…We are shocked by the announcement you made on 15 August 2013 that you would permit crude oil extraction in the Yasuni-ITT… We hereby declare our support for the original initiative to refrain from exploitation of the heavy crude oil of Yasuni-ITT…The single step of opening up Yasuni-ITT to national or international oil companies erases the positive image that your dear country has built with a single stroke. By allowing oil extraction in Yasuni-ITT you would be negating the rights of the indigenous people in the territory who have elected to live in voluntary isolation…[You] would be closing the democratic space and declining to listen to the voice of millions of Ecuadorians…[And by] opening up Yasuni-ITT will counter your constitutionally declared rights of nature. Crude oil extraction is by no means a benign activity and the deep scars left by Texaco (Chevron) in the oil fields of Ecuador are a stark reminder that steps must be taken to heal the earth and not to inflict more harm on her…