Ecuadorian "no drill" deal and near extinct toads

Ecuadorian "no drill" deal and near extinct toads

Between April and July 1987 over 1500 adult Golden Toads were counted within a small area in the Monteverde Cloudforest region of Northern Costa Rica. The following year barely 10 Golden Toads were counted and on the 15 May 1989 the last Golden Toad ever to be seen was recorded. No one is really sure what has happened to this, now, emblematic animal. One theory is that a particularly harsh El Nio year in 1987 dried up the ponds where the eggs were spawned resulting in very few tadpoles and affecting the adult toads. Another theory is that the toads have gone underground until a time when the climate may return to a more agreeable state for them. Numerous species of toads and frogs have also fallen to a fungal infection, chyrtridiomycosis, which has been spreading further and further, in particular creeping south in Central America. The only certainty is that no member of the Golden Toad has been seen in over 21 years and the species was officially declared extinct by the IUCN in 2004.

But hope is not lost. A team from the IUCN Amphibian Specialist Group has just embarked on a massive amphibian search in 14 countries. Every species they are looking for has not been seen in years and many are thought to be extinct, including the Golden Toad of Monteverde. Amphibians are an important indicator of the health of the environment and any discovery of these disappeared species would be a great indication of hope.

The Ecuadorian government has signed a historic deal to not drill for oil in the Yasuni National Park, the ancestral home of the Huaorani indigenous people.

The Ecuadorian Amazon has very rich oils reserves. It is estimated that under the Yasuni National Park lies around 900 million barrels of crude. Yasuni, covering 2.5 million acres of primary tropical forest is also a remote part of the Amazon, is an area of extreme biodiversity with what is thought to be the highest density of trees and insects in the world. It is also the ancestral home of the Huaorani people, an indigenous group that had virtually no contact with the outside world until the arrival of missionaries in the late 1950s.

The deal brokered by the UNDP has lead to the creation of a trust fund into which foreign governments will place money to compensate Ecuador for the loss of revenue from not exploiting the oil reserves under the National Park. France, Switzerland, Sweden, Germany and Spain are amongst the countries that have already committed to the scheme pledging, collectively, GB1.1 billion, about half of the amount the Ecuadorian government is asking for.

Oil prospecting and extraction is the single greatest threat to the rich biodiversity of the area and to the traditional way of life of the Huaorani people. Not only will this deal help protect the National Park and its inhabitants, but will also, hopefully, prevent some 400 million tonnes of carbon dioxide from going into the atmosphere. This could be a precursor to similar schemes in other countries including Guatemala, Vietnam and Nigeria.

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