Yasuní National Park (Spanish: Parque Nacional Yasuní) is a protected area covering about 10,000 km² (3,900 sq mi) between the Napo and Curaray Rivers in Pastaza and Orellana Provinces in Amazonian Ecuador. The park is located in the Napo moist forests ecoregion and is mostly rainforest. It is about 250 km (160 mi) from Quito and was named a UNESCO Biosphere Reserve along with the nearby Waorani Ethnic Reserve in 1989. The park is within the traditional lands of the Huaorani indigenous people. Yasuní is also home to two uncontacted indigenous tribes, the Tagaeri and the Taromenane. Many indigenous people use the rivers inside the park as their main way to travel. Several waterways in the area flow into the Amazon River, including blackwater rivers rich in tannins, which have very different plant life compared to the main river channels. The spine-covered palm, Bactris riparia, and aquatic plant Montrichardia linifera often grow along the edges of these slow-moving rivers, which are sometimes called Igapós.
The park contains an estimated 1.7 billion barrels of crude oil, which is 40% of Ecuador’s total oil reserves. Plans to extract this oil faced resistance from Indigenous people and were criticized by scientists. In 2007, President Rafael Correa started the Yasuní-ITT Initiative to protect the park’s natural resources. The plan offered to preserve the park’s biodiversity in exchange for financial support from the international community, but it did not raise enough funds. Oil extraction began in 2016 and increased in 2019.
In August 2023, a referendum on oil exploration in the national park passed, requiring a stop to oil drilling in the park.
Biodiversity
Yasuní National Park (YNP) is one of the most biologically diverse places on Earth and a meeting point for three unique regions: the Equator, the Andes Mountains, and the Amazon rainforest. The park is at the center of a small area where the number of amphibians, birds, mammals, and vascular plants reaches the highest levels in the western hemisphere. Additionally, the park holds world records for the number of tree, amphibian, and bat species found in areas smaller than 100 kilometers. It is also one of the richest places in the world for birds and mammals in local areas. The park has a high level of amphibian diversity compared to other areas in the western Amazon. There are 121 documented reptile species in the park. Despite covering less than 0.15% of the Amazon Basin, Yasuní is home to about one-third of all amphibian and reptile species in the region. The park also has high fish diversity, with 382 known species. Yasuní is home to at least 596 bird species, which makes up one-third of all native bird species in the Amazon. The park is also rich in bat species. On a regional scale, the Amazon Basin has about 117 bat species, but on a local scale, Yasuní has a similar number. In a single hectare, Yasuní has over 100,000 different insect species, which is roughly the same number found in all of North America. The park is also one of the richest places in the world for vascular plants. It is one of nine places globally with more than 4,000 vascular plant species per 10,000 square kilometers. The park contains many tree and shrub species and holds at least four world records for tree and liana richness, as well as three world records for woody plant diversity. The park is home to many species that are found nowhere else, including 43 vertebrate species and 220–720 plant species. In the northwest part of the park is a Forest Dynamics Plot, a 50-hectare research area established in 1995 by a partnership between Pontificia Universidad Católica de Ecuador (PUCE), Aarhus University in Denmark, and ForestGEO-STRI.
Many types of mammals live in the park, including those in water, on land, and in the air. The giant otter (Pteronura brasiliensis), an endangered species found only in rivers within and around the park, must adapt to changes in water levels that affect food availability. A species of bat, Lophostoma yasuní, is found only in Yasuní. The Amazon Basin has about 117 bat species, but Yasuní has a similar number locally. Many monkey species live in the canopy, including the Eastern Ecuadorian squirrel monkey (Saimiri cassiquiarensis macrodon), Humboldt's squirrel monkey (Saimiri cassiquiarensis), pygmy marmoset (Cebuella pygmaea), Ecuadorian white-fronted capuchin (Cebus aequatorialis), Red-crowned Titi (Plecturocebus discolor), Napo saki (Pithecia napensis), Colombian red howler (Alouatta seniculus), white-bellied spider monkey (Ateles belzebuth), and brown woolly monkey (Lagothrix lagothricha). These animals play important roles in the ecosystem by spreading seeds and eating insects.
Yasuní is home to about one-third of all amphibian and reptile species in the Amazon Basin, despite covering less than 0.15% of the basin. The park holds a world record for 150 amphibian species in areas with similar landscapes and has higher amphibian diversity than other sites in the western Amazon. A treefrog species, Osteocephalus yasuní, is named after the park. There are 121 documented reptile species in the park.
The park has high fish diversity, with an estimated 500 species. However, this number may be lower than the actual number of species because some differences are not easily seen but can be found through DNA studies. Fish diversity in the region is influenced by seasonal changes and habitat, which is important when studying the variety of species in the waterways.
Yasuní is home to at least 596 bird species, which makes up one-third of all native bird species in the Amazon. A field guide created by PUCE notes that the area around the Yasuní Scientific Research Station has many bird species, including predatory birds like falcons, hawks, and eagles, as well as other birds such as macaws, antwrens, manakins, thrushes, and many others. The variety of canopy layers in the park supports different bird lifestyles, including pollinators like hummingbirds that have close relationships with certain plants.
The park has very high insect diversity and insect-plant relationships. In a single hectare, Yasuní has over 100,000 different insect species, which is about the same number found in all of North America.
The park is one of the richest places in the world for vascular plants. It is one of nine places globally with more than 4,000 vascular plant species per 10,000 square kilometers. The park has many tree and shrub species and holds at least four world records for tree and liana richness, as well as three world records for woody plant diversity. Recent books published with PUCE provide detailed information about plant species in the Yasuní region, including a book that lists 337 plants, mostly trees, found only in the Yasuní area. The park is also home to many species found nowhere else, including 43 vertebrate species and 220–720 plant species.
Threats to the park
Yasuní National Park holds an estimated 1.7 billion barrels of crude oil—40 percent of Ecuador's total reserves—in the Ishpingo-Tiputini-Tambococha (ITT) oil fields. Oil exploration in the park began in 1995. In 2005, plans to build more roads into the park led environmentalists and scientists, including Jane Goodall, E.O. Wilson, and Stuart Pimm, to ask the government to leave the oil untouched. Indigenous groups and environmentalists also called for a national vote on the issue.
In response, President Rafael Correa started the Yasuní-ITT Initiative in June 2007 to protect the park’s resources. The plan aimed to leave the oil undisturbed in exchange for financial support from other countries. The government hoped to collect 50 percent of the oil’s value, which would be about $3.6 billion over 12 years. By 2009, about $1.7 billion had been promised from around the world. Not drilling in the park would prevent 400 million metric tons of carbon dioxide from entering the air, officials said. At the time, environmentalists praised the plan as a historic step to help poorer nations protect the environment.
Actors Leonardo DiCaprio and Edward Norton, filmmaker Michael Charles Tobias, and former U.S. Vice President Al Gore supported the initiative. Countries such as Turkey, Chile, Colombia, Georgia, Australia, Spain, and Belgium contributed funds. However, fundraising was limited because Correa insisted Ecuador alone would decide how the money would be used.
In July 2013, Correa created a group to review the initiative’s progress. The group found the economic results were not enough. On August 15, Correa canceled the plan, saying the international community had not provided enough support. He called wealthy countries hypocritical for producing most of the world’s greenhouse gases while expecting poorer nations to stop developing for the environment. Correa said only $336 million had been promised, and only $13.3 million had been received.
Correa also ordered studies on oil drilling to prepare for the National Assembly to approve drilling in the park. He argued expanding oil production was needed to support his economic plans, which were popular with Ecuador’s poor. He claimed drilling would affect only 1% of the Yasuní basin. A spokesperson said drilling could be done without harming the environment. Environmentalists strongly opposed opening the park to drilling. Hundreds of protesters gathered outside the presidential palace after Correa’s announcement.
Oil drilling began in the park in 2016, and in 2019, President Lenín Moreno expanded drilling into a protected area meant to safeguard Indigenous communities.
A referendum to ban oil drilling in Yasuní National Park was held on August 20, 2023, during general elections. If approved, all oil-related activities would stop within one year, and the government could not start new drilling contracts. The referendum was requested by Indigenous groups for over a decade and approved by the Constitutional Court in May 2023.
The proposal was approved, disappointing President Guillermo Lasso, who supported drilling. The state oil company, Petroecuador, must stop drilling operations in the area soon.
Today, colonization, deforestation, illegal logging, and overhunting are harming the park.