American actress Jane Fonda, Mexican actor Eugenio Derbez and other celebrities have joined a campaign to protest against the government of Ecuador and her oil plans, which suppose “a threat” for the Amazon.
The actors Harrison Ford, Cynthia Nixon, Stephen Fry, Chelsea Handler and Lily Tomlin are also part of this initiative, whose launch coincides with the national strike called in the South American country by the Confederation of Indigenous Nationalities (Conaie).
Fonda presented the campaign on Wednesday, coinciding with the high -level week of the UN General Assembly, where tomorrow the Foreign Minister Gabriela Sommerfeld will intervene instead of the president, Daniel Noboa, who has had to remain in Ecuador to attend the disorders promoted in the middle of the protests called.
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Specifically, the demonstrations in Ecuador denounce the elimination of diesel subsidy decreed by Noboa last Friday.
With the elimination of the subsidy to this fuel, which raised its price from 1.80 to 2.80 dollars (1.53 to 2.38 euros) per gallon (3.78 liters), the government expects to release $ 1.1 billion annually, which has announced that they will be allocated to social protection projects already incentives for small and medium enterprises.
In New York, Fonda and Leader Waorani Nemonte Nenquimo presented the campaign to the press, in collaboration with the Amazon Frontline organization.
This initiative aims to expose the risk of indigenous peoples for the current oil plans of Ecuador.
Specifically, the celebrities involved criticized a plan promoted by the Ecuadorian government last August that contemplates 49 projects with an investment of more than 47,000 million dollars that threaten “vast extensions of the Ecuadorian Amazon” and its indigenous communities.
“The Amazon is not for sale, nor for oil companies, nor for the miners, nor for the timber. Its value goes beyond money: it is the throbbing heart of the planet, and defending it is the responsibility of all of us,” said Fonda in the launch of the campaign, according to the statement.
Amazon Frontlines also points out that 89% of the territories that are in danger from this initiative of the Ecuadorian government are “intact” forests that together act as an important climate shock absorber.
In a video released on social networks, Thompson, Fonda and Derbez, among others, launch the message that the Amazon “is not for sale”, a phrase that is also projected in a truck that today travels through the center of New York.
In addition, the promoters of the initiative require Noboa to “fulfill their responsibility” to protect the human and collective rights of indigenous communities, as well as the ancestral territories of the Amazon.
With EFE information
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