‘ … Beggars sitting on a sack of gold’: Oil exploration in the Ecuadorian Amazon as buen vivir and sustainable development

Abstract

This article analyses the tensions within a concept of sustainable development, by examining the practice of human rights in the socio-environmental conflicts surrounding Ecuadorian President Correa’s expansion of oil exploration in the southern Ecuadorian Amazon. Contradictions between the rhetoric of buen vivir and the neo-extractive development policies of President Correa mirror contradictions in the rhetoric of social inclusion, environmental protection and sustainable economic growth found in Agenda 2030, and the reality of world politics dominated by foreign capital which heads disproportionately towards extractive sectors to meet the growing energy consumption needs of industrialised countries. Correa’s pursuit of further oil exploration reflects the pragmatic argument that to be effective and politically acceptable, development and environmental approaches need to develop strategies that work with the economic interest mechanisms of the neoliberal framework of industrialised countries.While Agenda 2030 reaffirms that every state has and shall freely exercise full permanent sovereignty over all its wealth, natural resources and economic activity, sovereignty in the context of a cycle of dependence on natural resource exploitation may lead to the violation of human rights in the pursuit of economic development. Therefore, we have to question whether a sustainable development agenda that seeks to de-couple economic growth from development and in which all three pillars – economic, social and environmental development – are equal, is actually workable in the current neoliberal model of global governance?