ABSTRACT
This chapter addresses the process of the Yasuní-ITT Initiative as an evolving design that assembled and enrolled a series of elements and actors in an attempt to “go global”. The initial thesis of an oil moratorium proposed by several environmental organizations back in the early 1990s brought together indigenous territorial struggles, environmental conservation, and global climate policies. A moratorium implies the action of postponing something, in this case, the expansion of the oil frontier. Alternatively, the declared intention of the Yasuní-ITT Initiative was to keep the oil underground permanently. Hence, to understand the various political, cultural, and economic challenges tied to the proposal of stranding petroleum assets in the rainforest of Yasuní, the chapter takes a closer look at the process of assembling the territory and how different objectives, underpinned by diverse logics, have produced policies of conflicting spatial organization. Finally, the chapter discusses to what extent the Yasuní-ITT Initiative overflowed the Kyoto Protocol and the global climate regime, as it pretended to open the black box of climate change mitigation.
