Enviros and Amazon natives fear that oil drilling in Ecuador may soon escalate dramatically. Ecuador last month replaced the national currency with the U.S. dollar in an attempt to pull the country out of an economic crisis, and that means the economy will need a big injection of dollars, which the government may try to get by implementing a no-holds-barred oil extraction program in the Amazon basin. Currently nine oil companies operate in Ecuador’s rainforests and the government is planning to increase drilling activity this year. According to Fernando Proano of the Ministry of Energy and Mines, the government is hoping to attract as much as $2 billion in foreign investment this year through a number of drilling ventures and a pipeline project.
