we only have to travel a short distance on the rio napo, the biggest river in yasuni national park. and so that the children learn something, they come along also. we soon arrived at the first gas flare, one of the many in the area that are always burning. less than one kilometer away, we need a group of workers who are using barriers and hoses to clean the angst of leaded oil. nowhere is there a greater variety of flora and fauna species. but the wealth in the region that interests ecuador's government is in crude form, underground, or was, at least, until 45 years ago, when the state started extracting the oil. since then, much of the nature preserve has changed. only a few areas remain untouched. so in 2007, ecuador's president proposed not drilling in the area if the international community aid him half of the value of the oil that would have been extracted. the area is known as the itt block that the president wanted to protect in exchange for hard cash. it contains 20% of ecuador's oil reserves, but it only accounts for a small area in the eastern part of the biosphere reserve