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.”