Pressure from international environmental groups and growing criticism from Ecuador´s government has forced Brazil´s national oil company Petrobras to abandon plans to build an access road into Yasuni National Park (located in the Ecuadorian Amazon).
Critics of the project argued that an access road would open the rainforest to settlers and development and would in turn threaten the region´s biodiversity.
But the Brazilian company still plans to go ahead with oil development in the park, setting the stage for another battle.
The indigenous Huaroani demanded that the Palacio administration enact a ten-year moratorium on new oil development in their ancestral territory.
"Allowing Petrobras to drill in Yasuni would be a gross violation of the rights of the Huaorani and Taromenane peoples. In fact, it would most likely be the end for the Taromenane," said Brian Keane of the indigenous rights group Land is Life, based in Cambridge, Massachusetts.