Ambiente - Salute - Diritti Umani - Nutrizione - Agricoltura

We kindly receive and publish the following letter:

Dear Mr. Manzione

y name is Joe Vogel and I am an economist who works on the economics of climate change, but in a fashion distinct from Nicholas Stern and also critical of Stern. In Copenhagen, I launched The Economics of the Yasuni Initiative:

Climate Change as if Thermodynamics Mattered (Anthem, 2009). The book enjoyed a subvention from the UNDP to keep it online and is freely downloadable at: http://www.anthempress.com/isbn/9781843318637/

At the UN General Assembly in New York in 2007, the President of Ecuador made a proposal with sweeping implications for international climate policy: his country would not drill in the Yasuni UNESCO Biophere Reserve if the industrialized world would finance half the worth of that oil. Through the “Yasuni Commission,” the proposal was vetted worldwide. Among the industrialized countries, Germany took the lead and committed $650 million and the UNDP designed a Trust Fund to receive the financial flows.
However, the President of Ecuador finds the international response inadequate. In contrast to the $650 million committed, just the investment flows from oil extraction would be $5 billion. The President is now speaking favorably about exercising the option of drilling in the Yasuni despite the predictable devastation (see, for example, the prestigious PLoS article “Global Conservation Significance of Ecuador’s Yasuni National Park, http://www.plosone.org/article/info:doi/10.1371/journal.pone.0008767)
The international press has covered the story but not in the detail that the story merits. For example, award-winning journalist Andrew Revkin gives only an outline in “A Durable Yet Vulnerable Eden in the Amazonia” (The New York Times, 20 January 2010, http://dotearth.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/01/20/a-durable-yet-vulnerable-eden-in-amazonia/).
In the international public conversation about the Yasuni Initiative, the threshold has not yet been reached that would tip the scales toward conservation. Nevertheless, that threshold is very near. I am writing to ask if you could the link The Economics of the Yasuni Initiative: Climate Change as if Thermodynamics Mattered (http://www.anthempress.com/isbn/9781843318637/) and/or the aforementioned articles in your website. Like the Public Library of Science or The New York Times, The Economics of the Yasuni Initiative is currently open access.
Conservation NGOs and blogs have linked The Economics of the Yasuni Initiative and I cite two as examples:

International Institute for Sustainable Development (IISD):
http://www.iisd.org/
at their intralink LINKAGES:
http://www.iisd.ca/publications_resources/climate_atm2010.htm#the

The CEL Group of Young Professionals [IUCN]:
http://celgroupofyoungprofessionals.blogspot.com/2009/12/recommended-book-on-climate-change.html

Would your organization collaborate and link the Yasuni Initiative to the appropriate page in your website?

Thanks for your consideration,
Joseph Henry Vogel, PhD
Professor
Department of Economics
University of Puerto Rico-Rio Piedras

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Basic information:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yasuni_National_Park
http://www.unesco.org/mabdb/br/brdir/directory/biores.asp?code=ECU+02&mode=all

Record di biodiversità allo Yasuni National Park, Ecuador:
http://www.lastampa.it/_web/cmstp/tmplrubriche/ambiente/grubrica.asp?ID_blog=51&ID_articolo=1253&ID_sezione=76&sezione=
http://www.ecoblog.it/post/9738/lo-yasuni-national-park-al-primo-posto-per-la-biodiversita

Le violazioni dei diritti indigeni e ambientali nel Parco Yasuni:
http://archive.globalproject.info/art-14851.html
http://www.ilreporter.com/reportage/ecuador-nel-parco-yasuni

Yasuni ITT Documentary 2009 (video):
http://video.tiscali.it/canali/truveo/237110794.html

Le iniziative in Italia:
http://www.asud.net/index.php?option=com_content&view=category&id=24%3Asalviamo-lo-yasuni&Itemid=37&lang=it
http://www.parks.it/federparchi/dettaglio.php?id=4842
http://www.oics.it/news/news-list.asp?id=1217