Dr. Jane Goodall, renowned primatologist and current United Nations Ambassador for Peace, visited Ecuador this month to announce her commitment to the Achuar people to help defend their territory, and to endorse a proposal to cancel Ecuador’s foreign debt in exchange for permanent conservation of Amazon land. She visited the community of Sharamentsa, where she met with leaders from the Achuar Federation of Ecuador (FINAE) to discuss rainforest conservation, community-based development with clean technologies, and the ongoing threat of oil development to the cultures and ecology of the area. Goodall is endorsing a proposal to create an international alliance between governments working for conservation and NGOs, in order to broker a deal to cancel Ecuador’s debt and protect the territories of the Achuar, Shuar, Zapara, Shiwiar, and Quichua peoples in the Ecuadorian Amazon. Currently, the International Monetary Fund is pressuring the government of Ecuador to expand oil development in the Amazon to pay foreign debt. If the debt was erased Ecuador could use government funds to improve education, health and other social projects instead of paying growing interest on its debt.
