A Wild Idea

A Wild Idea explores Ecuador's unprecedented proposal for fighting global warming and preserving a large area of pristine rainforest from oil development – called the Yasuni-ITT Initiative.

In exchange for compensation from the world community, Ecuador pledges to leave untouched a large oil reserve, the ITT block with over 850 million barrels of oil. If the proposal succeeds, it will protect one of the most bio-diverse places on Earth, respect the rights of two of the last nomadic indigenous cultures who live there, and avoid the emission of over 400 million tons of CO2 into the atmosphere. Exploiting the ITT oil reserve seemed a logical step that Ecuador had to take, as a relatively poor country that depends upon oil for a large percentage of its revenue. But political changes have transformed the way the country views oil development.

The film takes the viewer to the Yasuní National Park in the Ecuadorian Amazon, capturing the rainforest’s stunning biodiversity and profiling the tribes that live there. Through rich archival footage and commentary from government officials, environmentalists and others, A Wild Idea shows how the seemingly utopian ideal of keeping valuable oil underground turned into an official proposal. The political twists and turns that made the proposal possible could also threaten the success of this revolutionary idea.

A Wild Idea is a thought-provoking film that explores the complexity of contemporary oil development within a fragile ecosystem, and how creative, new approaches might be of significant local and global benefit.

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