"The world has failed us," said Ecuador's President Rafael Correa. "I have signed the executive decree for the liquidation of the Yasuni-ITT trust fund and with this, ended the initiative." What might have been a model for a system that helps poor countries avoid the need to ruin their environment to make ends meet has failed, because the rich countries would not support it.

In 2007, oil drillers found a reservoir of an estimated 846 million barrels of heavy crude in Yasuni National Park, in Ecuador's part of the Amazon. But the park is home to two indigenous tribes that have so far succeeded in living in voluntary isolation — and it is listed by UNESCO as a world biosphere reserve. A single hectare of Yasuni contains more species of trees than all of North America.

Ecuador, which cannot access finance on international markets, desperately needs money, and the oil meant money: an estimated $7.2 billion over the next decade. Nevertheless, Ecuadorians were horrified by the pollution, deforestation and cultural destruction that the drilling would cause: a large majority of them opposed drilling in the park. And then Energy Minister Alberto Acosta had an idea.