, quien también es miembro y extesorero de la comunidad indígena A’i Cofán de Dureno. Dice que el acuerdo les permitió “obtener recursos económicos y cubrir las necesidades de las familias”.

Los bosques dentro del territorio A’i Cofán son algunas de las últimas zonas de bosques prístinos que quedan en la Amazonía ecuatoriana y abarcan casi 7,000 millas cuadradas (18,129 km²). A través del programa Socio Bosque, unos 800 miembros de la comunidad reciben pagos, colectivamente, para proteger 30 millas cuadradas (78 km²) de tierra de la tala y la apropiación de tierras agrícolas, preservando al mismo tiempo el terreno. El dinero es una ganancia inesperada en una región donde 60 por ciento de la población vive por debajo del umbral de la pobreza, y el programa funciona. Para 2025, el programa pretende proteger otras 7,000 millas cuadradas (18,129 km²) de bosque.

“En general, los índices de deforestación en el noreste de la Amazonía ecuatoriana se han mantenido relativamente sin cambios o incluso han disminuido en algunas áreas desde comienzos de los años 2000”, indicó Santiago Lopez, profesor asociado de geografía y medio ambiente en la Universidad de Washington, Bothell. “Socio Bosque es un programa muy útil y ha permitido a individuos y comunidades beneficiarse financieramente de la preservación de sus bosques”.

Pero la expansión del desarrollo energético en Dureno y sus alrededores, de nuevo, amenaza con debilitar el proyecto Socio Bosque, potencialmente arruinando décadas de esfuerzos de conservación y poniendo en peligro millones de dólares de financiamiento internacional ligados directamente al programa estatal de áreas protegidas.

Desde 2012, Petroecuador ha perforado 70 nuevos pozos a través de 155 millas cuadradas (401 km²) de selva amazónica ecuatoriana, creando el campo petrolero más grande del país e incrementando la producción en aproximadamente 75,000 barriles por día. Y en 2017, el gobierno de Ecuador anunció planes para expandir la perforación.

El año pasado, Ecuador produjo aproximadamente 482,000 barriles de petróleo por día, cuya mayoría provenía de la región amazónica. Más del 60 por ciento de la Amazonía ecuatoriana está bajo concesión petrolera con casi 28,000 millas cuadradas (72,520 km²) de bloques petroleros en operación. Para 2025, se espera que la producción aumente hasta 756,000 barriles por día.

Cerca de Dureno, unos 70 pozos petroleros perforados antes y después de 2012 rodean el área protegida de Socio Bosque y dos están produciendo petróleo dentro de los límites establecidos. Los frecuentes derrames de petróleo de dichos pozos polucionan las tierras y aguas que están conectadas a Socio Bosque, contaminando vías acuáticas y causando graves pérdidas y daños a la biodiversidad de la región, amenazando los últimos bosques subdesarrollados de la región. Entre 2012 y 2022, se reportaron un estimado de 959 casos de daños causados por petróleo en 51 diferentes tierras indígenas alrededor del país. 

“Todos los desechos y contaminación de ese campo van hacia los ríos que atraviesan la comunidad”, comentó Alexandra Almeida, coordinadora de asuntos petroleros en Acción Ecológica, una organización de defensa ambiental con sede en Quito, Ecuador. “El pueblo A’i Cofán de Dureno está muy afectado. Ya no pueden cazar ni pescar. Es realmente trágico”.

De forma más amplia, un total de 68 pozos petroleros están ubicados dentro de áreas protegidas regidas por los acuerdos de Socio Bosque, o dentro de los límites de las 31 millas (50 km) protegidas, mientras que tres campos petroleros propiedad del Estado se superponen a las tierras de Socio Bosque. Un campo, el bloque Shushufindi, generó cerca del 12 por ciento de la producción total de petróleo crudo del país en 2022.

A medida que la exploración del petróleo comienza a devorar los bosques de Ecuador, Socio Bosque brinda una ventana a cuán protegidas están en realidad las zonas cuando se enfrentan al encanto de las ganancias por petróleo y gas. 

“Pienso que tiene buenas intenciones”, dijo Kevin Koenig, Director de Clima, Energía e Industrias Extractivas de Amazon Watch. “Existen un montón de preguntas en torno a si el programa está realmente logrando lo que debe lograr”.

En 2008, el pueblo Shuar Arutam se convirtió en la primera comunidad en hacer convenio con Socio Bosque. Con territorios entre los ríos Santiago, Zamora y Kuankus en la región sureste de Ecuador, el acuerdo cubrió cerca de 800 millas cuadradas (2,072 km²) de tierra y brindó apoyo a casi 100,000 personas en 27 comunidades Shuar.

Los Shuar obtuvieron un ingreso anual de $452,000 que se usó para conservar los bosques, mejorar las finanzas de la comunidad y construir instalaciones educativas para sus hijos. Pero a pesar de firmar contratos con el gobierno, en 2019, funcionarios ecuatorianos otorgaron varias concesiones mineras a compañías de propiedad canadiense, china y australiana dentro de las áreas protegidas establecidas.

“A las familias que nunca se habían beneficiado de las instituciones públicas del Estado se les dieron recursos para la educación, salud, desarrollo productivo”, señaló Jamie Palomino, presidente de la comunidad Shuar Arutam. “La idea era buena, pero el Ministerio del Ambiente, Agua y Transición Ecológica se aprovechó de esta oportunidad para distraernos y seguir avanzando con los permisos para las concesiones mineras, que no era la visión de nuestro pueblo”.

• 

• 

A lo largo de 2020, la expresidenta Josefina Tunki y otros activistas presentaron una serie de demandas al gobierno ecuatoriano, con el objetivo principal de que se retiraran los contratos. Como respuesta, fueron objeto de amenazas y acoso por parte de las compañías mineras y el Estado. 

En 2020, las autoridades ecuatorianas llevaron a cabo redadas violentas en la comunidad y ese mismo año, Josefina Tunki, quien ganó notoriedad como líder clave en la resistencia comunitaria, recibió amenazas de muerte del vicepresidente de Solaris, Federico Velásquez, quien supuestamente le dijo, “Si sigues molestándome con denuncias nacionales e internacionales, tendremos que degollar a alguien”.

Como resultado del otorgamiento de concesiones por parte del Estado dentro de áreas regidas por contratos de Socio Bosque, el MAE rescindió su contrato con el pueblo Shuar Arutam, alegando que la comunidad no cumplió con los requisitos del programa. Según un informe publicado por Amazon Watch sobre Socio Bosque, investigadores calificaron la implementación “plagada de irregularidades e inconsistencias”.

“El gobierno falló en brindar apoyo para la adecuada implementación del acuerdo e incluso permitió que compañías mineras ingresaran en el territorio [del pueblo Shuar Arutam]”, apuntó el informe. “La terminación del programa ha creado aún más dificultades económicas [para los pueblos Shuar Arutam], creando división entre las comunidades y familias que podrían conducirlos a los brazos de las compañías mineras  — un resultado perverso de un programa destinado a la protección del bosque”.

Torsten Krause, profesor titular de ciencias de la sostenibilidad en el Centro de Estudios de Sostenibilidad de la Universidad de Lund, ha investigado los beneficios de conservación del programa Socio Bosque.

“La gente estaba confundida porque el Estado venía y les pedía que se unieran a este plan de conservación por 20 años y luego, el mismo Estado, tan solo una semana después, regresó y les dijo que estaban buscando abrir una mina o subastar los derechos de licencia para la extracción de petróleo allí”, indicó Krause. “Ellos estaban como, ‘Espera un segundo, ¿quieren que firmemos este contrato, pero luego también aprobarán las concesiones petroleras?’. Eso es confuso”.

Cada contrato de Socio Bosque tiene una vigencia de 20 años y el MAE paga a los propietarios de tierras para proteger su territorio. Para garantizar su cumplimiento, la oficina central de Socio Bosque, con sede en Quito, supervisa cada sitio mediante sensores remotos y visitas semestrales al campo. Cada vez que las comunidades violan los términos del contrato, se pierde un pago. Si la violación es provocada por alguien ajeno a la comunidad – como una maderera ilegal, por ejemplo – los beneficiarios deben reportar el incidente a la oficina central en un plazo de cinco días o perderán el pago. Después de tres violaciones consecutivas, Socio Bosque puede dar por terminado el contrato y obligar a los propietarios de tierras a que regresen un porcentaje de los pagos recibidos desde el principio del contrato. 

En casos donde los propietarios de tierras no cumplan con las obligaciones contractuales debido a proyectos auspiciados por el Estado, las comunidades siguen comprometidas a pagar.

“Reconocemos que todavía existen desafíos que atender”, dijo Luis Suárez, vicepresidente de Conservación Internacional en Ecuador. “Confiamos en que, a través de esfuerzos coordinados entre el gobierno, organizaciones de la sociedad civil y la cooperación técnica internacional, estas preocupaciones pueden abordarse respetando los derechos de las comunidades locales y conservando la naturaleza”. 

Los terrenos de Socio Bosque son considerados zonas protegidas bajo el Sistema Nacional de Áreas Protegidas del Ecuador y forman parte del esquema nacional REDD+ —un programa internacional voluntario para mitigar el cambio climático, desarrollado por la Convención Marco de las Naciones Unidas sobre el Cambio Climático, destinado a reducir la deforestación y degradación forestal pagándoles a las comunidades para que detengan el desarrollo y conserven los ecosistemas. El objetivo es incentivar la conservación, mejorar las condiciones de vida de las comunidades involucradas con el trabajo, y reducir las emisiones de gas de efecto invernadero en aproximadamente 52 millones de millas cuadradas (más de 134.6 millones de km²) de áreas forestales en 60 países. 

Las organizaciones indígenas y de la sociedad civil a menudo rechazan programas que otorgan pagos por servicios ecosistémicos o ambientales, también conocidos como PSA, que entregan a los propietarios de tierras y comunidades transferencias monetarias para mejorar los resultados de conservación, como es el caso del programa REDD+ de la ONU, porque dicen que “no es una solución real para enfrentar el cambio climático”.

Un estudio reciente del Proyecto de Comercio de Carbono de Berkeley sobre las principales metodologías empleadas por REDD+ halló que los gerentes de proyecto suelen “estirar la realidad y crear una gran cantidad de créditos de carbono para proyectos que tienen impactos climáticos cuestionables”. Sus hallazgos levantan dudas sobre la efectividad y credibilidad de los proyectos de REDD+, y los expertos piden mayor transparencia en la contabilidad de carbono y mayores salvaguardias para las comunidades indígenas.

En Ecuador, el programa Socio Bosque también tiene sus críticos. En lugar de proteger tierra para la conservación, la Confederación de Nacionalidades Indígenas del Ecuador, o CONAIE, y la Confederación de Nacionalidades Indígenas de la Amazonía Ecuatoriana, también conocida como CONFENIAE, argumentan que Socio Bosque es una amenaza para las tierras, tradiciones e identidades indígenas. Para ellos, el programa no aborda los verdaderos generadores del cambio climático, como la extracción y quema de combustibles fósiles, la agroindustria y la deforestación, que amenazan el medio ambiente y sus medios de vida.

En una carta dirigida a la Secretaría General de la ONU en 2011, CONAIE señaló: “Nos oponemos a las políticas que se están desarrollando en Ecuador, como el plan Socio Bosque, así como a las nuevas regulaciones ambientales que apuntan a comercializar nuestros bosques, agua y biodiversidad. Y de manera similar rechazamos las iniciativas privadas de apropiarse tierras y vender servicios ambientales”. Para combatir el cambio climático, las políticas deben respetar los derechos de los pueblos indígenas y detener la expansión del petróleo y la agroindustria, argumentaron.

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Más de $50 millones se han invertido en el programa Socio Bosque desde que comenzó el proyecto. La mayor parte del dinero proviene de Ecuador, pero lo complementan instituciones internacionales y donadores privados.

En 2014, Banco del Pacifico, un banco del sector privado con sede en Ecuador, firmó un contrato de 3 años con Socio Bosque para otorgar $8,635 al año para conservar y restaurar los ecosistemas de Ecuador. Ese mismo año, General Motors firmó un contrato de 5 años, en el que prometió transferir $23 por cada 2.4 acres de áreas protegidas cada año. Pero, por mucho, el donador más grande del programa es

KfW, un banco de inversión y desarrollo de propiedad estatal alemana, que firmó un contrato con Ecuador en junio de 2010 y que ha otorgado al programa un total de $29.4 millones.

“El marco legal existente de Ecuador crea la posibilidad de superponer áreas mineras con áreas de Socio Bosque, lo que, desde nuestra perspectiva, definitivamente no es lo ideal”, comentó un representante de KfW. “Consideramos que, en general, el programa Socio Bosque es una historia de éxito en la protección de los bosques tropicales. Sin embargo, definitivamente también seguiremos considerando cuidadosamente cualquier cambio futuro, impactos no intencionales o fallas técnicas del programa, antes de cualquier financiamiento adicional”.

Entonces están los detalles. Cuando Petroecuador quiera perforar en busca de petróleo en un nuevo sitio, deberán obtener una licencia ambiental. Para ello, deberán conseguir un certificado de intersección del MAE que corrobore que el área propuesta para la perforación no se superpone con un área protegida a nivel nacional. Los terrenos de Socio Bosque son consideradas zonas protegidas por el Sistema Nacional de Áreas Protegidas del Ecuador, pero Petroecuador lo niega. “Nuestras licencias ambientales no requieren certificados de intersección para áreas privadas dentro del programa Socio Bosque”, afirmó un representante de la compañía, añadiendo que “Socio Bosque no es una área protegida”.

De acuerdo con Verónica Andrade Estrada, directora técnica de Socio Bosque, en áreas donde existen concesiones otorgadas por el gobierno de Ecuador para el desarrollo del petróleo y gas, “estas áreas se retiran del polígono de conservación, ya que dentro de las propiedades bajo conservación no es posible desarrollar industrias extractivas”, indicó.

“De acuerdo con nuestro entendimiento del marco legal, un incumplimiento del acuerdo debido, por ejemplo, a actividades patrocinadas por el gobierno, no da como resultado que un socio incumpla el contrato y, por lo tanto, el socio no tiene que reembolsar el incentivo”, dijo un representante de KfW. “En este caso, debería llegarse a una recesión del contrato de común acuerdo”.

Los representantes de Socio Bosque no respondieron a las solicitudes de una aclaración o preguntas detalladas sobre la necesidad de las comunidades de pagarle al Estado por sus actividades de desarrollo en áreas protegidas contractualmente.

Si bien Socio Bosque canaliza $7.9 millones en inversiones por año para el medio ambiente, ese ingreso palidece en comparación con las ganancias del petróleo: en los primeros tres meses de 2023, el gobierno ecuatoriano recibió $1,500 millones en ingresos por las exportaciones de petróleo de Petroecuador.

“Para mantener una coexistencia armoniosa con los proyectos que se implementan en beneficio del desarrollo del país, Socio Bosque realiza una revisión exhaustiva de los planes de manejo ambiental que se presentan previo a la entrega de licencias que se superponen con las áreas de Socio Bosque”, señaló el Ministerio del Ambiente, Agua y Transición Ecológica. En esos casos, se establecen “medidas preventivas, mitigantes y compensatorias específicas” y, “si el Estado prioriza la extracción de recursos, el área es retirada del esquema de conservación”.

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En 2021, cuando Guillermo Lasso, el presidente saliente de la nación, llegó al poder, anunció que quería “extraer hasta la última gota de beneficio de nuestro petróleo” en Ecuador. En 2022, su administración comenzó a negociar con Silverio Criollo, expresidente A’i Cofán de Dureno, para tener más pozos dentro de los límites de Socio Bosque –una negociación que encendió divisiones dentro de la comunidad.

“Fue un golpe duro”, afirmó Albeiro Mendúa. “Nos quejamos con el gobierno y dijimos que teníamos una acuerdo firmado y que debían respetarlo”.

Tan solo meses después de reunirse con Criollo, el gobierno ecuatoriano autorizó la construcción de 30 nuevos pozos petroleros por Petroecuador, y para junio de 2022, los

A’i Cofán de nuevo habían construído un bloqueo para evitar que los trabajadores petroleros ingresaran a la comunidad. El enfrentamiento se prolongó hasta el 12 de enero de 2023, cuando miembros de las Fuerzas Armadas y la Policía Nacional de Ecuador trataron de desalojarlos, lo que dio como resultado una confrontación violenta que dejó seis personas gravemente heridas.

Luego, el 26 de febrero, el hermano de Mendúa, Eduardo, uno de los rostros más prominentes dentro de la resistencia de la comunidad contra Petroecuador y el entonces presidente Criollo, fue asesinado afuera de su casa, en su jardín.

La Confederación de Nacionalidades Indígenas del Ecuador, o CONAIE, y otras organizaciones no gubernamentales, junto con integrantes de la familia Mendúa, han acusado a Petroecuador de ser responsable del ataque. Petroecuador niega las acusaciones añadiendo que la compañía ha “estado en conversaciones constantes con las comunidades y los A’i Cofán están plenamente informados sobre la intervención de la compañía petrolera en su territorio”, dijo la gerente subrogante de Petroecuador, María Soledispa. 

“Dureno se ha convertido en una zona de conflicto”, señaló Mendúa. “He tenido que dejar la comunidad para vivir en otro lugar por mi seguridad personal”.

Mendúa ahora pasa sus días en el exilio de Dureno, haciendo campaña en contra de las operaciones petroleras a distancia. Vivir en su casa, dice, conlleva constantes amenazas de muerte por parte de trabajadores petroleros y miembros de la comunidad a favor de la exploración petrolera, y el asesinato de su hermano es un recordatorio de cuán reales son esas amenazas.

En agosto, el 60 por ciento de los ecuatorianos votaron para liberar al parque nacional Yasuní, un área protegida de 3,948 millas cuadradas (10,225 km²) y hogar de varias comunidades indígenas aisladas, de la exploración petrolera en un referéndum histórico. El resultado, que requerirá que Petroecuador deje más de 726 millones de barriles de petróleo bajo tierra, fue aclamado como una victoria por los defensores del medio ambiente alrededor del mundo.

“Esto nos demuestra que el más grande consenso nacional en este momento es la defensa de la naturaleza, la defensa de los pueblos y nacionalidades indígenas, la defensa de la vida”, dijo Pedro Bermo, portavoz del colectivo ambiental Yasunidos, en un comunicado.

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Pero Mendúa se siente menos esperanzado en torno a los resultados. Dice que las comunidades en territorios fuera de Yasuní no están a salvo. “Estamos seguros, o al menos yo lo estoy, de que el gobierno intentará entrar por la fuerza”.

Mendúa dice que ahora está trabajando para idear proyectos alternativos que la comunidad pueda emprender para proteger sus hogares y mantener alejadas a las compañías petroleras. Él y otros están luchando por el derecho legal de gestionar más de sus territorios históricos y ancestrales, algo que creen fortalecería la supervivencia del pueblo Cofán y representaría una gran victoria para la conservación.

“Tenemos la capacidad de manejar y defender estos territorios”, aseguró Mendúa. “Nuestra lucha no solo es por los Cofán — también estamos luchando contra el cambio climático”.

This story was originally published by Grist with the headline En la Amazonía ecuatoriana, el petróleo amenaza décadas de esfuerzos de conservación liderados por indígenas on Dec 15, 2023.

You may not remember the tornado that swept through western Mississippi on the night of Friday, March 24, but Eldridge Walker does. 

Walker, who is both the mayor and the funeral director of the town of Rolling Fork, said it’s still hard to fathom the destruction it caused in his town. The twister killed 17 people and injured another 165. It destroyed dozens of houses as well as City Hall, the fire and police stations, post office, elementary school, high school, and hospital — not to mention Walker’s home and business. The damages exceeded $100 million, and the cost of the storm that spun off the cyclone approached $2 billion.

Nine months later, the recovery remains a work in progress. 

“It’s still going on, and it’s going to be going on as long as I’m mayor,” he told Grist this week. The tornado drew a flurry of national attention and a spot on Good Morning America, but aid was slower to arrive. Just a handful of the more than 700 people who lost their homes have managed to rebuild, and dozens still live in hotels, waiting on the federal government to find them temporary housing.

“They’ve got a lot going on to facilitate what they do for cities and municipalities after storms,” Walker said of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, or FEMA, which had to respond to a string of disasters in the months after Rolling Fork’s devastation. “I’m just pleased with the fact that I’ve had communication with them.”

While Walker waits, the destruction of Rolling Fork has vanished beneath headlines about wildfires, floods, and heat waves elsewhere. Millions of people have come to feel his pain: A November poll found that three-quarters of Americans experienced some kind of extreme weather in 2023.

By some metrics, this year was among the worst for climate disasters. The U.S. saw more weather events that caused at least a billion dollars in damage than at any other time on record. The emergence of an El Niño weather pattern pushed global temperatures higher than ever before in recorded history and caused a spate of deadly heat waves as well as catastrophic floods. 

By other metrics, it was no more than an average year for a world that has warmed by more than 1 degree Celsius. No large hurricanes made landfall in big cities, and the western continental United States stayed free of megafires thanks to a wet winter. The year’s extreme weather has so far caused a cumulative death toll of around 373 people, much lower than last year’s tally of 474. Recent years, such as 2017, which saw multiple major hurricanes including Harvey and Maria, were many times deadlier and more expensive.

Even though media coverage of disasters tends to focus on superlatives such as “largest,” “deadliest,” and “most,” it’s not always helpful to compare one year to another, said Samantha Montano, a professor of emergency management at Massachusetts Maritime Academy and an expert on disaster response policy.

“I don’t know that there’s a ton of value in comparing one year to the next,” she said. “The way that disasters unfold, and the way that climate change unfolds, is in averages — we’re looking at how things evolve over time. When you start taking snapshots year to year, you know, that’s less useful.”

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, or NOAA, has maintained a tally of billion-dollar disasters since 1980, providing some of the most comprehensive data about the economic impact of extreme weather. This year saw 25 such disasters, the most on record, and NOAA’s map shows they left almost no corner of the country untouched. Maui saw the deadliest wildfire in modern U.S. history in August, the South baked beneath a monthslong drought, and Vermont experienced weeks of summer flooding. These catastrophes caused more than $80 billion in damages combined.

The number of billion-dollar disasters is increasing even when NOAA adjusts for inflation: There have been an average of eight-and-a-half such events annually since the agency started maintaining records in 1980, but the last three years have seen an average of 18 cross the billion-dollar threshold each year. 

There are a few key reasons for this, says Adam Smith, the researcher at NOAA’s National Centers for Environmental Information who leads the agency’s work on such disasters. The first and most obvious is that climate change is making such catastrophes more severe.

“A large majority of our country was built and designed during the 20th century, but now exists in a 21st-century climate,” he said. 

At the same time, said Smith, more people have moved into areas that are vulnerable to fires and flooding, raising the overall risk profile of the country and ensuring higher damages.

“You also have increasing vulnerability,” he said. “Where we build, how we build, and even more importantly, how we rebuild is increasingly important.”

Perhaps the most notable development from this year is the rising number of “severe convective storm” events in the South and the Midwest. These thunderstorms often spew hail and spin off tornadoes as they rip across open land. There were at least a dozen such storms that caused a billion dollars or more in damages this year, many of them in the spring and early summer, accounting for around half of the 10-figure disasters recorded in the last 12 months. 

In a report that surveyed disasters in the first half of 2023, the insurance group Aon listed the emergence of these storms as one of the most surprising developments.

“As opposed to large, catastrophic events, which occasionally drive extreme losses from primary perils,” these storms are “characterized by higher (and increasing) frequency of smaller and medium-sized events.” Research suggests that convective storms tend to form more often and do more damage as the climate warms, since hotter air can hold more moisture.

In most years, the costliest disaster is a hurricane or a wildfire, but this year it was a drought in the central and southern United States: The dry spell stretched from Illinois to Louisiana, causing more than $10 billion in damages as it killed staple crops and forced farmers to sell livestock that had become too expensive to feed. It also lowered water levels on the Mississippi River, making river freight costlier. The fact that a drought claimed the top spot highlighted how much worse the year could have been, said Smith.

Even so, numbers don’t tell the whole story. Many of the most dramatic and harmful disasters of the year aren’t on NOAA’s roster at all, because the damage they caused is difficult to quantify. The most obvious example is the string of heat waves that baked cities from Chicago to Phoenix, which endured a month of consecutive 110-degree days. Searing temperatures sent hundreds of people to the hospital and killed dozens, but didn’t do as much damage to property and crops as a storm. 

The wildfire smoke that blanketed eastern cities as it drifted in from Canada is another example. Even brief exposure to all those particulates can cause serious health effects for the elderly and people with lung disease, but such impacts are almost impossible to quantify.

Beyond the immediate financial impact for people who lose their homes, the knock-on effects can be harder to see. A big wildfire or storm can cause financial turmoil for insurance companies, which may raise prices or flee dangerous markets, as has happened in Florida and California. A widespread crop failure can raise domestic and international food prices. And the destruction of school buildings can cause learning loss for students, as happened in the rural communities outside Oklahoma City after a tornado outbreak in April.

“This is a solid, conservative estimate, using the best public- and private-sector data, but we’re not able to measure everything,” said Smith. “So the losses are actually higher than what we’re able to quantify.”

Even so, the news from 2023 isn’t all bad. The annual toll of climate disasters continues to rise, but the U.S. is spending more money than ever on climate adaptation. FEMA handed out more than $2 billion this year to help communities protect against coastal flooding and armor homes against wildfires, and these payments will continue in coming years under the 2021 bipartisan infrastructure bill. FEMA had to pause these projects over the summer as its all-important disaster fund ran low due to congressional inaction, but they’ve resumed.

An unexpected disaster can often come with a kind of silver lining, since it encourages local officials to rethink how they build and prepare for future losses. A big flood can expose hidden risk in a neighborhood or a certain kind of infrastructure. New York state invested in larger sea walls after 2012’s Superstorm Sandy, for instance, and Colorado’s legislature has recently tried to curb sprawl development after the 2021 Marshall Fire.

This was the case in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, which saw historic flooding in April when a sudden storm dropped more than 25 inches of rain on the city in a single day, submerging the airport and inundating several neighborhoods. 

“I think everybody was taken off guard,” said Jennifer Jurado, the chief resilience officer for Broward County, which encompasses Fort Lauderdale. “Whether it was the county or the city, I don’t think that anyone could have fathomed what was about to take place.”  

The city’s main thoroughfare went underwater, as did many commercial boulevards, and the on-ramps leading to the main interstate highway flooded too, which meant no one could move. The county had already been trying to raise money to upgrade its stormwater system in residential communities, but now officials knew they also had to invest in more pumps and drains for key highway entrances and commercial districts.

“Had we had an evacuation order, nobody could have left,” said Jurado. “That’s a startling circumstance to think that under the right conditions, you can’t evacuate.”

The April storm offered Fort Lauderdale a glimpse of what’s to come. In an eerie coincidence, the county’s resilience committee held a previously scheduled meeting hours before the flood. Jurado happened to unveil new computer models that showed what municipal flooding could look like in a world with three feet of sea-level rise, a large hurricane storm surge, and a big high tide. They predicted a flood that largely resembled the one that was about to happen right outside the county offices. Later, when Jurado tried to drive to the airport, she almost lost her car in the water. 

Montano says the federal government needs a similar wake-up call. Congress has long punted on reforming FEMA and the nation’s disaster relief policy, but it’s only a matter of time before there’s a disaster bad enough that legislators feel pressure to act. That catastrophe didn’t arrive this year, but it is surely coming.

This story was originally published by Grist with the headline Extreme weather cost $80 billion this year. The true price is far higher. on Dec 15, 2023.

This story was produced by Grist, co-published with InfoAmazonia and is part of The Human Cost of Conservation, a Grist series on Indigenous rights and protected areas. Lea esta nota en español.

Albeiro Mendúa was still in elementary school when the blockade began. For 10 days in October of 1998, hundreds of Indigenous A’i Cofán peoples joined together to stop oil workers from entering the community. Outraged by crude oil that had spilled into their streams and rivers, the A’i Cofán demanded the closure of Dureno 1, the well responsible for the contamination, and that Petroecuador — the state petroleum company of Ecuador — leave the area.

“Before the oil companies came, the community always lived in peace and we were all friends,” said Mendúa. “As a child, I went out to play and there was harmony between families and leaders, but that has now changed.”

Over the course of the protest, the Ecuadorian military was called in to monitor the situation. But in the end, the pressure exerted by the A’i Cofán became too much for the company’s management to handle: The government accepted their demands and agreed to temporarily close the well. 

In 1969, Texaco drilled the Dureno 1 well inside the territory of the A’i Cofán peoples. But by 1992, the well had changed hands, eventually becoming Petroecuador’s, as did the mineral estate; in Ecuador, Indigenous communities like the A’i Cofán often hold title to land, but the minerals underneath, like oil and gas, and copper or gold, belong to the state. 

Since the discovery of oil, the A’i Cofán village of Dureno in the northeastern part of the Ecuadorian Amazon has been threatened by a growing energy industry coupled with explosive population growth, the expansion of agriculture, and intense deforestation. More than two-thirds of the deforestation in the last two decades took place between 1990 and 2000. At the same time, the region’s population grew at a rate of about 5 percent each year.

After the closure of the Dureno 1 well, the A’i Cofáns lived in peace. At the age of 18, Mendúa received a scholarship to attend university in the city of Cuenca, 432 miles away. He graduated in 2010, with a degree in Educational Sciences and Research in Amazonian Cultures. His next goal: take what he learned back home in defense of his community. 

When he came home, he noticed a change. Petroecuador had returned, and this time, they had a new tactic: offer incentives to the community, divide, and drill. When it came to economic development or the protection of lands, families had begun fighting and friends were in conflict.

At that time, his community survived by hunting, fishing, and collecting fruits, and Mendúa worked to develop projects that would protect their way of life, and their rights. For some time, Mendúa was vice president of the Confederation of Indigenous Nationalities of the Ecuadorian Amazon, an Indigenous organization that represents nearly 1,500 communities across the Amazon, and now leads the Fundación Hijos de la Selva, or Children of the Rainforest Foundation, an environmental organization focused on Indigenous rights.

“We continue to fight and resist,” Mendúa said. “But the leaders must be vigilant, and we need to defend ourselves.”

The A’i Cofán peoples hold legal title to more than 1,500 square miles of land across five sovereign territories in Ecuador’s northeast, along the Aguarico and San Miguel rivers, that contain dense tropical rainforests rich with plants and animals. Along the Aguarico, which begins in the Andes Mountains and runs 230 miles, narrow channels and lagoons provide homes to dolphins, manatees, and caimans.

In 2008, Ecuador’s Ministry of Environment, Water and Ecological Transition, also known by the acronym MAE, approached the A’i Cofán with a proposal to protect their homelands by paying residents to guard their forests.

At first, many residents rejected the idea, fearing it was a ploy by the Ecuadorian government to obtain control of their territory. However, after trying multiple times to court the A’i Cofán and meeting with community members during open assemblies, the A’i Cofán decided unanimously to sign an agreement with MAE, and in 2008, they did just that, joining a national program called Socio Bosque, a cornerstone initiative behind the government’s promise to develop incentives that protect nature and ecosystems from development. 

“The decision was made together, with the participation of young people, elders, women, experts, and leaders,” Mendúa said. “We started with 27 square miles of conservation area, and it was there that we raised our guard. We worked hard on the recovery of flora and fauna, and the community respected the terms.”

Today, the Dureno region is one of 222 Socio Bosque sites throughout Ecuador, consisting of nearly 6,330 square miles of protected land of which almost 5,605 square miles belong to Indigenous communities and other collective landowners. In Dureno, the A’i Cofán receive about $54,000 each year through Socio Bosque, and the money is used to train forest guards, improve surveillance strategies, and protect the territory from illegal miners and other threats. 

“The A’i Cofán have always been caretakers of the forests without receiving anything in return,” said Medardo Ortiz, who is also a member and former treasurer of the A’i Cofán community in Dureno. He says the agreement allowed them “to obtain economic resources and cover the needs of families.”

Forests inside A’i Cofán territory are some of the last remaining areas of pristine forest in the Ecuadorian Amazon, covering nearly 7,000 square miles. Through the Socio Bosque program, about 800 community members receive payment, collectively, each year to protect 30 square miles of land from logging and agricultural land grabs while preserving the land. The money is a windfall in a region where 54.45 percent of the population lives under the poverty line — and the program works. By 2025, the program aims to protect 7,000 square miles of forest across Ecuador.

“In general, deforestation rates in the northern Ecuadorian Amazon have remained relatively unchanged or even decreased in some areas since the early 2000s,” said Santiago Lopez, an associate professor of geography and the environment at the University of Washington, Bothell. “Socio Bosque is a very helpful program that has allowed individuals and communities to financially benefit from preserving their forests.” 

But the expansion of energy development in and around Dureno, again, threatens to undermine the Socio Bosque project, potentially upending decades of conservation efforts and imperiling millions of dollars in international funding tied directly to the state’s protected area program. 

Since 2012, Petroecuador has drilled 70 new oil wells across 155 square miles of rainforest near Dureno, creating the largest oil field in the country and increasing production by approximately 75,000 barrels per day. And in 2017, the Ecuadorian government announced plans to expand drilling. 

Last year, Ecuador produced approximately 482,000 barrels of oil a day, most of which was sourced from the Amazon region. More than 60 percent of the Ecuadorian Amazon is under oil concession, with almost 28,000 square miles of oil blocks in operation. By 2025, production is expected to ramp up to 756,000 barrels per day.

Near Dureno, nearly 70 oil wells drilled before and after 2012 ring the Socio Bosque protected area, and two are producing oil inside the established boundaries. Frequent oil spills from those wells pollute the lands and waters that are connected to Socio Bosque, contaminating waterways and inflicting serious loss and damage on the region’s biodiversity, threatening its last undeveloped forests. Between 2012 and 2022, an estimated 969 cases of oil damage were reported on 51 different Indigenous lands across the country.

“All the waste and pollution from that field goes into the rivers that cross the community,” said Alexandra Almeida, coordinator of oil affairs at Acción Ecológica, an environmental advocacy organization based in Quito, Ecuador. “A’i Cofán people in Dureno are very affected. They can no longer hunt or fish. It is really tragic.”

More broadly, a total of 68 oil wells are located within protected areas governed by Socio Bosque agreements, or within 31 miles of protected borders, while three oil fields owned by the state overlap Socio Bosque lands. One field, the Shushufindi block, produced nearly 12 percent of the country’s total crude oil production in 2022.

As oil exploration begins to eat into Ecuador’s forests, Socio Bosque provides a window into just how protected areas actually are when faced with the lure of oil and gas profit.

“I think it has good intentions,” said Kevin Koenig, the climate, energy and extractive industry director at Amazon Watch. “There’s a whole bunch of questions around if the program is really achieving what it is supposed to achieve.”

In 2008, the Shuar Arutam peoples became the first community to contract with Socio Bosque. With homelands between the Santiago, Zamora, and Kuankus rivers in the southeastern region of Ecuador, the agreement covered nearly 800 square miles of land and supported almost 100,000 people in 27 Shuar communities.

The Shuar received an annual income of $452,000, which was used to conserve forests, improve community finances, and build educational facilities for their children. But despite signing contracts with the government, in 2019, Ecuadorian officials granted several mining concessions to Canadian, Chinese, and Australian companies within the established protected areas. 

“Families who had never benefited from public institutions of the state were given resources for education, health, productive development,” said Jaime Palomino, president of the Shuar Arutam community. “The idea was good, but the Ministry of Environment, Water and Ecological Transition took advantage of this opportunity to distract us and continue advancing with the permits for mining concessions, which was not the vision of our people.”

Throughout 2020, former President Josefina Tunki and other campaigners presented a series of demands to the Ecuadorian government, with the main goal of getting the contracts withdrawn. In response, they were subjected to threats and harassment by the mining companies and the state.

In 2020, Ecuadorian authorities carried out violent raids in the community. That same year, Josefina Tunki, who gained prominence as a key leader in the community’s resistance, received death threats from the vice president of the Canada-based mining company Solaris Resources, Federico Velásquez, who reportedly told her, “If you keep bothering me with national and international complaints, we will have to cut someone’s throat.”

As a result of the state granting concessions inside areas governed by Socio Bosque contracts, the MAE has terminated its contract with the Shuar Arutam peoples, claiming that the community failed to comply with the program’s requirements. According to a report issued by Amazon Watch on Socio Bosque, researchers called implementation “rife with irregularities and inconsistencies.”

“The government failed to provide support for proper implementation of the agreement and still allowed mining companies into [the Shuar Arutam peoples’] territory,” said the report. “The termination of the program has created even more economic difficulties for the [Shuar Arutam peoples], creating divisions among communities and families that could drive them into the arms of mining companies — a perverse outcome of a program aimed at forest protection.”

Torsten Krause, a senior lecturer in sustainability science at Lund University Centre for Sustainability Studies, has researched the conservation benefits of the Socio Bosque program. 

“People were confused, because the state was coming in and asking them to join this conservation scheme for 20 years and then the same state, only a week later, came back and said they were looking to open a mine or auction the licensing rights for oil drilling there,” Krause said. “They were like, ‘Wait a second, you want us to sign this contract, but then you are also going to approve oil concessions?’ That’s confusing.”

Each Socio Bosque contract lasts 20 years, and the MAE pays landowners to protect their territory. To ensure compliance, the Quito-based Socio Bosque central office monitors each site using remote sensors and semi-annual field visits. Each time communities violate the terms of their contract, a payment is lost. If the violation is caused by someone outside the community — like an illegal logger, for instance — beneficiaries must report the incident to the central office within five days or lose a payment. After three consecutive violations, Socio Bosque can terminate the contract and force landowners to pay back a percentage of the payments received since the beginning of the contract.

In cases where landowners fail to meet their contractual obligations because of state-sponsored projects, communities are still required to pay.

“We acknowledge that there are still challenges to be addressed,” said Luis Suarez, the vice president of Conservation International in Ecuador. “We trust that through coordinated efforts among the government, civil society organizations, and international technical cooperation, these concerns can be addressed while respecting the rights of local communities and conserving nature.”

Socio Bosque areas are considered protected under the National System of Protected Areas of Ecuador and form part of the country’s national REDD+ scheme — a voluntary, international climate change mitigation program developed by the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change aimed at reducing deforestation and forest degradation by paying communities to stop development and conserve ecosystems. The goal is to incentivize conservation, improve living conditions of communities engaged in the work, and reduce greenhouse gas emissions on approximately 52 million square miles of forest areas in 60 countries. 

Indigenous and civil society organizations often reject programs that provide payments for ecosystem services, also known as PES, which provide landowners and communities monetary transfers to improve conservation outcomes, as is the case with the U.N. REDD+ program, because they say it is “not a real solution to confront climate change.”

A recent study from the Berkeley Carbon Trading Project into the main methodologies used by REDD+ found that project managers often “stretch reality and create a vast quantity of carbon credits for projects that have questionable climate impacts.” Their findings raise doubts about the effectiveness and credibility of REDD+ projects, with experts calling for more transparent carbon accounting and greater safeguards for Indigenous communities.

In Ecuador, the Socio Bosque program also has its critics. Instead of protecting land for conservation, the Confederation of Indigenous Nationalities of Ecuador, or CONAIE, and the Confederation of Indigenous Nationalities of the Ecuadorian Amazon, or CONFENIAE, argue Socio Bosque is a threat to Indigenous lands, traditions, and identities. For them, the program fails to address the true drivers of climate change, such as the extraction and burning of fossil fuels, agribusiness, and deforestation, which threaten the environment and their livelihoods.

In a letter addressed to the Secretary General of the U.N. in 2011, CONAIE said: “We oppose the policies that are being developed in Ecuador, such as the Socio Bosque plan, as well as the new environmental regulations that aim to commercialize our forests, water, and biodiversity. And we similarly reject private initiatives to grab land and sell environmental services.” To combat climate change, policies must respect the rights of Indigenous peoples and stop the expansion of oil and agribusiness, they argued.

More than $50 million has been invested in the Socio Bosque program since the project began. Most of the money comes from Ecuador but is supplemented by international institutions and private donors.

In 2014, Banco del Pacífico, a private sector bank based in Ecuador, signed a three-year contract with Socio Bosque to provide $8,635 a year toward conserving and restoring Ecuador’s ecosystems. That same year, General Motors signed a five-year contract, in which they promised to transfer $23 per 2.4 acres of protected area each year. But the program’s largest donor by far is KfW, a German state-owned investment and development bank, which signed a contract with Ecuador in June 2010 and has provided the program a total of $29.4 million.

“The existing legal framework of Ecuador creates the possibility that mining areas overlap with Socio Bosque areas, which in our view is definitively not ideal,” a representative of KfW said. “We consider the Socio Bosque program an overall success story in tropical forest protection. However, we surely also continue to carefully regard any upcoming changes, unintended impacts, or technical flaws of the program prior to any additional financing.”

Then there’s the details. When Petroecuador wants to drill for oil on a new site, they must obtain an environmental license. To do so, they have to get an intersection certificate from the MAE proving that the proposed drilling area doesn’t overlap with a nationally protected area. Under the National System of Protected Areas of Ecuador, Socio Bosque areas are protected, but Petroecuador denies this. “Our environmental licenses do not require intersection certificates for private areas within the Socio Bosque program,” said a representative of the company, adding that “Socio Bosque is not a protected area.”

According to Verónica Andrade Estrada, Socio Bosque’s technical director, in areas where concessions are granted by the Ecuadorian government for oil and gas development, “these areas are removed from the conservation polygon, since within the properties under conservation it is not possible to carry out extractive industries,” she said.

“According to our understanding of the legal framework, a breach of the agreement due to, for example, government-sponsored activities does not result in a partner being in breach of contract, and therefore the partner does not have to repay the incentive,” said a representative of KfW. “In this case, a mutually agreed termination of the agreement should be reached.”

Representatives with Socio Bosque did not respond to requests for clarification or detailed questions about communities needing to pay the state for its development activities in contractually protected areas.

While Socio Bosque channels $7.9 million in investments per year into the environment, that income pales in comparison to oil profits: In the first three months of 2023, the Ecuadorian government received $1.5 billion in income from Petroecuador’s oil exports.

“In order to maintain a harmonious coexistence with projects that are implemented to benefit the development of the country, Socio Bosque carries out a thorough review of the environmental management plans that are presented prior to the licensing of projects that overlap with Socio Bosque areas,” said the Ministry of Environment, Water and Ecological Transition. In those cases, they establish “specific preventive, mitigating, and compensatory measures” and, “if the state prioritizes resource extraction, the area is removed from the conservation scheme.”

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In 2021, when Guillermo Lasso, the nation’s outgoing president, came to power, he announced that he wanted to “extract every last drop of benefit from our oil” in Ecuador. In 2022, his administration began negotiating with Silverio Criollo, former A’i Cofán president of Dureno, for more oil wells inside the Socio Bosque borders — a negotiation that ignited divisions within the community.

“It was a huge blow,” Albeiro Mendúa said. “We complained to the government and said that we had an agreement signed and that they should respect it.”

Just months after meeting with Criollo, the Ecuadorian government authorized the construction of 30 new oil wells by Petroecuador, and by June of 2022, the A’i Cofán had again constructed a blockade to prevent oil workers from entering the community. The standoff lasted until January 12, 2023, when members of Ecuador’s Armed Forces and the National Police tried to evict them, resulting in a violent confrontation that left six people seriously injured.

Then, on February 26, Mendúa’s brother, Eduardo, one of the most prominent faces in the community’s resistance to Petroecuador and then-president Criollo, was assassinated outside his home in his garden.

CONAIE, and other nongovernmental organizations, along with Mendúa’s family members, have accused Petroecuador of being responsible for the attack. Petroecuador denies the allegations and adds that the company has “been in constant conversations with the communities, and the A’i Cofán are fully informed about the intervention of the oil company in their territory,” said Petroecuador’s deputy manager María Soledispa.

“Dureno has become a conflict zone,” Mendúa said. “I have had to leave the community to live somewhere else for my personal safety.”

Mendúa now spends his days in exile from Dureno, campaigning against oil operations from a distance. Living at home, he says, comes with constant death threats from oil workers and community members in favor of oil exploration, and the murder of his brother makes for a reminder of how real those threats are. 

In August, 60 percent of Ecuadorians voted to free Yasuní National Park, a 3,948-square-mile protected area and home to many uncontacted Indigenous communities, from oil exploration in a historic referendum. The outcome, which will require Petroecuador to leave over 726 million barrels of oil underground, was hailed as a victory by environmental advocates across the globe.

“It shows us that the greatest national consensus at this time is in the defense of nature, the defense of Indigenous peoples and nationalities, the defense of life,” said Pedro Bermo, a spokesperson for the environmental collective Yasunidos, in a statement.

But Mendúa feels less hopeful about the results. He says communities in territories outside of Yasuní aren’t safe. “We are sure, or at least I am, that the government will try to enter with force.”

Mendúa says he is now working to come up with alternative projects the community can undertake to protect their homes and keep oil companies away. He and others are fighting for the legal right to manage more of their historical and ancestral territories, which they believe would strengthen the survival of the Cofán peoples and represent a huge victory for conservation.

“We have the capacity to manage and defend these territories,” Mendúa said. “Our fight is not just for the Cofáns — we are also fighting against climate change.”

This story was originally published by Grist with the headline In the Ecuadorian Amazon, oil threatens decades of Indigenous-led conservation on Dec 15, 2023.