Earth Day, the Bajo Lempa in Resistance

Today, residents of the Bajo Lempa region of Jiquilisco, Usulutan are marking International Earth Day with a large event in Amando Lopez. Event organizers have made it clear that this is not so much a celebration, but a call to action.

Communities throughout the region have identified food sovereignty and protection of the region’s natural resources as their top priorities. They reject mega-development projects and large monoculture-based economies as a threat to their existence. For more on the mega-projects, click here. For more on mono-culture-based economies (i.e sugarcane) click here. For more on climate change, click here).

Today, organizers of the Bajo Lempa Earth Day event released this declaration stating their positions (we’re posting the declaration in English and Spanish).

ON INTERNATIONAL EARTH DAY, THE BAJO LEMPA IN RESISTANCE – More than a celebration, a cry of alarm and indignation!

Gathered in the community of Amando Lopez to commemorate International Earth Day, we are more than 1,500 people, community leaders, members of grassroots organizations, social groups, and movements, and we declare that we will defend our constitutional right to life.

Our Mother Earth is suffering the consequences of capitalism, which has plundered natural resources and caused serious problems such as destruction of biodiversity, the pollution of the oceans, depletion of water resources, and climate change. This indefensible destruction infringes upon the rights of the poor by making them even more vulnerable.

The main threats to the Bajo Lempa are the profit-driven national and multinational entities that are eager to invade and plunder the region without regard for the rights and dignity of the communities, or the rights of the population. They are doing so in the form of mega-tourism projects that are already underway with the appropriateion of land and the construction of a highway through the San Juan del Gozo Peninsula.

The Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC, known in El Salvador as FOMILENIO) is a mechanism for implementing these megaprojects. If passed it will stimulate private investment for mega-tourism projects whose main goal is generating profits and not the wellfare of the communities.

The consequence of MCC/FOMILENIO and related investment projects will be the predation and contamination of the coastal region of El Salvador, as well as the eviction of the peasant communities that have traditionally lived sustainably in the region.

It is sad that these types of mega-projects are possible because stakeholders employ strategies that dismantle the social fabric of communities, and  discourage and deter the organized struggle of hope.

Faced with this reality, there are two possible paths for residents of the Bajo Lempa: tolerate the domination and irrational exploitation of Mother Earth, which will generate disastrous consequences for the poorest, or deploy a strategy of resistance based on sovereignty, sustainability and solidarity with nature and individuals.

For this reason, we, the social organizations and rural communities of the Bajo Lempa, commit ourselves to strengthening the economic struggle in an organized, persistent and brave manner, which involves:

• Defending our region to the end against all those that threaten to deprive us of our scarce resources, especially our land;
• Promoting and maintaining a strong mobilization and advocacy campaign to prevent the passage of the Law on Public-Private Partnerships to protect against the privatization of water and health;
• Strengthening atonomous ways of life and reject the establishment of monoculture economies such a sugarcane production;
• Creating alliances with all organizations and social movements that reject the Millennium Challenge Corporation;
• Developing a process to achieve food sovereignty with a focus on agro-ecology that includes the protection of heirloom seeds, the defense of the earth, and the conservation of sources of water;
• Promoting awareness and disseminating information on the FOMILENIO megaprojects, including tourism, to increase and maintain strength.

  IN DEFENSE OF LIFE AND TERRITORY
  Bajo Lempa in resistance.

  Community Amando Lopez, April 21, 2013

EN EL DÍA INTERNACIONAL DE LA TIERRA – EL BAJO LEMPA EN RESISTENCIA: Más que una celebración, un grito de alerta e indignación.

Reunidos en la comunidad Amando López para conmemorar el Día Internacional de nuestra Madre Tierra, más de 1500 personas, entre líderes comunitarios, miembros de organizaciones de base, de grupos y movimientos sociales, declaramos que defendemos nuestro derecho constitucional a la vida.

La Madre Tierra sufre las consecuencias del capitalismo que ha depredado los recursos naturales y ocasionado graves problemas como la pérdida de  biodiversidad, la contaminación de los océanos, el agotamiento de fuentes de agua  y el cambio climático. Esta destrucción injustificada atenta principalmente contra las poblaciones empobrecidas incrementando su vulnerabilidad.

En lo local la principal amenaza es el afán de lucro de grandes empresas nacionales y trasnacionales que invaden y saquean los territorios sin importarles la dignidad de las comunidades, ni los derechos de la población que se ve afectada. El Bajo Lempa vive esta realidad producto de un megaproyecto turístico que ha iniciado con la concentración de tierras y la construcción de una carretera que cruza de norte a sur  la Península de San Juan del Gozo.

La Corporación Cuenta del Milenio (conocida en El Salvador como FOMILENIO), es un mecanismo para impulsar este tipo de megaproyectos. De aprobarse el segundo FOMILENIO, se realizarán grandes proyectos de turismo cuyo fin será la generación de ganancias y en ningún momento el bienestar de las comunidades.

Las consecuencias del segundo FOMILENIO, serán el incremento en la depredación y contaminación de los ecosistemas costeros del país; además el desalojo de comunidades campesinas que tradicionalmente han pertenecido a estos territorios, quienes han convivido y aprovechado sosteniblemente los recursos naturales.

Es de lamentar que este tipo de megaproyectos se hacen posibles porque los sectores interesados emplean estrategias que desarticulan el tejido social de las comunidades,  desaniman la lucha organizada y desalientan la esperanza.

Frente a este nuevo escenario hay dos caminos posibles para los habitantes del Bajo Lempa, uno tolerar el proceso de dominación y explotación irracional de la Madre Tierra,  ó plantearse una estrategia de resistencia, basada en la soberanía, la sustentabilidad y solidaridad con la naturaleza y las personas.

Por esta razón, organizaciones sociales y comunidades campesinas del Bajo Lempa, nos  comprometemos a trabajar para que se fortalezca la lucha reivindicativa de forma organizada, perseverante y valiente, que comprenderá lo siguiente:

• Defender nuestro territorio, hasta las últimas consecuencias, de  aquellos intereses que amenacen con despojarnos de nuestros escasos bienes, principalmente la tierra.
•  Impulsar y mantener una fuerte campaña de movilización para evitar la aprobación de la Ley de Asocios Público – Privados, por el riesgo de privatización de bienes como el agua y la salud.
• Fortalecer los medios de vida autóctonos y rechazar el establecimiento de monocultivos, como la caña de azúcar.
• Articular alianzas con grupos, organizaciones y movimientos sociales que rechazan el segundo FOMILENIO.
• Desarrollar un proceso de Soberanía Alimentaria, con enfoque agroecológico que incluya la protección de nuestras semillas, la defensa de la tierra y la conservación de las fuentes de agua.
• Impulsar procesos de sensibilización y difusión de información sobre el segundo FOMILENIO y megaproyectos de turismo, para incrementar el conocimiento sobre estos temas y mantener la resistencia.

POR LA DEFENSA DE LA VIDA Y EL TERRITORIO,

EL BAJO LEMPA EN RESISTENCIA.

Comunidad  Amando López, 21 de Abril de 2013.

Earth Day and Climate Change in the Bajo Lempa

This weekend residents of the Bajo Lempa region of Usulután are celebrating Earth Day in Amando Lopez. The events will focus on climate change and its extreme impacts on the communities, as well as the possible impacts of the Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC) and associated tourism projects. Voices posted a blog last week regarding the MCC in El Salvador, and another today about the effect of climate change. We will post more over the weekend about the Earth Day activities and future efforts in the fight to protect communities and the environment in the Bajo Lempa.

This article was written by Jose Acosta, Voices’ new field director, and first published in Contrapunto (El Bajo Lempa con Tenacidad y Esperanza), an online journal in El Salvador.

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The Bajo Lempa, with Tenacity and Hope

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change says human actions are directly changing our global climate, and environmental changes will affect all people and ecosystems. The panel also shows that those who live below the poverty line will suffer the greatest impacts.

Residents of El Salvador have already felt the disastrous effects of climate change. The Salvadoran Ecological Unit (UNES, in Spanish) reports that the country’s average temperature has increased 1.2 degrees over the past 40 years. As a consequence, there has been an increase in the occurrence and strength of storms and hurricanes. A recent government study found that El Salvador has suffered five large-magnitude, climate-related events in just the past three years. These events resulted in 244 deaths and affected more than 500,000 people, 86,000 of which live in shelters. In addition, these events have caused considerable material damage. Three storms – hurricanes Ida and Agatha, and stropical storm 12-E – resulted in $1.3 billion in damage.

Poorer populations are even more vulnerable to the effects of climate change, and these storms exacerbate poverty by further reducing the ability of impoverished families to respond to crises. During and after disasters, households are forced to use or sell their few resources just to survive, limiting their long-term resilience and further diminishing their food security. Their way of life and capacity to cope with their poverty are weakened with each disaster, forcing many into chronic poverty. CESTA/Friends of the Earth demonstrated this cycle in a study carried out  in the communities of Amando Lopez and Comunidad Octavio Ortiz, located in the Lower Lempa region of Usulután.

The study reports that the main problem for communities in the Bajo Lempa is flooding. According to the Confederations of Federations for Agrarian Reform (CONFRAS) flooding is partly due to the mismanagement of the 15 of September dam located a few kilometers up the Lempa River. During Tropical Storm 12E (October 2011), the discharge from the dam reached 9,000 cubic meters per second, resulting in record flooding throughout the communities downstream from the dam. The CEL, the government institution that manages the dam, was supposed to send information about flow rates to the communities downstream to warn them when the Lempa River may rise. Unfortunately, the CEL did not communicate with the communities and the most extreme flooding happened with little warning.

Organizaitons in the Bajo Lempa, however, came together and formed the Inter-Institutional Roundtable, and issued a press release on November 11, 2011 stating, “We demand to know the CEL’s plan for managing the release of water from the dam and the environmental impact study in order to coordinate the agricultural production cycles and manage risks, and to prioritize life and the protection of the inhabitants of the communities.”

In addition to the flooding, the local population reports several other impacts of climate change, including higher temperatures, droughts, extinction of species, increase of disease, and salinzation of soil and water sources due to increased sea levels. The Association of the United Communities for Economic and Social Development of the Bajo Lempa (ACUDESBAL) declared that communities in the Bajo Lempa are strongly feeling the affects of climate change, and that it has increased food insecurity and made poverty worse.

These problems increase as the levels of consumption and the concentration of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere continue to rise. The IPCC says that if CO2 in the atmosphere reaches 450 ppm, average temperatures will rise 2 degrees. Such a rise in temperatures will cause catastrophic climate events.

For El Salvador projections indicate an increase in the temperature between 0.8 and 1.1 degrees by the year 2020. Some of the expected impacts in the Bjao Lempa are:

-       Public health problems

-       Shortage of potable water and species of plants and animals

-       Contamination of wells and salinization of bodies of water,

-       Degradation of agricultural lands and decrease in their productivity

-       Loss of domestic animals and livestock

-       Local drainage systems will fill with sediment and collapse

-       Failure of other existing flood prevention systems, among them roads, paths, and bridges

The affected communities are already taking steps to prevent these impacts before they happen. Concepción Martínez, a historic leader of Comunidad Octavio Ortiz, recently stated, “We believe that in confronting climate change, the only viable option is to fight for our survival.”

A resolution adopted by various communities states, “we meet under the heat in La Canoa (another name for Comunidad Octavio Ortiz), to analyze the impacts of climate change that we are experiencing in the form of floods and droughts, but also in the form of the voracity of the transnational businesses and governments that do not respect the cycles of life.”

In this occasion we (communities in the Bajo Lempa) express:

“We commit to watch and demand that government policies confront climate change, and we demand they listen and include the opinions and proposals from the communities and civic organizations when forming these policies… to survive and maintain hope that another Bajo Lempa is possible.”

 

The Debate Over Public-Private Partnership Law and MCC Funding in El Salvador

Last week Pacific Rim Mining Company announced it is seeking $315 million dollars in damages from El Salvador. It was a stark reminder that the 8-year old mining debate, which included several years of threats and violence between mining supporters and opponents, has yet to been resolved and could still result in a devastating economic blow to El Salvador.

As the mining issue continues, another debate with the potential to become just as volatile is brewing. In March the Funes Administration provided some details about its proposal for a second round of funding from the Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC), a US aid program started by President Bush in 2004. The proposal is worth $413 million dollars, half of which will likely go towards an infrastructure project like improving the Litoral Highway that runs along El Salvador’s southern coast. The other half is likely to help finance public-private partnerships and improve human capital, which seems to mean education.

As details of the proposal emerge, opposition to a second round of MCC funding is growing. So far, opposition has opened on two fronts. The Salvadoran labor movement has been the most outspoken opponent, denouncing the proposed Law on Public Private Partnerships (P3 Law) since last year. Environmentalists and communities in the Lower Lempa region of Usulután have been less outspoken, but oppose the MCC proposal because the public-private partnerships will support tourism, which they strongly oppose. In 2011, members of the anti-mining movement also spoke out against the P3 Law fearing it would result in mining activities.

Mangrove Forests near La Tirana, a community targeted for a large tourism project

Because politicians within the FMLN are supporting the MCC, the politics of opposing the P3 Law and tourism are a little more complicated than opposition to mining was. Other than a protest outside the US Embassy in March and other small activities organized by the labor movement, opposition has remained largely behind closed doors, which may change soon.

            The Public Private Partnership Law

US Ambassador Maria Carmen Aponte said in October 2012 that approval of a second round of MCC funds relies on the passage of the P3 Law. The labor movement and their international supporters, argue that the P3 Law will privatize government operations including the airport, seaports, health care facilities, and other important services. They fear it will result in the loss of thousands of jobs, increasing the country’s already high rates of unemployment and driving wages down even further.

The labor movement and other opponents also do not want the private sector to control important resources and services like water, education, and health controlled. For example, Salvadoran civil society has fought against privatization of water for many years, making it such a toxic issue that politicians are unable to advocate for it publicly. Just like the government has not been able to privatize water, civil society organizations have not been able to pass a water law they have been promoting for over 8 years. Among other things, the law would protect water resources from privatization. Similarly, in 2002 then President Francisco Flores tried to privatize part of the health care system, but health care workers and many others took to the streets and forced the government to back off. Opponents of the P3 law fear it will make it easier for the government to accomplish what it has failed to do in the past – privatizing water and health care.

Supporters of the P3 Law, including President Funes, counter that public-private partnerships are not privatization, and the government will not privatize any important services, like health and education. They argue, instead, that public-private partnerships will result in more foreign direct investments, injecting capital into services and industries that are lagging behind.

The labor movement and other activists fear, however, that while not called privatization, the P3s are a way to accomplish the same goals. Concessions could last as long as 40 years, which means the state is essentially relinquishing control of an asset. Similarly, while capital investments are needed, the P3 Law will allow private, international investors to generate profits from basic services in El Salvador and take the profits overseas instead of re-investing in El Salvador.

Public-private partnerships are not new in El Salvador – they government has contracted out many operations to private companies over the years. One regular criticism is that these relationships prioritize profits over the well being of Salvadorans. For example, in the aftermath of the October 2011 floods, communities and organizations in the Lower Lempa blamed the CEL for washing them out. The CEL is the state-owned agency that manages the dam, generating electricity that private power companies sell for profit. The more electricity produced, the more money the companies make. In the months after the 2011 floods CEL representatives responded frankly, stating they operate the dams to make electricity and generate profits, not protect the people downstream.

FESPAD and Voices on the Borders 2012 legal interns recently published a full analysis of the P3 Law.

Tourism and other Investments

One of the public-private partnerships being proposed in the second MCC compact is tourism – hotels and resorts being built along El Salvador’s Pacific coast. In December the government solicited proposals from the private sector and received 49 responses, 27 of which are tourism projects in Usulután, La Paz, and La Libertad.

Tourism is not inherently bad, but communities in the Lower Lempa of Usulután fear that building hotels and resorts in and around their important and fragile ecosystems will cause irreparable harm. One Lower Lempa community targeted for a tourism project is La Tirana, an isolated and economically poor community located at the edge of one of the most pristine mangrove forest in Central America. In addition to its immense natural beauty, the forest supports thousands of species of flora and fauna. The nearby beaches are protected as a nesting ground for several species of endangered sea turtles. Residents of La Tirana fear tourists would damage the fragile mangroves with construction of houses and resorts, jet skis and motorboats, and solid waste and sewage, while displacing local residents and their farms.

Proponents of tourism argue that resorts and hotels in places like Tirana would provide jobs and spur the local economy. They believe this to be especially important in communities, such as those in the Lower Lempa, that have had their agricultural economy diminished by free trade. But locals doubt resorts will help the local economy. They know that hotels are much more likely to hire bilingual youth from San Salvador who have degrees in hotel management than poor campesinos who barely have a sixth grade education.

Voices staff recently met with community members in La Tirana, and they are very much against outside investors building resorts in their region. Recognizing that they live in a special place, the community board is proposing that the community build a series of small, humble cabanas that would have a small ecological footprint, but provide comfortable housing for a small number of guests. They are also proposing that the community build a small community kitchen that could feed guests. The community wants to develop its own small eco-tourism industry that it can regulate and ensure does not harm the forest or turtle nesting ground. It would also mean that the money from tourism would benefit the community, and not just make wealthy investors in San Salvador or abroad even richer.

Other communities in the region are even more vulnerable than La Tirana. In El Chile and other small communities, many residents still do not have title to their land. They fear that if a private investor wants to build a hotel or resort the State could take their land and they would have no legal recourse.

Our staff also met with other communities in the Lower Lempa – Comunidad Octavio Ortiz, Amando Lopez, Nueva Esperanza – and several local organizations. They are also completely opposed to tourism projects in the region. They fear that hotels and resorts will further destroy agricultural land, use up limited water resources, and destroy local culture. The community of Octavio Ortiz even wrote in their strategic plan that they see tourism as a large threat to farming and their peaceful way of life.

While most of the public-private partnership proposals involve tourism, there are quite a few agricultural projects. According to PRESA, the government agency managing the project proposals, they received 14 requests to support production of exports in dairy, mangoes, limes, and honey. In order to be considered for a public-private partnership, investors have to have $100,000 in capital and be producing export crops. The capital requirement means local farmers will not be able to participate. And the requirement that products be grown for export means even more land will be dedicated to products that do not contribute to food sovereignty, which is a top priority for the region.

There are also civil society leaders and academics in El Salvador who oppose the MCC because they see it as the latest phase in implementing a neoliberal economic agenda in their country. They hold it in the same regard as the privatization of state assets (1990s), dollarization (1995-2001), Central American Free Trade Agreement (2006), the first MCC compact (2007-2012), and Partnership for Growth (2011). Similarly, Gilberto Garcia from Center for Labor Studies (CEAL, in Spanish) believes the

highway projects, including the northern highway funded by the first MCC compact and the Litoral Highway project planned for the second compact, are part of an effort to build a land bridge in Guatemala. The “Inter-Oceanic Corridor” will connect ports on the Pacific coasts of Guatemala and El Salvador with Caribbean or Atlantic ports in Guatemala. ODEPAL is managing the project in what they call a public-private partnership. The land bridge is located in Guatemala, but it is right on the borders with El Salvador and Honduras, giving both countries easy access.

Politics of Opposing the MCC and P3 Law

Building a strong national movement around opposition to the second MCC compact and the P3 Law may be more difficult than organizing Salvadorans against mining. While the anti-mining movement was able to reduce the debate to a single issue that all Salvadorans could understand – i.e. gold mining will destroy water resources for 60% of the country – most people believe that tourism, better highways, and other capital investments are always good. Similarly, the P3 Law is fairly abstract and difficult to reduce into a simple message that the majority of Salvadorans can relate to their everyday lives.

The politics around the MCC and P3 Law will make it more difficult to achieve the kind of nation-wide opposition that the anti-mining movement was able to garner. During the mining debate, the FMLN (leftist political party) was the opposition party and had the political freedom to take an anti-mining position. The FMLN is now in power and has to consider the economic and political interests that helped them get there. President Funes and FMLN presidential candidate Sanchez Cerén support the P3 Law and MCC compact, arguing the investments will be good for the economy. According to anonymous sources, many of the same business interests that helped Mauricio Funes with the 2009 presidential elections will benefit from the P3 Law and MCC funds. FMLN legislators have been a slower to sign on to the P3 Law. At times FMLN legislators have said it was not their top priority, and more recently they have tried to negotiate amendments to exclude certain sectors such as health and education from public-private partnerships. Officials from the conservative ARENA party have accused the FMLN legislators of not supporting the law because they want to implement a socialist economy agenda.

But the civil society organizations, communities, and labor unions that are opposed to the P3 Law and the MCC funding generally make up much of the FMLN’s base. If Sanchez Cerén and his supporters continue to embrace the P3 law and the MCC funding, while many in their base protest against it, it could exacerbate an existing split within the party in the months leading up to the February 2014 presidential elections. Many former FMLN militants and supporters, especially in the Lower Lempa, already believe the movement they once fought for no longer represents their interests and values.

Though the US and Salvadoran governments want to pass the P3 Law and sign the MCC compact before the elections, many opponents are gearing up for a long struggle. Even if the P3 Law passes, when the government wants to enter into a public-private partnership the Legislative Assembly will have to approve it. They are likely to face great scrutiny and opposition. Similarly, developers wanting to break ground on tourism projects in La Tirana and other communities are likely to face some rather significant legal and social barriers – much like Pacific Rim faced in Cabañas.

The Bitter Taste of Sugar

By: Voices on the Border

Fotografía: Al Jazeera. Quema de caña de azúcar en el Bajo Lempa.

Originally from Southeast Asia, sugarcane arrived in the Caribbean Islands on Christopher Columbus’ second voyage in 1494 and its cultivation expanded rapidly throughout much of the continent. Sugarcane is now one of the main export products from tropical countries like El Salvador, where it accounts for 2.8% of the gross national product and almost 20% of agricultural production.

Mario Salvverria, president of the Salvadoran Association of Sugar Producers and former Minister of Agriculture said that sugarcane is not only resistant to the impacts of climate change, the last sugarcane harvest (2011-2012) actually grew by 10% over the previous harvest, reaching 15 million quintals. With that, El Salvador has gone from being a major industrial sugarcane producing country in Central America to being in the ninth largest exporter of raw sugar in the world.

The Central American Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA) is one factor that has stimulated the increase in production. CAFTA assigns export quotas that increase annually. For example, the sugarcane quota for the 2011-2012 harvest was set at 645,217.38 quintals (142,246 pounds), but for the 2012-2013 harvest it will be 673,913.03 quintals (148,572 pounds).

But the economic growth enjoyed by the sugarcane sector must be contrasted with the tragedy lived out by the communities located in regions where production has expanded. One of the regions most affected by mono-cultivation of sugar is the Lower Lempa region of Usultuan. The local population has denounced the destruction of biodiversity, consumption of water sources, depletion of agricultural land, destruction of traditional campesino agricultural traditions, and the health of the people exposed to agrochemicals and the methods used to spray them.

The Confederation of Federations of Salvadoran Agrarian Reform (CONFRAS) recently completed a study that included the Lower Lempa that determined that the cultivation of sugarcane uses at least eight different pesticides. Among them are Glyphosate, which is a controversial herbicide that environmentalist around the world would like to see banned.

This is one of the reasons that the Lower Lempa reports high rates of kidney disease, a problem evidenced by the results of a 2009 study completed by doctors from the Kidney Institute of Havana, Cuba. Their investigation revealed that 11 of every 100 residents of the Lower Lempa were suffering from kidney disease, and that in the Community of Ciudad Romero 30 people had already died within the past three years. The large majority of cases are reported in men – 25.7% of men tested were positive for kidney problems, while only 11.8% of women tested were positive. Cuban nephrologist Carlos Orantes led the study explained at the time that the problem is associated with a variety of factors, among them is agrochemicals.

The real problem for the communities is the burning of the sugarcane fields, the objective of which is to increase production of the workers who cut the cane by reducing the end product to the cane by burning off the unnecessary green leaves so they are not shipped to the plant. Ricardo Navarro from CESTA/Friends of the Earth stresses that the burning process has the highest environmental costs in that it destroys the soil and biodiversity, alters the local microclimate, contaminates the air, and generates greenhouse gases. The Sugarcane Producers Association of El Salvador, however, has said that the environmental impact of sugarcane production is positive. He says on the Association’s website that “planting a hectacre of sugarcane is the same as planting two hectacres of native forest.”

While few enjoy the sweet economic benefits of sugar, many suffer the bitter impacts of its production without the Salvadoran State institutions acting to take meaningful action to prevent damage.

**This article was first published in Spanish on Tuesday as an opinion piece by the Diario C0-Latino.

The Mangroves of La Tirana

Thompson Reuters published a photo yesterday of La Tirana, one of the communities in the Lower Lempa region of Usulutan targeted for tourism. The short article accompanying the photo focused not on tourism, but on the impact of greenhouse gases and climate change on the region. Here’s the photo and the full text:

Mangrove trees are pictured at the small community of La Tirana, about 110 kilometres (68 miles) from San Salvador August 3, 2012. Because of its location as a thin strip of land between two oceans in a tropical zone, Central America is one of the regions most vulnerable to greenhouse gases. The Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC) estimates that the area stands to lose $10 billion over the next four years for this reason alone. The damage is not confined to El Salvador, Central America’s smallest country, but also its neighbours. Across the region, large tracts of mangroves have also been destroyed by the shrimp and hotel industry, the cultivation of palm oil and sugarcane, as well as salt fields. According to a FAO study, Central America’s mangroves as a whole declined by 35 percent between 1980 and 2005 in terms of hectares. Honduran mangroves decreased by 56 percent, Nicaragua’s forests by 37 percent and Panama by 32 percent. Picture taken August 3, 2012. REUTERS/Ulises Rodriguez

Last year, Ryan Luckey published an article in Al Jazeera English documenting the loss of these mangrove forests in La Tirana and elsewhere in El Salvador. The article quotes Dr. Ricardo Navarro from CESTA (EL Salvador Center for Applied Technology), “All along the central coast of El Salvador there is a dead zone stretching along the beach, measuring between 10 and 50 metres. The cause? Climate change.”

Voices staff took a delegation to La Tirana earlier in this year to see the dead zone – here are a couple photos:

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Discussion on Goldcorp at Salvadoran Consulate – Tuesday, October 30

This morning we (Voices staff) received an invitation for an important event next Tuesday evening (October 30^th) concerning the Cerro Blanco Mine in Guatemala and the environmental implications for El Salvador. The event is sponsored by the Salvadoran Consulate, the Office of the Ombudsman for Human Rights in El Salavdor, and CISPES.

The Cerro Blanco mine, which is owned and operated by Goldcorp –a Canadian mining company –, is in the Guatemalan province of Jutiapa. Environmentalists and local communities are concerned that mining activities will contaminate Lake Guija, which spans the border between El Salvador and Guatemala. Salvadoran environmentalist David Pereira explained a couple years ago that “toxic waste water from the mine will flow into the 45 square kilometers of Lake Guija, and on into the Lempa River, the main river basin in El Salvador.” Fears are substantiated by a study produced by Dina Larios, professor of geochemistry and hydrology at Ohio University, that contains serious warnings about wastewater from the mine.

Here’s some information on the event:

 “Implications of the Cerro Blanco mine on the El Salvador/Guatemala Border Area”

Report presented by the Ombudsman for Human Rights and the Center for Investigation of Commerce and Investment to the Inter-American Commission of Human Rights in Washington DC

Date:             Tuesday, October 30

Time:            6:00 pm

Place:            Salvadoran Consulate

2332 Wisconsin Ave. NW

Washington DC 2007

RSVP:            camelgar@rree.gob.sv or (301) 437-7698

We don’t hear as much about mining in El Salvador these days, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t a huge issue. As long as there is gold, silver, and other minerals of value there will be people trying to extract them.

So if you’re in DC on Tuesday, please try to attend.

Buying Up El Espino – the Last Lung of San Salvador

In the past couple of weeks, El Faro.net has published a couple of articles about Finca El Espino. An article last week reported that a Salvadoran court has allowed the sale of 7 manzanas (12 acres) to continue. An article posted on Monday reports that José Roberto Argueta Manzano, who led an effort to purchase 213 manzanas (370 acres), has been appointed to the Salvadoran Supreme Court. El Faro’s articles are reminders that one of El Salvador’s most important natural resources remains under a constant threat of being destroyed.

Last week a judge in Tonacatepeque said there were no legal reasons to nullify a 2011 aucAnction that resulted in the sale of two lots totaling 12 acres in El Espino. Salvadoran contractor Raúl Arguello González paid $4,020,000 for the two pieces of land, and the court’s decision will allow the parties to complete the sale by registering the transaction with the National Registry.

In early 2006, Argueta Manzano and the Ancona Corporation purchased 370 acres of land in El Espino for $2,979,000 during a similar public auction. This summer, Argueta Manzano was appointed to be a magistrate in the Supreme Court’s Public Sector Dispute chamber(one of four chambers charged with hearing administrative law cases).

El Faro.net has reported on Finca El Espino regularly over the years, referring to it as San Salvador’s last lung because it is El Salvador’s largest carbon sink. El Espino is also an extremely important aquifer recharge zone. Seasonal rainwater drains down from the San Salvador volcano and soaks into the aquifer underneath, providing as much as 40% of the water for San Salvador.

In 2008, ComUnica en Linea (an online journal published by the University of Central America) posted an informative article on El Espino.  From the 1860s to 1980 Finca El Espino belonged to the Dueñas family. In 1980 President Duarte passed agrarian reform and expropriated El Espino from the Dueñas family and placed it in the control of the El Espino Agricultural Production Cooperative. In 1987, the Supreme Court revoked the expropriation and returned the property back to the Dueñas family. The members of the Cooperative rejected the Court’s findings and began a protracted legal battle over who owned the property. In 1993, the Cristiani Administration bought 83% of El Espino (1,194 acres) and titled it to the Cooperative.

Since then, the Cooperative has sold off much of El Espino, one piece at a time –the sales to Argueta Manzano and Raúl Arguello González are just two examples. Laws and the Cooperative’s own statutes that protect the forest prevent the outright sale of property within El Espino. Loopholes, however, have allowed churches, contractors, developers, and law firms (which often hold land for international investors) to purchase large tracks of the protected area. One of the El Faro articles says, “the sale of all of Finca [El Espino] is just a question of time.”

Most of El Espino, including the sections that were recently auctioned off, is technically still a protected area, so it’s unlikely that Argueta Manzano and Arguello González will be breaking out chainsaws in the immediate future. But they and others have invested millions of dollars in buying land, surely with the expectation that they will be able to develop it sometime in the future. There is plenty of precedent to give them hope. Within the past 10 years the government has approved destruction of part of El Espino for a San Salvador by-pass system. In 2004 developers cleared a section of the forest to build the Multiplaza shopping center. There are also high-end housing developments, a golf course, government complexes and much more on what used to be part of San Salvador’s last lung.

In 2005 the Legislative Assembly gave into popular pressure and passed the Law of Protected Natural Areas. Laws, however, can be overturned and amended, and clever attorneys make lots of money to find loopholes. Investors understand this well – why else buy sections of Finca El Espino?

Anti-Walmart Action in Mejicanos, El Salvador

This past Thursday civil society organizations, international solidarity groups, students, and community associations came together to protest the construction of a mega Walmart store in Mejicanos, a municipality in northern San Salvador.

Protest organizers issued a statement that read,

“We are aware that transnational companies like Walmart create more precarious environmental conditions, exploit our workers, and put our lives at risk.  We demand that the Environmental Ministry, the Office on Metropolitan Planning, and the Mejicanos Mayor’s Office, release the technical information that demonstrates the viability of Walmart’s construction in the area.  The communities must be consulted, since they are the ones threatened by floods and landslides, and who have resisted the project for years.”

Photo courtesy of Georgina Salinas

According to community leaders , construction of the super-store poses a serious risk to the surrounding communities along the folds of the San Salvador volcano.  Mejicanos is already ranked as the third most vulnerable urban center in El Salvador, and 45% of the households lack at least one basic service such as water, electricity or proper shelter.[1]

Mauricio Cortéz of the Inter Communal Coordinating Committee has been demanding answers to the various risks that the municipality faces for decades.  The Picacho ravine of the volcano is unstable, and residents fear a repeat of the devastating 1934 and 1982 landslides that covered entire communities.  Intense urbanization has forced poor families off of the their land in favor of up-scale residential development and new boulevards  – projects which heavily impact watershed patterns and hill side stability.

Rene Bermudez, who has been part of the Walmart resistance movement for the past 5 years, also denounced Walmart’s demolition of an important access road along the parameter of the property.  Municipal land-use maps establish the Arenal road to provide residents of Las Marias access to their community. In order to prepare for the new Walmart, contractors bulldozed the road claiming that it was just a drainage ditch.  Las Marias residents now have to use a winding path through residential properties.

Today’s protest was in response to the new mayor’s sudden approval for the construction permits.  Prior permits had been denied due Walmart’s inability to meet environmental regulations, but within weeks of taking office, the new conservative mayor, Juanita Lemus de Pacas, announced that Walmart would be open by December of this year.

Walmart has been in Central America since 2005 and is already the region’s largest retailer. Walmart Centroamérica has 79 stores open in El Salvador; Despensa Familiar – 51; La Despensa de Don Juan -25; Walmart Supercenter – 2; and Maxi Despensa -1.

Community leaders are upset by the mayor’s eager support of the project, and have signaled that Walmart was able to cull favor with the new administration through tactics that were similar to those used in Mexico and exposed this past April.  Lemus de Pacas’ entire campaign was based on inviting large business contracts into the area, and she has continued to align the mayor’s office with private interests.  Gloria Andrade, a community leader in San Pedro, Mejicanos, said that local market women had planned on participating in the protest, but the mayor threatened to pull funds for their new market if they were to attend.

 

Photo courtesy of Georgina Salinas

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[1] FLASCO, Mapa de Pobreza urbana y exclución social. FLASCO-MINED. 2008.

Protest Against Walmart in Mejicanos, El Salvador Next Thursday

Last month, Walmart received permits to build a store in Mejicanos, a municipality within the greater Metropolitan San Salvador Area. The 86,100 square foot store will be located on a lovely 6.6-acre lot on the Constitution Boulevard, at the base of the San Salvador Volcano. Walmart officials estimate that the store will create 500 new direct jobs and 250 new indirect jobs and inject a bunch of new tax revenue into the local and central governments.

Sadly, the 6.6 acres where Walmart is going to build was a forest, which was removed to accommodate the large building and parking lots.

Destruction of the forest and other reasons have sparked a group of Salvadorans to oppose the new Walmart. They are organizing a protest on Thursday June 21 at the Shafik Plaza in front of the new store’s location. In an email invitation to the protest, organizers provided a top-ten list of reasons they oppose the new Walmart. Their reasons include:

1. The reduction of income and the closing of local businesses as the result of competition with Wal-Mart;
2. The cutting down of thousands of trees;
3. Floods, landslides and the obstruction of drainage pipes as a result of deforestation;
4. Damage to hydraulic basins which would mean less water for human consumption;
5. Higher temperatures: if there are fewer trees, the temperature will increase;
6. Labor rights violations: poor employee compensation, with difficult working conditions such as the denial of the right to form a union;
7. Increased dependence of small producers that sell to Wal-Mart, because as the sole business partner of these producers, Wal-Mart controls the terms and prices of trade;
8. More genetically modified and unhealthy products would enter the country;
9. More imported products would worsen the country’s economic crisis; and
10. There will probably be more illicit processes in the acquisition of permits; which could include corruption and intimidation.

Anticipating that Salvadorans would not appreciate their cutting down trees, the mega-giant store plans to plant 10,000 trees in a deforested areas in the nearby municipality of Nejapa. Whether their reforestation efforts will offset losing 6.6 acres of forest at the base of the volcano remains unclear, but opponents are doubtful.

Protest organizers have a Facebook page with information about the protest and their opposition. Here is a poster advertizing the event:

Elsalvador.com published an article on May 1^st of this year giving the new ARENA mayor, Juanita Lemus de Pacas, credit for getting Walmart the permits they need to start building. Up to the March 2012 elections, the leftist FMLN party had held the mayor’s office in Mejicanos and Walmart was unable to secure their permits. Shortly after the new ARENA government took over the municipal government, Walmart broke ground on the project.

Walmart has been in Central America since 2005 and is already the region’s largest retailer. Walmart Centroamérica has 79 stores open in El Salvador; Despensa Familiar – 51; La Despensa de Don Juan -25; Walmart Supercenter – 2; and Maxi Despensa -1.

Durban, El Salvador and Climate Change

Since Tropical Storm 12-E poured 55 inches of rain on El Salvador just two months ago, high-ranking government officials have jointed communities in the Lower Lempa region of Jiquilisco in speaking out against climate change. Unfortunately, the principal emitters of the greenhouse gases responsible for climate change do not seem to be listening.

President Funes recently stated, “Climate change has harmful effects on societies, and particularly our country.” Minister of the Environment Herman Rosa Chávez said in the days after the flooding, “El Salvador is one place on earth that is already suffering from climate change.” Communities in the Lower Lempa held a forum earlier in the year in which residents discussed how climate change was already affecting their lives, including extreme droughts and flooding, as has been the pattern for the last few years.

Climate change has also been in the news because of the recent United Nations Climate Change Conference, which was held November 28 to December 11 in Durban, South Africa. For those in the Lower Lempa who are still recovering from the October floods AND trying to prepare for future extreme weather events, there was a lot at stake in the Durban negotiations. Climate change is a reality in their communities and if the global community does not agree to cut emissions, Tropical Storm 12-E will become a way of life.

The Economist summarized the Durban agreement as “a quid pro quo between the European Union and big developing-country polluters, especially China and India.” The agreement failed to consider the demands and pleas from smaller economies (and smaller emitters) such as El Salvador. The deal requires that EU countries continue reducing emissions of greenhouse gases responsible for climate change under the existing Kyoto protocol. The U.S. never signed on to Kyoto and Canada just dropped out, so the Durban agreement did not affect their current emissions-status. The main provisions of Kyoto were set to expire in 2012, but under the agreement they will be extended. In the meantime, developed and developing countries will work together to produce a new agreement by 2015 that will be implemented by 2020. The Kyoto protocol does not require developing or poor countries to reduce emissions, and under the Durban compromise they will remain exempt until the new agreement goes into affect.

The U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) maintains a database of CO2 emissions for each country. Based purely on output, China emits the most greenhouse gases – 7,707 million metric tons of CO2 (2009). The U.S emits the second highest levels of greenhouse gases – 5,425 million metric tons of CO2 (2009). China, however, emits only 5.83 metric tons of CO2/capita, while the U.S. emits 17.67 metric tons of CO2/capita. India emits the 3rd highest levels of greenhouse gases – 1,591 million metric tons of CO2 (2009), which is only 1.38 tons/capita. El Salvador, in comparison, emitted only 5.93 million metric tons of CO2 (2009), which is 0.98 tons of CO2/capita.

The Union of Concerned Scientists, analyzing EIA figures from 2008, concluded,

“The picture from these figures is one where…. developed countries and major emerging economy nations lead in total carbon dioxide emissions. Developed nations typically have high carbon dioxide emissions per capita, while some developing countries lead in the growth rate of carbon dioxide emissions. Obviously, these uneven contributions to the climate problem are at the core of the challenges the world community faces in finding effective and equitable solutions.”

This was the tension at Durban. Larger emerging markets –China and India – are not bound by the Kyoto protocol and did not want to be bound under a new agreement. Their argument is that per capita, they emit far less than developed countries and limits on emissions would hinder their ability to develop and lift their populations out of poverty. This argument was more promulgated by India – China, which has fairly high levels of per capita emissions appears to realize that they need to take steps to cut emissions by developing clean energy sources.

Similarly, developed nations don’t want to put themselves at a “competitive disadvantage” with such large economies as China and India by agreeing to expensive emission reductions that developing countries don’t have to worry about. Many other countries participating in the Durban Conference are like El Salvador –small economies with relatively low emissions that are suffering the effects of climate change, but lack the economic or political capital to force the larger countries to cut their emissions.

As the Economist points out, the U.S. should be pleased with the outcome of the Durban Conference. The U.S. never ratified the Kyoto protocol because it did not require developing nations to cut emissions. The Durban agreement, however, lays the groundwork for requiring that all nations cut emissions of greenhouse gases, but puts it off until 2020.

This past Monday, Amy Goodman on Democracy Now dedicated her entire broadcast to the Durban Conference.  Kate Horner, who is a policy analyst for Friends of the Earth International, said on Monday’s show,

“The outcome of the talks here in Durban is, unfortunately, a very weak agreement that lacks in ambition, equity and justice. The Kyoto protocol… will continue only as an empty shell. Several countries – namely, Canada, Russia, and Japan – have refused to put new targets on the table, and the countries that have signed up have only offered really shockingly low levels of ambition… The United States has weaseled out of every promise that it has made, including to take on comparable action to other developed countries in line with its historic responsibility for contributing to this problem.”

She also said the Durban Platform, “is really not the important milestone in building a climate regime that many have called it, including the United States and the European Union… the most damaging part of it is it’s an attempt to shift the burden of this problem on developing countries who have contributed less.”

Salvadoran Environmental Minister Herman Rosa Chávez spoke at the conference, highlighting the effects of climate change on Central America. He called for the Conference to address three essential issues: fund the Green Climate Fund, expansion of adaption efforts, and serious mitigation commitments from developed and principal emitters.

This week, Salvadoran environmental groups held a forum in San Salvador to discuss the Durban Conference. In a statement released after the forum, the environmentalists criticized the international community and Salvadoran government for failing to take appropriate action to address climate change. Pointing out that international studies have identified El Salvador as one of the countries most vulnerable to climate change, participants emphasized that if polluters don’t cut emissions, average temperatures in El Salvador will rise 6 degrees Celsius.

The Council of Ministers of Foreign Affairs of the Central American Integration System (SICA) met yesterday in San Salvador in advance of the SICA summit that begins today. The purpose of their meeting in advance of the summit was for the Consultative Group for the Reconstruction of Central America to create an action plan for helping the region adapt to climate change. Addressing the meeting on Wednesday, President Funes said,

“The proposal of the meeting with the Consultative Group is not to get resources, its to put the Central American region and particularly El Salvador on the international agenda, and that the impact that climate change is having is more visible.”

What is clear post-Durban is that the countries that are responsible for emitting the most greenhouse gases that is causing climate change are more motivated to protect their short-term economic development than preventing long-term disaster. It is also apparent that countries like El Salvador that emit low levels of greenhouse gases but are experiencing the extreme weather patterns associated with climate change have little influence over the discussions. As Tropical Storm 12-E showed Central Americans, doing nothing to prevent climate change is not really an option. But it seems that’s exactly what the principal emitters are doing – nothing.