The first chapter of Tammy L. Lewis’s book, Ecuador’s Environmental Revolutions, begins by discussing Ecuadorian President Correa’s failed plan to protect the country's untapped oil reserves. The introduction to why President Correa’s plan, called the Yasuni-ITT initiative failed ties in to the rest of the first chapter which discusses the sustainability challenges Ecuador faces. Sustainability can be viewed as a combination of environmental protection, economic development, and social justice. Balancing all of the components of sustainability can be challenging, especially for a developing/poor country.
Ecuador is a developing region that mainly profits from natural resource extraction. Unlike developing regions in similar situations, Ecuador is an interesting place to study environmental issues because of its increased likelihood of becoming a sustainable country. Ecuador has this increased chance because its constitution places a higher value on “the rights of nature” than any other constitution. This is due to the rich biodiversity which has attracted the support of transnational environmentalists.
Ecuador is currently working towards sustainable development with the Nacional para el Buen Vivir (National Plan for Good Living). This plan supports a better quality of life which coincides with aspects of sustainable development. The Nacional para el Buen Vivir is unlike traditional development plans because it does not put a large focus on economic growth. Whether or not Nacional para el Buen Vivir will be successfully carried out in Ecuador is dependant on a multitude of factors. The Treadmill of Production (TOP) is a theory that explains how the state, citizen-workers, and corporations are factors that influence the pace of economic growth and production. Citizen workers support growth and production because it provides jobs but they also advocate for a healthy environment at work and home. Two examples of groups classified as “citizen workers” in the TOP are NGOs and SMAs. An NGO is a non-governmental organization and an SMA is a social movement actor. These groups try to pressure the state to either speed up or slow down the TOP according to their social goals. Citizen workers such as NGOs and SMAs are influenced by transnational funders. This is because these groups require funding and members which transnational funders can supply. Due to this influence, foreign activists can also play a role in the development of a country like Ecuador. This is referenced in the book when it is stated that Ecuador is more likely to succeed at sustainable development due to the interest from transnational funders. The state is motivated to make decisions based on economics but it also has to balance the pressure from citizen workers since it has a duty to protect its citizens. Corporations focus on earning a profit. Making a substantial profit is often associated with accelerated production and development which leads to exploitation of the environment.
Allan Schnaiberg, an American environmental sociologist, describes the TOP as “a relationship between production expansion and ecological limits as the “socioenvironmental dialectic”. From this definition Schailberg went on to describe three ways in which the “tension” between production expansion and ecological limits may be resolved. Economic synthesis, managed scarcity, an ecological synthesis. Economic synthesis is described by Schailberg as development with very minimal environmental regulations set by the state which leads to unlimited production harming the environment. Managed scarcity is described as a method to prevent development from harming the environment by the state creating and enforcing environmental regulations. Ecological synthesis is described as the most environmentally protective development. This method involves calculating the biophysical limits of the environment to determine what amount of resource usage is sustainable. Based on these calculations the state would then limit the development occurring.
Schailberg and many others agree that to get on a path to the most sustainable form of development, such as ecological synthesis, increased presence of social movement actors advocating for environmental protection is necessary. This is due to the influential role of social movement actors on the state in the TOP. It is my hope that due to transnational funders Ecuador's TOP will soon have an overwhelming influence from the citizen workers advocating for increased sustainable development regulations. In 2008 SMAs were able to help change the constitution, in time they may be able to spread awareness of the Nacional para el Buen Vivir and its benefits. The concept of Buen Vivir seems like something that everyone should be striving for but the potential for monetary profit tends to blind those to the value of a healthy and happy life.
Social movement actors are not the only component necessary for the success of Buen Vivir and sustainable development in Ecuador. The Yasuni IIT initiative was a plan to preserve the oil reserves under Yasuni National park. This initiative asked for donations from around the world to be put into a trust fund for Ecuador in exchange for the country forgoing the potential profits that could be made from extracting the oil within that region. This initiative failed not due to just the TOP, but rather the lack of donations from developed countries. An ongoing debate in the world is whether developed countries that became wealthy from exploiting their natural resources should donate funds to developing countries in exchange for the protection of their resources. Without a very significant amount of funding from external sources, sustainable development seems less attainable to a country like Ecuador that is in debt and profits mainly from petroleum extraction.
Works Cited: “Ecuador Yasuni ITT Trust Fund.” Ecuador Yasuni ITT Trust Fund, United Nations Development Programme, mptf.undp.org/yasuni.
Puig, Juan Falconi. “The World Failed Ecuador on Its Yasuní Initiative | Juan Falconi Puig.” The Guardian, Guardian News and Media, 19 Sept. 2013, www.theguardian.com/global-development/poverty-matters/2013/sep/19/world-failed-ecuador-yasuni-initiative.