Esta obra está bajo una licencia de Creative Commons: Atribución-NoComercial-SinDerivadas 4.0 Internacional
215Diálogos Revista Electrónica de Historia, 21(2): 215-236. Julio-diciembre, 2020. ISSN: 1409-469X · San José, Costa Rica
DOI 10.15517/dre.v21i2.39433
LATIN AMERICAN ENVIRONMENTAL THINKING
REVISITED: THE POLYPHONY OF BUEN VIVIR
Pedro Alarcón
Abstract
Following the guiding thread of recent Ecuadorian economic history, this paper
aims to mirror the evolution of environmental discourses across the Latin
American region. During the last decades of the twentieth century, increasing
social environmental awareness added up to the penetration of environmental
thinking into the states’ developmental policymaking. For Ecuador, this
cocktail resulted in the long-run in a particular discourse: Buen vivir. Central to
rationalize buen vivir was its socioecological dimension, founded on a harmonic
relationship between society and nature. Buen vivir was meant to materialize
in a plan to save part of the Ecuadorian Amazonia from oil drilling by leaving
a signicant portion of the country’s reserves under the ground in exchange for
an international monetary compensation: The Yasuní-ITT initiative. Despite the
fact that the plan mobilized state and society, it succumbed to forty-years of oil
dependence of Ecuadorian economy, politics, and society. The termination of the
initiative unveiled two antagonist environmental discourses. Whereas the state
held the notion of natural resources available for commodication in the global
market, society bet on alternative meanings of nature such as natural heritage and
ancient peoples’ habitat and means of existence.
As outcomes of the foreseeable divorce between the environmental discourses,
buen vivir turned into a polyphonic concept and the struggle over a hegemonic
environmental discourse resumed. It is argued that during the twenty-rst
century, one of the consequences of such a struggle is the construction of different
meanings of development alike.
Keywords: Ecuador, good living, neo-extractivism, environmental discourse, nature,
development
Fecha de recepción: 27 de octubre de 2019 • Fecha de aceptación: 12 de mayo de 2020
Pedro Alarcón • Facultad Latinoamericana de Ciencias Sociales (FLACSO), Sede Quito,
Ecuador. Contacto: pedroalarcon76@gmail.com
ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-7182-1496
Diálogos Revista Electrónica de Historia, 21(2): 215-236. Julio-diciembre, 2020. ISSN: 1409-469X · San José, Costa Rica216
REVISITANDO EL PENSAMIENTO AMBIENTAL
LATINOAMERICANO: LA POLIFONÍA DEL BUEN VIVIR
Resumen
Siguiendo el hilo conductor de la historia económica reciente del Ecuador, este
artículo pretende reejar la evolución de los discursos ambientales en la región
latinoamericana. Durante las últimas décadas del siglo veinte, la conciencia
ambiental de la sociedad se combinó con la penetración del pensamiento
ambiental en la formulación de las políticas estatales. En el Ecuador, este coctel
resultó en el largo plazo en un discurso especíco: el buen vivir, cuya dimensión
socio-ecológica se fundamentó en la relación armónica entre la sociedad y la
naturaleza. La materialización del buen vivir debió plasmarse en la iniciativa
Yasuní-ITT, un plan para salvar parte de la Amazonía ecuatoriana de la actividad
petrolera, renunciando a extraer una porción signicativa de las reservas del país.
El plan movilizó al Estado y a la sociedad, pero sucumbió a cuarenta años de
dependencia del petróleo. La terminación de la iniciativa develó dos discursos
ambientales antagónicos. Mientras el Estado justicaba la noción de los recursos
naturales para la mercantilización, la sociedad defendió visiones alternativas de
la naturaleza relacionadas con el patrimonio y el hábitat de grupos originarios.
El divorcio previsible de los dos discursos reveló la polifonía del buen vivir y
reanudó la lucha por un discurso ambiental predominante. El artículo argumenta
también que una de las consecuencias de esa lucha es la construcción semiótica
de distintos signicados de desarrollo.
Palabras clave: Ecuador, buen vivir, neoextractivismo, discurso ambiental,
naturaleza, desarrollo
Pedro Alarcón • Latin American Environmental Thinking Revisited: the Polyphony of Buen Vivir 217
INTRODUCTION: ENVIRONMENTAL DISCOURSES,
LATEST GUESTS ON DEVELOPMENT THINKING
During the last decades of the twentieth century, Latin American states
embraced the ofcial environmental discourse of sustainable development (United
Nations, 1992; United Nations, 1987). Inspired by the United Nations, the discourse
relied on the utopia of combining the polar opposites of natural resources extraction
and environmental protection on the basis of the “vital forces” of capitalism, namely,
technology, capital, and international cooperation (Escobar 1995a, p. 36). As conse-
quence of the adoption of the discourse of sustainable development, Latin American
states advocated for natural resources and environmental management.
Along with the state’s construction of an ofcial environmental discourse
that rested on green capitalism, society’s awareness of the negative consequences
of natural resources extraction mushroomed. Increased social environmental aware-
ness was central to the denouncement of the destructive impacts of extractivism, i.e.
the “intensication of natural resources extraction for commodication in the global
market” (Burchardt, Domínguez, Larrea & Peters, 2016, p. 7). Hence, the rise of
social environmental awareness in Latin America stacked up a strong critique of the
region’s prevalent outward-oriented development model, which is based on exports
of raw material and imports of manufactured goods.
The construction of the antagonist environmental discourses of the state
and society, an ofcial discourse that stemmed from green capitalism and other
that was rooted in the critique of the prevalent development model, was founded
on different meanings of nature. Whereas the state held the notion of natural
resources available for commodication in the global market, society bet on alter-
native meanings of nature such as natural heritage and ancient peoples’ habitat and
means of existence.
The irruption of environmental discourses into development thinking had a
twofold impact on the approach of the prevalent development model. On one hand,
the ofcial environmental discourse of sustainable development further legitimized
the reliance on natural resources. On the other hand, widespread social environ-
mental awareness was central to the incubation of the critique against the natural
resources-led development model.
The irruption of nature into development thinking: from the
environment to nature
Before the emergence of the sustainable development discourse
1
, discussions
on development included natural resources rather than the environment. In 1972,
the United Nations Conference on the Human Environment was held in Stockholm:
member states agreed upon a give-and-take relationship between natural resources
Diálogos Revista Electrónica de Historia, 21(2): 215-236. Julio-diciembre, 2020. ISSN: 1409-469X · San José, Costa Rica218
and development. Development was considered a requisite to preserve the
environment (United Nations, 1972). Twenty years after Stockholm, Rio de Janeiro
hosted the 1992 United Nations Conference on Environment and Development
(the so-called Earth Summit), where representatives from 172 nations signed their
adhesion to the environmental imperative outlined in the discourse of sustainable
development. The Agenda 21 action plan (United Nations, 1992), a main outcome
2
of the summit, placed the imperative of environmental policymaking at national
and subnational levels.
As national states assimilated the mainstream environmental discourse of
sustainable development into domestic political institutions, the Latin American
region experienced a wave of creation of environmental national authorities, such
as ministries and agencies, and the promulgation of new environmental legislation
during the 1990s. With the incorporation of the environment into the state’s logic,
national states accepted the necessity of investing in 1) environmental protection and
2) natural resources management. The green economy and the circular economy
3
promptly outlined narratives in order to convey that investing in the environment is
certainly a good investment (in monetary or chrematistic terms).
While Latin American states adapted to the environmental discourse of sustain-
able development, environmental movements claimed a permanent place in national
politics and embodied society’s increasing awareness of the negative socioecological
consequences of natural resources extractivism. The discourse of the environmental
movements was rooted in a cultural critique of modern society
4
(Hajer & Fischer,
1999, p. 3) since it aimed at criticizing 1) the instrumental perspective, which consid-
ered nature as mere natural resources required for development and 2) the dialectic
subject-object that deemed nature to be subjugated by a detached subject: Man
5
.
Central to the construction of such discourse that highlighted nature (as
opposed to natural resources and the environment) was the defense of land and
peoples’ cultural rights (as opposed to capital investments in environmental
protection and natural resources management). According to Leff (1999, p. 94), the
values defended by socio-environmental movements
6
are capable of “driving new
social actors and conducting political actions towards the construction of a new
social order”. Further, environmental discourses became central to the construc-
tion of new meanings of development, which in turn acquired the capacity to shape
the relationship between state and society in the twenty-rst century (Alarcón,
Rocha & Di Pietro 2018, p. 66).
Towards the new meanings of development
The construction of a social environmental discourse, opposed to the state’s of-
cial discourse, decisively contributed to erode the apparent hegemonic
7
stance on the
centrality of natural resources extraction to the achievement of developmental goals.
Pedro Alarcón • Latin American Environmental Thinking Revisited: the Polyphony of Buen Vivir 219
Since the 1970s, the position of the Latin American states transited from the
hegemonic discourse on the central role of natural resources in economic devel-
opment to the dominant
8
discourse of sustainable development. The hegemonic
discourse considered natural resources as essential to trigger the social and cultural
changes of modernization (the modernization imperative). Once the hegemonic
discourse was eroded, Latin American states embraced the discourse of sustainable
development, which advocated environmental protection and natural resources
management (the environmental imperative).
During the twenty-rst century, particularly during the commodities boom
(2003-2014), contemporary scholars and authors approached aspects of the process
of development in natural resources-rich countries, mainly in Latin America,
through the lens of neo-extractivism. According to Svampa (2013, p. 30), the
reigning “economic and political-ideological” order in Latin America during the
twenty-rst century commodities’ boom, was the “consenso de los commodities”.
Under such a regime, Latin American neo-extractivism was the favored develop-
mental strategy of states across the region.
The dissection of Latin American neo-extractivism shows a socioeconomic
ingredient that stresses on the leading role played by the state in 1) the appropriation
of swollen natural resources rent and 2) its distribution among society, on the one
hand. On the other hand, the assessment of the neo-extractivist development strategy
reveals a politico-ideological component, which emphasizes the states’ struggles to
impose the natural resources-led developmental model on society. These struggles
manifest in socio-environmental conicts on natural resources in territories affected
by extractivist activity.
Hence, the end of the youngest commodities’ boom unveiled a disputed
discourse, which rests on the central role of neo-extractivism in economic and social
development. The discourse is disputed since the state aims to impose it on society.
According to Arsel, Hogenboom, and Pellegrini (2016, p. 880), natural resources
extraction “needs to continue and expand regardless of prevailing circumstances,
with the state playing a leading role and capturing a large share of the ensuing reve-
nues”. The authors referred to this particular situation as the “extractive imperative”.
Social movements departed from the ofcial discourse and denounced
the negative socioecological consequences of natural resources extraction (the
ecological imperative). On the basis of a critique of modernity, social movements
condemned development as the cause of the global environmental crisis and advo-
cated for less utilitarian forms of relationship between nature and society. Table 1
depicts the evolution of the developmental and environmental discourses held by the
Latin American state and society from the 1970s until present day.
Diálogos Revista Electrónica de Historia, 21(2): 215-236. Julio-diciembre, 2020. ISSN: 1409-469X · San José, Costa Rica220
TABLE 1
Developmental and environmental discourses in Latin America
since the end of the Second World War: An evolution
ISI CONSENSUS
(UNTIL THE 1970S)
WASHINGTON
CONSENSUS
(1980-2000)
COMMODITIES’
CONSENSUS
(2003-PRESENT)
State
Hegemonic discourse:
Modernization
imperative
The role of natural
resources in economic
development
Dominant discourse:
Environmental imperative
Sustainable development
(Environmental protection,
natural resources
management)
Disputed discourse:
Extractive imperative
Legitimation of neo-
extractivism on the basis
of economic and social
development
Social
movements
Hegemonic discourse:
Modernization
imperative
The role of natural
resources in economic
development
Dominant discourse:
Ecological imperative
Environmental awareness
of socioecological
consequences of
extractivism
Disputed discourse:
Search-out imperative
Quest for alternative
meanings of development
Source: Own diagram
NATURE AND DEVELOPMENT: THE ECUADORIAN
DISCOURSE OF BUEN VIVIR
Ecuador and Bolivia are certainly the Latin American natural resources-rich
countries, which most accurately portray the evolution of state’s developmental and
environmental discourses across the region. Self-styled progresista governments led
the drafting of new political constitutions meant to contest previous visions of develo-
pmental and environmental discourses. Whereas Bolivia remains under Evo Morales’
presidency, the change of administration in Ecuador in 2017 marked a watershed.
Facing low international oil prices, the new government announced a set of policies
that in many ways was meant to set up some distance from the previous ten year-lasting
administration that mostly proted from the twenty-rst century commodities boom.
Ecuador has traditionally been a natural resource-based economy, and since
1972 an oil rent-dependent state. It provides three remarkable conditions for scholars
to approach the relationship between nature and development. First, Ecuadorian recent
economic history mirrors Latin America successive (re)insertions into the capitalist
world-system based on natural resources. Three “consensuses” steered the region’s
development policymaking since the end of the Second World War and imprinted the
domestic circumstance in Ecuador: 1) a consensus around the idea of import-sub-
stitution industrialization (ISI) as a way to depart from the natural resources-led
Pedro Alarcón • Latin American Environmental Thinking Revisited: the Polyphony of Buen Vivir 221
developmental model, which historically linked the region with the rest of the
world; 2) the Washington Consensus, which regarded natural resources (compar-
ative advantages) as Latin America’s key to neoliberal globalization; and 3) the
consenso de los commodities (Svampa, 2013), which displayed an apparent general
agreement among society around the centrality of natural resources in the devel-
opment process and highlighted neo-extractivism as the prevalent development
strategy across the region.
Second, during the last half-century, the country underwent two oil booms:
1) The 1972-1980 oil boom, which coincided with the two global oil shocks and
marked the beginning of the Ecuadorian oil era, and 2) the 2003-2014 oil boom
that overlapped the twenty-rst century commodities boom. During periods shaped
by high international oil prices, state’s agency (i.e. its capacity to intervene in the
national development process) was signicantly boosted. As the Ecuadorian state
ruled over the economic sphere, governments declared the intention to prepare the
leap beyond dependence on oil rent by promoting other economic sectors. With
hindsight, the Ecuadorian state reaped a meager harvest in economic diversication
in the long term. Transient achievements in economic diversication contrast with
the prevalence of the traditional natural resources-led developmental model, which
signalizes an unmistakable position within the international division of labor.
Third, throughout the last half of the century, Ecuador accurately exempli-
ed Latin America’s sociopolitical processes. Domestic sociopolitical processes
connected with the three Latin American “consensuses” (the ISI consensus, the
Washington Consensus, and the consenso de los commodities) might not completely
be understood through the approach to a higher or lower degree of state’s inter-
vention in the national development process or through the analysis of the region’s
position within the international division of labor. Increasing social environmental
awareness was epitomized by the irruption of the environmental movement, which
increasingly inuenced domestic politics since the 1980s (Lewis, 2016, p. 55).
The global oil shocks of the twentieth century (1973 and 1979) provoked a
worldwide increase of crude prices in benet of exporting countries and triggered the
rst Ecuadorian oil boom (1972-1980). Short after the beginning of the new century,
international oil prices skyrocketed again due to the increasing demand from non-in-
dustrialized countries, particularly China (World Bank, 2018, p. 52): The second
Ecuadorian oil boom concurred with the global twenty-rst century commodities’
boom (2003-2014). As the new bonanza period gathered, the environmental move-
ment already exerted a certain inuence over the political arena, then it accompanied
a self-styled progresista coalition to win the presidential election of 2006.
Buen vivir, which was built upon the indigenous weltanschauung of sumak
kawsay (good living), was central to the development proposal of the new govern-
ment. The discourse entailed an inuential socioecological dimension inspired by
the quest for a harmonic relationship between nature and society. The Yasuní-ITT
initiative, launched in 2007, epitomized the socioecological dimension of buen vivir:
Diálogos Revista Electrónica de Historia, 21(2): 215-236. Julio-diciembre, 2020. ISSN: 1409-469X · San José, Costa Rica222
The prohibition to extract oil in bio-diverse and cultural-sensitive territories as the
Yasuní National Park in the Ecuadorian Amazonia. In line with the adoption of the
discourse of buen vivir, nature or pachamama (mother nature) was accorded rights
in the 2008 Constitution
9
.
The adoption of the Yasuní-ITT initiative as a state policy suggested the conver-
gence of the antagonist environmental discourses of the state and society although
the government unilaterally terminated the initiative in August 2013, short before
the end of the second Ecuadorian oil boom and plead for natural resources’ rent to
ght poverty. The announcement of the initiative’s termination not only unveiled
antagonist meanings of nature and development held by the state and society, but
also sent a strong signal that the Ecuadorian state succumbed to Latin American
neo-extractivism. The failure of the Yasuní-ITT initiative also epitomized the fall
of buen vivir. Concurring with its inclusion in the constitution and the state logic,
buen vivir was despoiled of its “critic and transformer potential” (Peters, 2014, p.
140) and gradually faded away by suggesting development alternatives (instead of
alternatives to development) such as sustainable development (Alarcón & Mantilla,
2017, p. 101) and human development (Cortez, 2014, p. 338).
The unilateral termination of the initiative revealed a conict-prone juncture
in which the state struggled to impose its neo-extractivist developmental project on
society. Such circumstance triggered the renaissance of the Ecuadorian environ-
mental movement by the hand of social movements that incarnated society’s critique
of the natural resources-led developmental model. The Ecuadorian state dipped prin-
cipally into corporative mechanisms, but also into outright repression
10
in order to
deal with diverse forms of social resistance against the imposition of the neo-ex-
tractivist developmental model. The spearhead of the state’s latent repression appa-
ratus was the government’s co-optation of moral, cultural, human, material, social,
and organizational resources (Jima & Paradela, 2019, pp. 8-15).
THE YASUNÍ-ITT INITIATIVE AND THE
POLYPHONIC CONCEPT OF BUEN VIVIR
By the beginning of the second oil boom in 2003, the domestic circumstance
was shaped by two social settings that were highly unlikely during the 1970s oil boom.
First, indigenous people were rmly entrenched in national politics as opposed to the
1970s decade when they were doomed to social invisibility
11
. Indigenous people
irrupted in national politics during the 1990s as the spearhead of the protests against
the enforcement of Washington Consensus’ neoliberal policies. In 2000 and 2005,
their role was decisive in the overthrow of President Jamil Mahuad (1998-2000) and
President Lucio Gutiérrez (2003-2005) respectively. In forty years, the indigenous
voice passed from being silenced during the 1970s to be the guiding thread of the
state’s developmental project in the 2008 Constitution through buen vivir
12
.
Pedro Alarcón • Latin American Environmental Thinking Revisited: the Polyphony of Buen Vivir 223
Second, the environmental discourse of sustainable development was rooted
in the Ecuadorian sociopolitical arena in contrast with the 1970s decade when any
allusion to the environmental factor was absent from the discussions on the national
development project. The establishment of the Ministry of Environment in 1996
and the inclusion of ve articles regarding “environmental protection and the right
of Ecuadorian citizens to live in a healthy environment” in the 1998 Constitution
(Fontaine & Narváez, 2007, p. 25) signalized the embracement of the Ecuadorian
state of the environmental discourse of sustainable development.
The state’s adoption of the environmental imperative (Table 1) contributed to
invigorate the Ecuadorian environmental movement. With the involvement of new social
actors, the twenty-rst century turned into the scenario of “semiotic struggles” (Escobar,
1995b) aimed at revisiting the relationship between nature and society. Oil extraction
was increasing under social scrutiny. Negative socioecological consequences of oil
extraction in the Ecuadorian Amazon region provided concrete motives to draft a mora-
torium proposal on oil exploration (Acosta et al., 2000); “local and global ecological
impacts” wielded as principal reasons for such proposal (Martínez-Alier, 2000, p. 12).
The idea of “leaving oil in the ground” gained supporters among the domestic
environmental movement
13
, and the stance echoed in the Government Plan of the
PAIS Movement 2007-2011 (PAIS, 2006). The PAIS Movement (now Alianza País)
added up support of the environmental movement as well as of the indigenous move-
ment to win the 2006 presidential election. The historical demands of the Ecua-
dorian environmental movement promptly converged into the stream proposed by
the socioecological dimension of buen vivir. As mentioned before, one of the pillars
of buen vivir was the imperative of a harmonic relationship between society and
nature. It is argued that if there was a possible way to materialize such a relationship,
it might have been through the Yasuní-ITT initiative.
The Yasuní-ITT (Ishpingo-Tambococha-Tiputini or ITT) initiative was meant
to withdraw the exploitation of about a quarter of the country’s total oil reserves (i.e.
circa 850 millions of barrels
14
contained in eld 43). Besides its contribution to avoid
global impacts of fossil fuel consumption or 407 millions of tons of CO2 (Larrea,
2010, p. 10), the initiative was central to the conservation of the Yasuní National
Park (YNP), created in 1979, and since 1989 within the World Biosphere Reserves
of the United Nations Educational, Scientic and Cultural Organization (UNESCO).
The reserve is the “habitat of various indigenous nationalities, including uncon-
tacted peoples” (Narváez, de Marchi, & Pappalardo, 2013, p. 9); therefore, a portion
of the national park was marked off in 2006 as Intangible Zone Tagaeri Tarome-
nane in recognition of these peoples’ ancestral territory. Extraordinary biological and
cultural diversity are found within areas meant to oil activity: about 80 percent of the
area of the YNP overlaps with six oil elds, including eld 43.
In exchange for leaving oil in the ground sine die, the Ecuadorian state
applied for an international compensation based on “the principle of differentiated
co-responsibility” (Alberto Acosta, personal communication, February 12, 2016),
Diálogos Revista Electrónica de Historia, 21(2): 215-236. Julio-diciembre, 2020. ISSN: 1409-469X · San José, Costa Rica224
corresponding to “at least US$ 3,600 million or half of the amount the state would
obtain in case of oil exploitation [i.e. US$ 7,200]” (Larrea, 2010, p. 8). Hence,
Ecuador appeared as the rst contributor to the initiative by assuming up to half of
the opportunity cost of leaving the oil underground.
Correa’s government launched the Yasuní-ITT initiative as a state policy in
June 2007 on World Environment Day. The project was introduced to Correa’s cabinet
by Alberto Acosta even before he was appointed Minister of Energy and Mines. The
counterpoint between antagonist positions inside the government mirrored in the
March 2007 Resolution of the Board of Petroecuador (the state-owned oil company),
which comprised two options for eld 43. The Yasuní-ITT initiative was option A:
“[the Board] accept[s] the option of leaving oil unexploited under the ground […]”.
Option B was oil exploitation (Empresa Pública de Hidrocarburos del Ecuador, 2007).
It was remarkable that the national authority responsible for conventional oil policy
15
(i.e. the Minister of Energy and Mines) supported option A. The president, instead,
supported option B (Alberto Acosta, personal communication, February 12, 2016).
A couple of days after, the Ministry of Energy and Mines
16
(MEM) released
the Energy Agenda 2007-2011 in which option A was explicitly highlighted (Acosta
& Villavicencio, 2007, p. 51). After its initial thrust in MEM, Correa moved the
initiative to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. The chosen platform for the interna-
tional promotion of the initiative was the climate change forum. Even though the
alternative-to-development vein
17
of the Yasuní-ITT initiative originally breached
the liberal epistemic pattern of sustainable development and its master narratives
as the Kyoto Protocol, the Ecuadorian government strove to t the initiative into
mainstream schemes.
By September 2007, Correa presented the Yasuní-ITT initiative to the
United Nations (UN) General Assembly and referred to “climate justice interna-
tional policy” (Acosta, Gudynas, Martínez & Vogel, 2009, p. 450), which, in turn
alluded the “common but differentiated responsibilities” made explicit in article
10 of the Kyoto Protocol (United Nations, 1998, p. 10). In December 2007, the
Minister of Foreign Affairs presented the initiative during the thirteenth meeting of
the Conference of the Parties (COP 13) of the United Nations Framework Conven-
tion on Climate Change (UNFCCC) in a further attempt to harmonize the Ecua-
dorian proposal to ofcial climate change mechanisms.
By the beginning of 2008, Correa issued two Executive Orders meant to
outline an organizational chart for the Yasuní-ITT initiative. On one hand, he estab-
lished the Energy Transition Trust Fund in order to “allocate the contributions of the
international community for investment in energy efciency and renewable energy
plans” (Executive Order No. 847, published in the Ofcial Gazette No. 253, January
16, 2008). On the other hand, the president created the Technical Secretariat of the
Yasuní-ITT Initiative inside the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to “foster the initiative
and outline international negotiation strategies” (Executive Order No. 882, published
in the Ofcial Gazette No. 269, February 9, 2008).
Pedro Alarcón • Latin American Environmental Thinking Revisited: the Polyphony of Buen Vivir 225
Only six months after, the Administrative and Directive Council of the Yasuní-ITT
Initiative (ADC) was established to supervise the Technical Secretariat (Executive
Order No. 1227, published in the Ofcial Gazette No. 401, August 12, 2008). Until
November 2009 the ADC outlined the proposal of a trust fund for the initiative’s contri-
butions to be administered by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP).
The agreement with UNDP was to be signed during the COP 15 in December 2009, but
Correa argued that the mechanism was “not aligned with the sovereignty principles” of
the Ecuadorian government and vetoed it (Álvarez, 2013, p. 92).
The cancelation of the agreement provoked the resignation of the members of the
ADC and the Minister of Foreign Affairs. After the impasse, the resurrection of the initia-
tive was to come by the hand of the Ministry of Coordination of Natural and Cultural
Patrimony (MCP)
18
in 2010. The memorandum of agreement between the Ecuadorian
government and UNDP was nally signed in August 2010 (Executive Order No. 596,
published in the Ofcial Gazette No. 356, January 6, 2011), thereby establishing an
additional mechanism to manage contributions to the initiative besides the national trust
fund created in 2008. The new UNDP-administered trust fund was meant to bankroll
sustainable development and human development strategies, mainly conservation and
reforestation, and social development in the Amazon region (UNDP, 2010, p. 5).
The MCP guardianship of the initiative was imprinted by the creation of an
Administrative Negotiation Commission (ANC) with the key duty of fundraising
under the direction of Ms. Ivonne Baki (Executive Order No. 241, published in the
Ofcial Gazette No. 132, February 19, 2010). Under this scheme, the initiative was
to be bankrolled with 1) contributions of governments, private and public entities
(including intergovernmental and non-governmental organizations) and individuals,
and 2) the issuance of Yasuní Guarantee Certicates (CGYs) (UNDP, 2010, p. 6).
Yasuní Guarantee Certicates were meant to add to the long list of emission
permits such as carbon credits and other mechanisms that refer to emissions reduc-
tion although CGYs strictly denoted avoided emissions (i.e. emissions that would
never take place whilst oil is kept in the ground). Since the logic of CGYs differed
from UNFCCC’s schemes, the Yasuní certicates could not be traded in carbon
markets. Thus, CGYs acted only as guarantee provided by the Ecuadorian govern-
ment of keeping the oil underground. In the event of oil exploitation, CGYs entitled
the holders to be reimbursed by the Ecuadorian state (UNDP, 2010, p. 13).
By December 2010, during the COP 16 in a further attempt to comply with the
logic of UNFCCC, Correa plead for the inclusion of ampler compensation schemes and
introduced the concept of Net Avoided Emissions (Emisiones Netas Evitadas, ENE) as
“the emissions that could be released by a country, but are not produced, or the emis-
sions that exist in a country that are reduced”. The Ecuadorian president further stated
that the Yasuní-ITT initiative was based on ENE and advocated for the adoption of the
mechanism under the Framework Convention on Climate Change since existing instru-
ments, as Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and forest Degradation (REDD+),
were “insufcient, inefcient, and inconsistent” (El Ciudadano, December 8, 2010).
Diálogos Revista Electrónica de Historia, 21(2): 215-236. Julio-diciembre, 2020. ISSN: 1409-469X · San José, Costa Rica226
REDD+, which aims to compensate developing countries for the “environmental
service of reducing deforestation” (Lovera, 2009, p. 46), was a principal incentive
being discussed during COP 16.
The “erratic wander-around” (Martínez, 2009, p. 36) of the initiative through
different government dependencies and chairpersons seemed to come to an end by
the beginning of 2011. The budget of the initiative was transferred to the Ofce
of the President, and Mrs. Ivonne Baki was appointed “Plenipotentiary Represen-
tative of the Yasuní-ITT Initiative” and chair of the negotiation team in charge of
fundraising (Executive Order No. 648, published in the Ofcial Gazette No. 391,
February 23, 2011). One year later, in 2012, Mrs. Baki was appointed “Secretary
of State for the Yasuní-ITT Initiative” (Executive Order No. 1030, published in the
Ofcial Gazette No. 637, February 9, 2012).
Since her rst designation in 2010 until August 2013, Mrs. Baki and her team
of fteen persons spent US$ 7.3 million in the fundraising campaign around the
world (El Universo, August 22, 2013). By that time, the contributions in the inter-
national trust fund amounted for about US$ 11 million and US$ 2 million in the
national Energy Transition Trust Fund (Executive Order No. 74, published in the
Ofcial Gazette No. 72, September 3, 2013). The minimum threshold to be reached
by 2011 was established in US$ 100 million (UNDP, 2010, p. 13).
Despite the duration of the project was indenite (Executive Order No. 1572,
published in the Ofcial Gazette No. 530, February 17, 2009) and the term to mate-
rialize the international compensation was agreed in thirteen years beginning in 2011
(Executive Order No. 74, published in the Ofcial Gazette No. 72, September 3,
2013), in August 2013, the Ecuadorian government announced the unilateral termi-
nation of the Yasuní-ITT initiative and the start of oil extraction in the YNP.
“The world has failed us”, stated the fresh reelected
19
President Correa as
announcement of the end of the initiative while dozens of protesters gathered in
front of the Presidential Palace. Correa further argued that the opportunity cost of
oil exploitation raised to US$ 18,000 million (i.e. US$ 11,000 million more than
initially expected). Such fresh oil revenues were meant to ght poverty as the pres-
ident offered (El Universo, August 15, 2013). Thus, the beggars realized the sack
of gold they were sitting on.
The president petitioned the National Assembly to declare of national interest
the exploitation of oil elds within YNP (as mandated in the 2008 Constitution). In
order to support the request, Correa ordered the ministers of environment and of
non-renewable natural resources to assess the feasibility of oil drilling in the YNP
within ve days (Executive Order No. 74, published in the Ofcial Gazette No. 72,
September 3, 2013). The approbatory resolution of the National Assembly, with
majority of Alianza País, was issued in the rst days of October in record time:
“[…] declare of national interest the exploitation of oil eld 43, […], in order to
accomplish fundamental tasks of the state, assure individuals’, peoples’, and nature’s
rights, to achieve buen vivir […]” (Asamblea Nacional, 2013).
Pedro Alarcón • Latin American Environmental Thinking Revisited: the Polyphony of Buen Vivir 227
DISCUSSION: RESUMING THE STRUGGLE
OVER A HEGEMONIC DISCOURSE
As an “empty signicant” (Laclau, 2014, p. 256), buen vivir could successively
be lled in with diverse meanings. Once, it echoed in nature’s rights (granted in
the 2008 Constitution) and in the prohibition to extract oil from sensitive territo-
ries. Then, coinciding with the government’s termination of the Yasuní-ITT initia-
tive, buen vivir was related to a milestone of neo-extractivism: strategic resources
extraction to ght poverty. Hence, buen vivir turned into a “vague and polyphonic
concept” (Alarcón & Mantilla, 2017, p. 99) and signalized the state’s capitulation
to Latin American neo-extractivism. The meaning of nature shuttled back from
natural heritage and ancient peoples’ habitat to strategic resources, a more func-
tional concept to address economic growth and material welfare.
The inclusion of buen vivir into the state’s ofcial documents during Correa’s
government signalizes what might be regarded as “conceptual co-optation” since the
concept was used in a different role from the initial one. Moreover, the transit of the
Yasuní-ITT initiative (as epitome of buen vivir) through the state logic, and further
through ministries and bureaucratic agencies, speaks for a “bureaucratic co-opta-
tion” in which the concept of buen vivir was successively appropriated, legitimated,
and politically manipulated by the government. As a result of this co-optation, the
bureaucratic apparatus vomited a distorted image of buen vivir.
However, the cancellation of the Yasuní-ITT initiative not only “highlighted
government’s hostility toward its own constitutional principles” (Conaghan, 2016, p.
115) but also disclosed the 2008 Constitution as a straitjacket against neo-extractivist
policies, which can be activated by civil society. Article 407 of the Constitution
mandates, regarding non-renewable natural resources located in sensitive territories,
that “exceptionally, these resources can be tapped at the substantiated request of
the President of the Republic and after a declaration of national interest issued by
the National Assembly, which can, if it deems advisable, convene a referendum”
(Asamblea Constituyente, 2008). A “handful of people”, which met during the
protests against the government’s cancellation of the Yasuní-ITT initiative, decided
to undertake the petition of a referendum in order to prevent oil drilling in the
Yasuní National Park: “as convened in the Constitution… this was the beginning of
Yasunidos”, a group of activists originated in urban middle classes (Pato Chávez,
spokesperson Yasunidos, personal communication, April 13, 2016).
The petition of a referendum entailed the presentation of about 600,000
supporting signatures (i.e. ve percent of the national electorate) to the National
Electoral Council (Consejo Nacional Electoral, CNE). The task implied the coun-
trywide mobilization of the novel collective of the Yasunidos. The collective
undertook the enterprise successfully with the backing of other social movements,
but the CNE alleged fraud and disqualied the signatures, rejecting the petition.
Diálogos Revista Electrónica de Historia, 21(2): 215-236. Julio-diciembre, 2020. ISSN: 1409-469X · San José, Costa Rica228
The signicance of Yasunidos as a domestic social force, which contested the
government’s neo-extractivist strategy, was sealed with the decision to seek a refer-
endum on the Yasuní-ITT initiative (O’Connell, 2016, p. 50).
Yasunidos nurtured from the rupture between the government and the envi-
ronmental movement, which supported Correa’s election in 2006, and embodied a
new generation of urban activists, who moved beyond the representation of society’s
concerns related to nature (i.e. a generation of activists for whom the meaning of
development is indissoluble from that of nature). Voices of social movements, indig-
enous and peasants’ organizations, and groups of intellectuals who advocate for a
post-oil era converged into its critical vision of neo-extractivism
20
(Alarcón, Rocha
& Di Pietro, 2018, p. 70). In this logic, Ortiz (2016, p. 61) advocated a “qualitative
leap in the character of social movements opposed to government” and argued that a
“polycentric social movement” emerged.
Opposition to neo-extractivism had been cooking since the beginning of
2012, one year before Correa’s reelection in February 2013. The “March for Water,
Life, and the Dignity of the Peoples” (Marcha por el agua, la vida y la dignidad de
los pueblos) was summoned by most heterogeneous opposition factions led by the
Confederation of Indigenous Nationalities of Ecuador (Confederación de Nacionali-
dades Indígenas del Ecuador, CONAIE) and local governments against mining. The
marcha por el agua took place between March 8 and 22 through a 700 km journey
from southern Ecuador, a region menaced by mining activities, to the capital.
About 70,000 persons participated in the marcha and in the demonstration held
at its arrival to Quito on World Water Day (Ortiz, 2016, p. 51). Alberto Acosta, already
separated from the government, was one of the head protestors and embodied popular
support to the Yasuní-ITT initiative during the march. The opposition to neo-ex-
tractivism did not achieve to turn into an electoral platform as seen in the outcome of
Acosta’s presidential candidacy. Alberto Acosta, who stood against Correa in the 2013
election, obtained about 3 percent of the votes among eight candidates. He anticipated
the end of the initiative after Correa’s victory
21
as he stated that “the infrastructure
needed to extract the oil is already in place” (The Guardian, February 14, 2013).
If not in electoral successes, the legacy of the marcha por el agua is to be
found elsewhere, in the “organized critique’ of the neo-extractivist developmental
strategy (Pato Chávez, spokesperson Yasunidos, personal communication, April
13, 2016). Such critique outlived the polyphonic concept of buen vivir while the
Yasuní-ITT initiative was evoked as a “breakpoint within the [current] develop-
ment model, which devastates nature in order to usurp natural resources” (Fernando
Fajardo, member Yasunidos, personal communication, May 6, 2016).
The critique of the neo-extractivist developmental strategy entailed a rejection
of the discourse of sustainable development as well since the latter advocates for
natural resources management and protection of the environment. The critique was
built upon multifaceted meanings of nature assumed by social movements, indig-
enous and peasants’ organizations, and groups of intellectuals, which opposed to
Pedro Alarcón • Latin American Environmental Thinking Revisited: the Polyphony of Buen Vivir 229
1) the utilitarian notion of strategic resources prioritized by the government and 2) the
concept of the environment proposed by the discourse of sustainable development.
These antagonistic positions, defended by society and the state, were central to
revisit the concept of development. Before the termination of the Yasuní-ITT initia-
tive, nature was related to patrimony, and buen vivir alluded an alternative-to-devel-
opment approach based on the necessity of a harmonic relationship between nature
and society, on the one hand,. On the other hand, the end of the initiative reafrmed
the neo-extractivist paradigm, a renewed bet on natural resources’ commodication
to support the national development project led by the state.
By the end of this article, the balance seemed to be tipping in favor of the
latter discourse. Field 43 ITT reported record oil extraction by August 2019, circa
80 thousand barrels per day or nearly one fth of the extraction undertaken by the
state-owned companies (El Comercio, August 17, 2019), which means crumbs from
the rich man’s table to deal with the budget gap left by the drop in international oil
prices of 2014. Plummeting oil prices signied for Ecuador circa US$ 7 billion less
revenues in 2015 (i.e. about 7 percent of GDP) (former Minister of Coordination of
Economic Policy, personal communication, October 7, 2015).
NOTAS
1 The discourse of sustainable development was originally outlined in 1987 by the World
Commission on Environment and Development (the Brundtland Commission) of the United
Nations. The Commission’s Report, Our Common Future (United Nations, 1987) advocated
a permanent place for the environment within the discussion on the development process of
national states.
2 Outcomes of the 1992 Earth Summit were 1) the Agenda 21 action plan, 2) the Forests
Principles, and 3) the Rio Declaration with 4) the Convention on Biological Diversity, 5) the
United Nations Convention to Combat Desertication, and 6) the United Nations Framework
Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). Together, this arrangement encompasses the
master narratives of the discourse of sustainable development.
3 Green economy and circular economy are strongly criticized in ecological economics. Herman
Daly (2019, p. 9), a champion of ecological economics, argued that both, green economy and
circular economy, are based on “growthism”, i.e. the belief that economic growth is the costless
solution or at least the necessary precondition for any solution to socio-environmental problems
such as poverty, environmental destruction, climate change, etc. Ecological economics rather
advocates the subordination of the economic system to the size of the ecosphere (Daly 2019, p.
10; Martínez-Alier & Roca 2001, p. 15).
4 Leff (1999, p. 94) recapped that the reasons for socio-environmental movements to mobilize
not only stemmed from cultural and symbolic values, but also from material and social
interests. Nonetheless, the agency of socio-environmental movements became central to the
understanding that socioecological problems are eminently political, and hence any techno-
economic treatment (based on the vital forces of capitalism) of the relationship nature-society
is doomed to be insufcient (Leff, 1986, p. 145; Martínez-Alier & Schlüpmann 1991, p. 318).
Diálogos Revista Electrónica de Historia, 21(2): 215-236. Julio-diciembre, 2020. ISSN: 1409-469X · San José, Costa Rica230
5 Critical stances entail a gender perspective that also denounces patriarchy.
6 The movements that Leff (1999) refers to as “socio-environmental movements” are sometimes
called in this article plainly “social movements” in order to emphasize the antagonism toward
the ofcial environmental discourse held by the state. However, the designation aims to stress on
the social movements that embraced environmental awareness of the negative socioecological
consequences of extractivism.
7 The term “hegemony” is used in this article in a Gramscian sense, which refers to an idea that is
deeply anchored to society and conrmed and ensured by the state (Becker, 2008, p. 19); hence,
it alludes to a type of centrality that transcends its tactical or strategic uses and places a concept
in the center of the rationalization of the very unity existing in a concrete social formation
(Laclau & Mouffe 2001, p. 7). In this sense, it might be argued that the idea of the centrality
of natural resources to the achievement of development had the characteristics of a hegemonic
discourse, since it represented a general consensus among social actors. The evidence of the
negative socioecological consequences of extractivism gradually charged up natural resources
with a negative load and eroded the apparent hegemonic discourse. Nonetheless, it opened the
gates to a wider debate on the concept of development.
8 The term “dominant” is used in this book for the most widespread and inuential discourse
among different social actors. Different from the hegemonic discourse, the dominant discourse
might permeate the state, but it might not be conrmed and ensured by society or vice versa.
9 According to article 71 of the 2008 Constitution, “the right to integral respect for its existence
and for the maintenance and regeneration of its life cycles” (Asamblea Constituyente, 2008).
10 Overt repression strategies enforced by the Ecuadorian state during the second oil boom included
1) deployment of the armed forces repression apparatus, 2) criminalization of environmental
protest, and 3) imprisonment of activists by a government-controlled judiciary (Tibán, 2018;
Pérez & Solíz 2014, p. 153).
11 In September 1972, during the dawn of the Ecuadorian oil era, former dictator General
Rodríguez Lara asserted that “there is no more Indian problem, we all become white when
we accept the goals of national culture” (Stutzman, 1981, p. 45). The negation of indígenas in
the national modernization project converged with a widespread current of thought that linked
indigenous people with backwardness and archaic societies (Stavenhagen, 1979, p. 23).
12 The indigenous cosmogony of sumak kawsay not only inspired the buen vivir of the 2008
Constitution, but it was also a leitmotif of the 2009-2013 National Development Plan
nicknamed “Building a Plurinational and Intercultural State” (Plan Nacional para el Buen
Vivir 2009-2013: Construyendo un Estado Plurinacional e Intercultural) (Secretaría Nacional
de Planicación y Desarrollo, 2009).
13 The idea of “leaving oil in the ground” might be traced in the 1990s decade as a strategy to
reduce greenhouse gases emissions. The “carbon budget” was thought as “a total amount of
CO2 emissions computed for ecological goals’ achievement” in Greenpeace’s report Fossil
Fuels and Climate Protection: The Carbon Logic (Hare, 1997, p. ix). In order to comply with
the carbon budget, the report advocated a moratorium on exploration and exploitation of
oil and gas. In the same line, during alternative negotiations of the Kyoto Protocol in 1997,
Oilwatch propositioned carbon credits as fair compensation for “leaving oil in the ground”
(Martínez-Alier & Temper, 2007, p. 18).
Pedro Alarcón • Latin American Environmental Thinking Revisited: the Polyphony of Buen Vivir 231
14 At current rates of consumption, such amount of oil is only enough to satisfy one week of
world’s demand.
15 Conventional oil policy generally entails two main components: 1) increasing oil extraction and
2) at least maintaining (if not increasing) reserve levels through exploration of new oil elds.
16 Now Ministry of Non-Renewable Natural Resources.
17 An alternative-to-development inspiration of the Yasuní-ITT initiative became recognizable as
it questioned the current development model based on the consumption of fossil fuels and the
emission of greenhouse gases to the atmosphere, i.e. the “conceptual foundations of development,
as well as the institutions and practices that legitimate them” (Gudynas, 2014, p. 65).
Though, the National Development Plan 2007-2010 (Plan Nacional de Desarrollo 2007-2010)
incorporated the initiative within a national strategy of “alternative and sustainable use of
biodiversity, with special attention to indigenous people and culture, […]” (Secretaría Nacional
de Planicación y Desarrollo, 2007, p. 156). Hence, the ofcial document placed the Yasuní-
ITT initiative within an orthodox narrative that makes refence to sustainable development and
human development (Alarcón & Mantilla, 2017, p. 101).
18 The Ministerio de Coordinación de Patrimonio Natural y Cultural (MCP) was inaugurated and
disbanded during Correa’s government. Its establishment in February 2007 responded to the
need of coordination of “policies and actions regarding intangible capital” of various ministries
(Executive Order No. 117-A, published in the Ofcial Gazette No. 33, March 5, 2007). In
May 2013, only three months before the termination of the Yasuní-ITT initiative, the MCP
was dissolved. The bulk of its responsibilities, including the coordination of the Ministry of
Environment, was transferred to the Ministry of Coordination of Strategic Sectors. The move
later recalled the transit of the notion of nature from patrimony to strategic resources.
19 Correa was re-elected for a next four-year period in February 2013, only six months before the
announcement of the cancelation of the Yasuní-ITT initiative.
20 Consequences of the government’s termination of the Yasuní-ITT initiative were not only to
be found in the domestic arena. The cancellation of the initiative led to an impasse between
the Ecuadorian and the German governments. Germany has been a traditional partner in
international cooperation; only with the special programme “Biosphere Reserve Yasuní”
(Sonderprogramm Biosphärenreservat Yasuní), the German government channeled 34.5
million Euro to protection of the Yasuní National Park during a ve-year period (BMZ, 2013,
p. 2). Actors of the impasse were the Ecuadorian government, the German government through
the Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (Bundesministerium für
wirtschaftliche Zusammenarbeit und Entwicklung, BMZ), members of the German federal
parliament (Bundestag), and the Yasunidos. For a detailed relation of the impasse see Alarcón,
Rocha & Di Pietro (2018).
21 An additional spark to the announcement of the beginning of oil drilling in eld 43 might be
related to the hefty debt burden under the oil-for-loans scheme; just one month before the drop
of the Yasuní-ITT initiative, “Ecuador obtained a $2 billion loan from the China Development
Bank in exchange for nearly 40,000 barrels a day [about 8 percent of national oil extraction]
of oil from Ecuador over two years” (Kraus, 2013, p. 12). The new Vice-president, Jorge Glas,
was in charge of big infrastructure projects, mostly bankrolled with Chinese funding, which
accounted among the main concerns of the new Correa’s administration. The assignment of the
vice-president’s duties conrmed the shift of government’s priorities previously imprinted by
social investment led by former vice-president (and current president) Lenín Moreno.
Diálogos Revista Electrónica de Historia, 21(2): 215-236. Julio-diciembre, 2020. ISSN: 1409-469X · San José, Costa Rica232
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