Yasuní Green Gold Early Day Motion 2192

EDM 2192 ECUADORIAN GOVERNMENT'S PROPOSAL FOR SAVING THE YASUNI FOREST 07.10.2008

Challen, Colin
"That this House welcomes the proposal of the Ecuadorian government to preserve the Yasuní forest by asking the international community to pay for not exploiting the oil reserves which lie underneath it; but believes that the proposal must include an unconditional, non-reversible commitment from the Ecuadorian government to preserve Yasuní and protect the human rights of its people and must include an unlimited extension of the time given to reach agreement on how to do this and an international process led by the Ecuadorian Government, with full participation from local and indigenous groups in the region, to create a clear, coherent and fully representative proposal for securing a long-term sustainable future for Yasuní; believes that this process should work in partnership with supportive non-governmental organisations and governments, and must also include a further assurance that any financial support from governments will come through an open, democratic and accountable process, and will not involve carbon trading, World Bank funding or debt cancellation schemes, which have proved ineffective in reducing carbon dioxide emissions and damaging to local people's rights around the world; and finally considers that the proposal must include an assurance that any other projects which may have a negative impact on the area will not be allowed to go ahead."

So far we have 16 signatures - get your MPs on board!

Wednesday: a Yasuní Green Gold meeting at the House of Commons

Colin Challen kindly set up a meeting for us in the House of Commons. His introduction showed a clear understanding of the concerns of the campaign and set us up well to go on and talk in more detail. Colin has also started an Early-Day-Motion (see next blog entry) a petition outlining the campaign asks for MPs to sign - So get your MP to sign!
Colin also offered to write to ministers and departments and most importantly to ask a question about the Yasuní to Gordon Brown at Prime Ministers question time!

Also excited and willing to lend a hand was Baroness Hooper who is very interested in both Ecuador and environmental issues. We were thrilled that Martin Horwood the chair of the All Party Parliamentary Group for Tribal Peoples which works alongside Survival International was also behind the campaign saying he thought it was great in bringing together all the issues and would help in whatever way he could.

Good result!