Climate summits, press conferences, and campaigns on environmental issues? AMAZONICA has been doing this for decades. We have anniversaries to celebrate and would like to share them with you.

Let’s start with November 11, 2005

November 11, 2005 – Second “Alternative Round” on Renewable Energies, Quito, Ecuador

An unexpectedly huge success with the media, universities, and the general public.

Initiators: AMAZONICA and INDIO-HILFE

German and Ecuadorian partners: Climate Alliance, German Development Service (DED), Polytechnic University of Quito, Weihenstephan University of Applied Sciences/TUM, German Embassy in Ecuador

Speakers and guests: Scientists, students, activists, and indigenous people from the Amazon region

Introductory speech by Mascha Kauka: „Las Rondas Alternativas, the alternative rounds, were launched in 2002. “Alternative” refers to the Ecuadorian government’s bidding rounds (Rondas de Licitación) to award drilling licenses for oil extraction in the Amazon rainforest.

“… Four years ago, I was sitting in a restaurant in Puyo, the capital of the province of Pastaza (Ecuadorian Amazon region). At the table next to me, a group of men were talking very loudly. One of them asked his neighbor, ‘And what will happen when the oil runs out?’ ‘Then everything will be over,’ replied the other man, horrified. ‘It would be the end of Ecuador, the end of the world!’

Most of you here in this room know that this is not the case. Neither Ecuador nor the world will come to an end just because there is no more oil. Quite the contrary …” >> The full speech by Mascha Kauka is available here. Download