As the world’s nations prepare to reach binding agreements on climate change this year in Paris, one of the foremost thoughts in political leaders’ minds must - or should - be how to respond to the fact that in order to avoid catastrophe, humanity cannot extract more than about a third of proven fossil fuel reserves. According to scientific evidence, the larger proportion of reserves must be left underground if we are to keep global warming below a 2C rise by 2100.

This means that nations must make two critically important decisions: 1) how much carbon each nation is allowed to emit and 2) which reserves are to be exploited and which are not.

The world has some experience with the first decision, but none with the second. Yet we don’t have to start from scratch.

In 2007 Ecuador’s president Rafael Correa proposed forgoing exploiting the oil in the Ishpingo, Tambococha and Tiputini (ITT) fields under the Yasuni National Park if the international community provided half of the income Ecuador would be forsaking. Unfortunately, after six years of negotiations, Correa announced in 2013 that Ecuador would abandon the Yasuni-ITT Initiative, as it came to be called, and push ahead with exploitation.

Nevertheless, the years of work by those involved resulted in the creation of an innovative financial and institutional mechanism which the world could adopt today for oil deposits elsewhere. This mechanism consisted of a trust fund administered by the UN and featuring a multi-stakeholder committee including Ecuador’s government, civil society and international contributors.

The fund was intended to be an instrument of genuinely sustainable development which would respect the rights and cultures of the people in Yasuni, including two groups of indigenous people, the Tagaeri and Taromenane, living in what Ecuador’s constitution calls “voluntary isolation.” The fund’s capital was to come from both public and private voluntary contributions from the international community, and would be invested in renewable energy projects in Ecuador, with the interest directed to a variety of activities. These included participatory management of natural areas belonging to indigenous communities, reforestation and sustainable management of forests owned by individual landholders, increasing energy conservation and efficiency nationwide, and ending deforestation in protected areas.

Ultimately, the goal of the Yasuni-ITT Initiative was to promote the transition from the current development model based on oil extraction - which has demonstrably failed at reducing poverty and inequality - to a new strategy based on equity and sustainability.

Maybe Yasuni was ahead of its time. Although scientists have warned for years about potential catastrophe, the world wasn’t really listening. Today, as many of the world’s leaders appear to be embracing the need to take action, the time has come to honour the legacy of the Yasuni-ITT Initiative.

We can start leaving the oil under the ground - right now. We know we must, and, with the Yasuni-ITT Initiative, we know how to do it.

If the world is to forgo extracting certain oil reserves, the first that must be left untouched are those that would involve the greatest losses in terms of living systems, local communities and world heritage, and those whose preservation would entail the greatest additional benefits in terms of climate change mitigation and adaptation. In other words: the oil lying under areas of high conservation value in developing countries.

Fortunately - or, rather, unfortunately - it isn’t hard to find candidates. Half way around the world from Ecuador another country rich in biodiversity, the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), is grappling with the pressure to exploit oil under the Virunga National Park.

The similarities between Virunga and Yasuni are striking. Both are tropical rainforests in developing countries, and both are national parks. Both are International Union for Conservation of Nature “Category II” protected areas, both belong to regions considered “priority places” for conservation by the WWF, and both are “important bird and biodiversity areas”, according to Birdlife International. Unesco declared Virunga a “World Heritage Site” in 1979, and Yasuni a “Biosphere Reserve” in 1989.

In addition, Virunga has been declared a “wetland of international importance” under the Ramsar Convention and is home to 200 of the world’s remaining 700 seriously endangered mountain gorillas. Yasuni, on the other hand, is the most important biological reserve in the Amazon basin and possibly the most biodiverse region in the western hemisphere.

Furthermore, both Virunga and Yasuni support thousands of people. Yasuni is home to approximately 3,000 indigenous people, while some 50,000 depend economically on fishing and related commercial activities in Virunga. Yasuni is also home to the Tagaeri and Taromenane, the only two groups of indigenous people in Ecuador who have chosen to avoid contact with western culture and continue living their traditional lifestyle based on gathering, hunting and semi-nomadic agriculture.

Four years ago UK-based company Soco began oil exploration in the southern half of Virunga. In June 2014 a WWF-led campaign resulted in an announcement by Soco that it would cease its seismic operations in the area, although the extent of the commitment to withdraw from Virunga remains unclear. Soco has agreed not to proceed without UNESCO and DRC government approval, but there is concern that the park boundaries may be redrawn or other means will be found by the government to allow the company to continue.

Virunga, like Yasuni, presents an opportunity for genuinely sustainable development involving local communities. The mechanism created for Yasuni-ITT could be applied there. Indeed, it should become a permanent mechanism under the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC): a fund that developing nations with biodiverse and culturally rich areas sitting on top of oil deposits can apply to. Resources could be allocated to initiate project preparation and fund-raising, with a central body responsible for oversight and coordinating projects worldwide.

But the world doesn’t need to wait for the UNFCCC. Applying the mechanism created for Yasuni-ITT to Virunga could serve as a pilot project.

The Yasuní-ITT Initiative may have been so cutting edge, so challenging to political will, that it was ahead of its time. Now that time has come.