New Internationalist

Viva Yasuní!

There is an almost beautiful simplicity to the Ecuadorian leader’s proposal. Rafael Correa has said that his Government is prepared not to extract nearly a billion barrels of oil from Yasuní National Park, a part of the Amazon rainforest of extraordinary but fragile ecological and cultural richness. To do so, however, Ecuador will need to be compensated by the international community to the tune of at least $350 million per annum for the next 10 years. New Internationalist explores a bold plan that could point the way to breaking oil dependency.

July 2008, Issue 413

Subscribe for just $9

We post a sample selection of articles from each issue online.
To get the full magazine delivered to your inbox, iPad or iPhone sign up here.
Past magazine covers
Photo
“The New Internationalist is invaluable.”
David Suzuki
Photo
“People these days crave information that helps them to make sense of the world and the New Internationalist does that brilliantly.”
John Pilger
Photo
“New Internationalist reports on global issues with an adventurous spirit and a probing social conscience.”
Utne Reader
Photo
“NI is independent, lively and properly provocative. Read it!”
Desmond Tutu
Other ways to explore New Internationalist: Sample our past issues • Browse by theme

Features

End game in the Amazon
Is Ecuador’s bold proposal not to exploit a billion barrels of oil in the Yasuní National Park a serious option for combating climate change? If so, the world is going to have to move fast, warns Vanessa Baird.
'Speak to us first!'
People from the Ecuadorian rainforest tell Fabrício Guamán what they think of their Government’s proposal to leave petroleum in the ground.
Toxic blocks
No-one said oil was clean. But Ecuador’s experience of extracting fossil fuels is about as bad as it gets, reports David Ransom.
Costing the earth
Adam Ma’anit navigates the snakepits of global carbon trading in the context of Yasuní.
Action on Yasuní
To save Yasuní, the oil must stay in the ground.
The Yasuní National Park oil blocks
A crude dilemma
Calm the panic or delay the inevitable?
As if poetry mattered
Poems that confront human challenges – an international selection.

Regulars

Polyp's Big Bad World cartoon
Polyp takes the pen to G W Bush.
Letter from Cairo
Maria Golia tackles taboos about money in Cairo.
Currents: cyclone survival
Women in Orissa, India, have ways of dealing with calamity
Currents: Planktos wiped out
Currents: Starved by the system
The companies making a killing from the food crisis
Currents: Inside China's prisons
It’s difficult to know for sure how many political prisoners there currently are in China, but it’s safe to say that there are thousands of them.
Currents: A kick in the balls
New Zealand intelligence gathering or US & NATO spy satellite?
Currents: Court in the act
Apartheid accomplices Coca-Cola, Barclays, BP et al are heading for court.
Seriously...
Speechmarks
Benito Mussolini.
Worldbeaters: John McCain
Presidential hopeful John McCain gets the treatment.
Film review: Couscous
Film review: Killer of Sheep
DVD review: Chocolate City
Music review: Mariza Box by Mariza
Music review: Mr Love & Justice by Billy Bragg
Book review: Taxi
Book review: Anarchy Alive!
Southern Exposure
Blue eyes in a Bangalore stone quarry captured by photographer Selvaprakash L.
Making Waves: Indian Community Welfare Organization
On confronting HIV and AIDS in south India
Essay: the Facade of Kindness and Understanding
A seminar in effective leadership (PR & spin) by Peter Greenwall.
Country Profile: Timor-Leste
Timor-Leste’s landscape is still deeply scarred from the conflict that raged in 1999, after the Timorese population voted for independence from Indonesia.
Anna Chen
on the non-Iron lady.
Word power: the language of elections