Natural Resources by Numbers: The Promise of "El uno por mil" in Ecuador's Yasuní-ITT Oil Operations.

In 2013, Ecuadorian President Rafael Correa announced the end of the Yasuní-ITT initiative. The initiative had proposed to combat climate change by not exploiting oil reserves in one section of the Yasuní National Park. Anticipating outcry, Correa promised that operations would aff ect less than one thousandth of the park, or "menos del uno por mil." Th is article examines the role of numerical calculations in the governance of subterranean resources. Numbers do a particular kind of labor to rationalize the shift contained in the Yasuní-ITT initiative that rhetoric alone does not. Metrics such as el uno por mil constitute and translate between diverse realms of value. Yet, contrary to the assumption that numbers are derived from strictly technical, expert processes, I show how such metrics are fundamental to translations between incalculable matters of nature, the future, and the "good" when deployed in contests over the eff ects of oil on life. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]