China in Yasuní ITT Oil Block, July 2023

Yasuní National Park, a biosphere reserve designated by UNESCO and a Ramsar site1, is one the most biodiverse areas in the planet and is part of the ancestral territory of the Waorani peoples and at least two Indigenous Peoples in Voluntary Isolation (IPVI) of Ecuador, the Tagaeri and Taromenane.

Since 2016, China Petroleum & Chemical Corporation (Sinopec) and Chuanqing Drilling Engineering Company Limited (CDEC, subsidiary of China National Petroleum Corporation - CNPC), operate in two fields of the ITT Block 43 (Tambococha and Tiputini). In February 2022, CDEC entered the Ishpingo north field for the first time, located just 300 meters away from the buffer strip in the Tagaeri-Taromenane Intangible Zone (TTIZ).

This report by the NGO Latinoamérica Sustentable shows that oil expansion in Yasuní–specifically the Ishpingo field in ITT Block 43–has multiple negative and irreversible impacts...Furthermore, these operations involve high socioenvironmental, technical and economic risks for CDEC and CNPC, endangering not only local communities and their environment, but also the reputation of the companies, as well as the international legitimacy of China’s commitments to green development and its postulates of an ecological civilization.

[...]After ten years of social fight, on May 9, the Ecuadorian Constitutional Court approved the Popular Referendum to stop oil exploitation in Yasuní. If YES wins, every current and future oil activity, operated by Sinopec and CDEC in Tambococha, Tiputini and Ishpingo, shall stop indefinitely regardless of their status or contractual or operational progress.

This report aims to warn Chinese authorities, regulatory bodies, companies and financiers about the strategic importance of Yasuní National Park, its fragility and intangible value for the global energy transition to which China has committed. It also highlights the imperative and urgent need for putting an end to current oil activities in the ITT Block, and to the intervention in new areas of planned exploitation (platforms C-J), as well as other new fields in the Ecuadorian Amazon.