The mission recommended that the international community condemn the coup and demand Zelaya's return.
The mission calls on the international community not to accept elections organized by the de facto Micheletti government and to continue to suspend international budget aid. It also calls on the international community to maintain the suspension of diplomatic relations with the Micheletti administration, including suspending diplomatic visas and freezing foreign bank accounts.
All these measures are intended to force the de facto government to accept the negotiations coordinated by Costa Rican President Oscar Arias. Arias seeks a peaceful return to democracy that will begin with Zelaya's return to the country.
The members of the mission were able to confirm that human rights have been violated, as people were arrested without formal legal accusations. The people who have been detained include not only Hondurans, but also foreigners, especially Nicaraguans.
The mission also confirmed several cases of violations of freedom of speech and expression and has had conversations with journalists that were forced to stop their activities.
In order to continue monitoring the situation in Honduras, the mission has decided to create a Human Rights Observatory.
]]>De Echave's remarks came during a conference held by Oxfam America and the Revenue Watch Institute in Washington, DC titled "From Conflict to Consensus: Extractive Industry Transparency in Latin America." The conference included speakers from citizen organizations in Bolivia, Ecuador, Mexico, and Peru, as well as the Peruvian Ambassador to the US Luis Valdivieso and Anwar Ravat, the World Bank’s manager of the Extractive Industry Transparency Initiative.
Patricia Diaz, Oxfam America's program officer in South America following the hydrocarbon industry, says conflicts erupt in Peru and other countries as “communities express frustration with what they perceive to be significant social and environmental costs associated with extractive industries, and only limited social benefits. These conflicts not only destabilize Peru but create a difficult operating environment for American and other companies.” She also said that conflicts flare up when mines and pipelines are set up without the free, prior, and informed consent of local people.
Oxfam America and Revenue Watch Institute are advocating for governments and companies to disclose payments made for oil, gas, and mining projects as a means to build trust and reduce conflicts. Citizens would be able to see how much money their government receives from companies, and if they are getting a fair share of revenue devoted to their communities. Diaz says this information would help avoid conflicts such as the one seen in the Tacna and Moquegua regions of Peru last year, when the government altered mining royalty payments, setting off protests by 20,000 people resulting in three deaths. “More information on the mining revenues that each region would be receiving could have helped to avert this conflict,” she said.
A few days after the Washington event, and after months of pressure from Oxfam America and others, the Inter-American Development Bank formally endorsed EITI. In the U.S. Congress, Diaz and others also held a briefing to urge action on proposed legislation to require extractive industry revenue disclosure. If enacted, the law would require companies subject to US Securities and Exchange Commission rules to disclose payments to governments. “Civil society in Peru would have a key tool for ensuring that these payments ultimately benefit the local communities most affected by mining and hydrocarbon projects,” Diaz said in Washington. “And US companies and consumers would benefit through better operating environments and steady access to the raw materials you depend on.”
Download all the presentations delivered at the conference here.
]]>Zelaya intended to hold a public opinion poll the day he was arrested. The poll was to determine if there could be a referendum to create a new constitution. Hours after the coup, the congress named Roberto Micheletti interim president.
Since then, the country has entered a political crisis that could affect other countries in the region. Citizens are holding protest marches all over the country, and social movements are criticizing the coup and demanding respect for the constitution. The interim government has suspended five constitutional rights: the right to protest; freedom in one's home from unwarranted search, seizure and arrest; freedom of association; guarantees of due process while under arrest; and freedom of movement in the country.
Much of the international community (including El Salvador, Nicaragua, Guatemala, the Organization of American States (OAS), the United Nations, and the European Union) condemns the coup and insists on the reinstatement of Zelaya and the restoration of political and social order. The OAS suspended Honduras's right to participate in this international body as long as Zelaya is not restored to the presidency.
Zelaya attempted to fly back into the country on July 4th, but the military blocked the runway as hundreds of thousands of people marched to Tegucigalpa's international airport to welcome him. One man was shot and killed, and 10 were wounded by the army.
Instability in Honduras is affecting the programs Oxfam is supporting in the country. These include helping small-scale farmers to increase their production, and better sell their crops in national and regional markets. Oxfam also supports organizations that protect women victims of violence, and disaster risk reduction projects that help communities to prepare for and better withstand natural disasters like earthquakes or hurricanes.
]]>These, and many more lives and livelihoods are at risk unless urgent action is taken to protect poor people from the triple threat of the economic crisis, rising food prices and climate change. Sub-Saharan Africa alone is expected to lose $245 billion this year as a result of the global slump but will receive only about $5 billion in additional aid.
Yet rather than delivering on his own aid promises and encouraging other countries to meet theirs, Silvio Berlusconi, G8 chair and Italian president, is attempting to wriggle out of his commitments to the world's poorest. He has cut aid and pushed the G8 to adopt a new "whole of country" approach that would use creative accounting to hide broken promises.
Max Lawson, Oxfam senior policy advisor, said: "Like a modern day Nero, Berlusconi is fiddling while Africa burns. G8 leaders must get serious and ensure this summit delivers a concrete plan to get aid promises back on track, and to protect poor people from the triple threat of the economic, food and climate crises."
According to the OECD, G8 leaders will fall short by as much as $23 billion in their 2005 promise to increase annual aid by $50 billion over five years. Oxfam calculates this money could be used to pay for HIV treatment for 500,000, services for mothers and newborns that would save a further 2.5 million, child health services that would save a further 600,000 lives.
On average, rich countries outside the G8 give more than twice as much of their national income in overseas aid (0.54 percent), as G8 members (0.23 percent).
Farida Bena, Oxfam International Italian spokesperson said: "It is time that G8 countries paid their fair share of aid to reduce poverty in Africa and elsewhere. Why can other rich countries put their hands in their pocket whilst most of the G8 refuses to do so? A G8 that refuses to keep its word, a G8 that fails to meet the unprecedented challenges facing the world's poor—that is a G8 in crisis."
Far from showing leadership in its role as G8 chair, Italy is cutting its aid to poor countries. Last year Italy cut its aid through the Foreign Affairs Ministry by a staggering 56 percent. France too has barely increased aid despite promises to do so, and other countries are not bringing the ambition needed to the table this year—when it is most needed.
The "whole of country approach" promoted by Berlusconi could allow countries to count money charities, philanthropists, companies and trade links deliver to developing countries as part of their assistance to poor countries. Adding these disparate elements to produce a large cash figure of little value would allow countries like Italy and France to deflect attention from their lamentable performance on aid.
Instead of muddying the waters with creative accounting, Oxfam is calling on the G8 to agree an emergency plan to get their aid commitments back on track ahead of the 2010 deadline. The need for increased aid is shown by the $245 billion economic black hole facing Africa as a result of a reduction in expected growth from 6.7 percent to 1 percent. By contrast, aid will only increase by $4.6 billion this year. IMF special drawing rights and other measures agreed at the G20 add only another $16 billion. This falls way short of what is needed.
Lawson said: "The world has a triple crisis on it hands. The economic crisis is destroying jobs, reducing remittances and forcing cuts in health and education services for some of the world's poorest people. Africa is set to lose $245 billion this year alone yet the response from rich countries remains pitifully small.
"The food crisis has pushed another 200 million people into hunger. More than one in six of the world's people now do not have enough to eat. The climate crisis contributes to severe weather that forces people from their homes and destroys their livelihoods every day."
Bena said: "Over the next few days, the G8 must show the leadership the world needs. There won't be any second chances to save these 3 million people later. The G8 cannot turn their back on the poorest people now. This must be a week of bold action."
]]>We have been hearing a lot about the mangroves on this trip to the Pacific coast where countless families are struggling against a poverty that forces them to live where no one else will: in low-lying areas prone to flooding and along the sides of dirt roads that become hard to negotiate during heavy rains.
South of here, in a town called Metalío, we have just met with Francisco Calzadilla, a member of the technical team for Caritas, which, together with Oxfam America and three other donor groups, as well as six local non-governmental organizations, has joined a consortium called PRVAS—or Programa Reducción de Vulnerabilidades Ahuachapán-Sonsonate. One of its goals is to help communities carry out mitigation projects to reduce their risk in disasters. And that's where the mangroves come in.
"They serve as a natural barrier—to the waves and the wind off the ocean," says Calzadilla. "They also provide a food source. They serve as an ecosystem for shellfish."
The strip of mangroves Calzadilla is particularly concerned with, stretches for about 20 kilometers around Metalío. He estimates that about 50 percent of that stretch has been deforested as people cut down the trees for both construction material and firewood.
But in August, with support from PRVAS, community members took steps to recover some of those losses, said Calzadilla. They collected, sorted, and planted 20,000 mangrove seeds—they look like long, slender pods—along a two-kilometer deforested strip.
It will be a while—10 years predicted Calzadilla—before the seedlings mature enough to serve as a barrier against the onslaught of Mother Nature. In areas where the mangroves have disappeared and there is nothing to break the force of winds, small houses have blown away, Calzadilla said.
In some neighborhoods around Acajutla, El Salvador's largest port, mangrove forests have been severely reduced—replaced by fill and the simple homes of some of the country's poorest residents.
Further east in the department of Usulután, preservation efforts are underway for some of the mangrove forests in Jiquilisco Bay, where Oxfam America is helping local fishermen organize themselves to improve their production and protect their livelihoods. They depend on the resources that flourish in the dense tangle of roots, mud, and tidal water.
Deep in the pre-dawn gloom of one protected area in the bay, we can just make out a platform where watchmen keep round-the-clock guard over this watery haven supported by funds from the United Nations. Here, mollusks can get a solid start and help to increase the catch that local fishermen need to feed their families.
Later, after the sun is up and the tide has receded, the mangrove forests in Jiquilisco Bay come alive with the chirping and scrambling of wildlife. Herons pick their way over the mud flats. A raccoon darts through the exposed roots. A vulture studies us from his perch on a branch.
Juan Larín Rojas, a 54-year-old fisherman, eyes each one of them with delight. He knows many of their scientific names. This is his turf, and despite the challenges of making a living from these mangroves and the sea around them, he wouldn't give up this life for anything.
"I love fishing. I love the sea. I love feeling free," he says.
]]>The house is gone now, and Canjura, her husband, and their four boys have moved to a new cinder block house—with a tile floor and a composting latrine—built by an aid group a short distance away. But for many poor people settled in this mangrove swamp, all the problems remain of living on marginal land, made more hazardous by the increased flooding climate change seems to be triggering.
And that's why Canjura, with the help of Oxfam America and a consortium of aid groups, is now rallying with other local activists to bring their problems to the attention of the Salvadoran government and push for help.
The consortium, made up of five donor groups and six local non-governmental organizations, started two years ago with a program called PRVAS—or Programa Reducción de Vulnerabilidades Ahuachapán-Sonsonate. The program helps communities in the area organize themselves to better prepare for disasters, carry out small mitigation projects, and win the ear of local governments. The idea behind the PRVAS is to help people help themselves—and find ways to make a new civil protection law, passed in 2005, work for them.
"If we just continue from an emergency response perspective, all we'll do year after year is help rescue people," says Henry Giovani Magaña the coordinator for PRVAS. "We won't help people overcome their vulnerabilities—which is what we want."
We are sitting in a small community center, a low-slung ocean-front structure on loan to residents in this coastal region from a Salvadoran living in the US. Other buildings—some less substantial than this one—line both sides of the street. And further back, amid pools of murky water, stretch what's left of the mangroves in this area. The construction of a railroad down to the coast in the 1930s marked the beginning of their end.
Magaña explains that when the railroad came, landless families, in search of jobs and a place to live, settled here, and slowly the swampland began to get developed. Nearby, the Sensunapan River, now reportedly one of the most polluted in this tiny country, drains into the sea, its water silted and brown. The river serves as both a source of income—shirtless diggers scoop boatloads of sand from its floor—and dread: During heavy rains, the Sensunapan spills from its channel and floods the surrounding homes.
Though fill and levees have altered the landscape in these coastal neighborhoods, the basic topography has not changed—with consequences that have proved dire in the decades since for poor people clinging to this strip of land along the Pacific.
"Nature doesn't make mistakes," says Magaña. "It wants this to be wet. There are floods here all the time."
And now, compounding the trouble, are changing weather patterns that are making life even more challenging for the families struggling here.
"About five years ago we started to notice that the sea is coming in further, and when there are very high tides it's slowly eroding houses along the shore," says Hilton Alcir Aguilar, a volunteer coordinator for the five coastal neighborhoods participating in the PRVAS program in Acajutla. "And the rains are heavier. Before, it would take two hours of rain for water to rise high enough to flood. Now, it happens in one hour."
Canjura has spent all of her 30 years right here in the La Playa neighborhood. And in that time she has begun to see changes that are having serious implications for her family.
"When we have these temporales—the storms that rain for several days—the water rises. But with climate change, we're seeing more flooding and we're also seeing it in areas that didn't flood before," she says. "Here most of the men are fishermen and they used to be able to haul in a lot but because of climate change, the fish seemed to have migrated away from here. It's really affected their ability to support their families. Some are looking for work as bricklayers. Some have opened bike repair shops. And some continue to fish."
Her husband is one of those—a fisherman.
"It has affected us," says Canjura. "He's getting less fish. If we used to eat two tortillas at a meal, now we're eating one." Sometimes, she says, her children go hungry.
"When you talk to people about climate change here, they're much more concerned," said Magaña. "They know storms are going to get worse, and if they're already living in vulnerable positions, it will make them more vulnerable."
What are the answers?
One solution, says Canjura, is the construction of a levee system on the Sensunapan River that would protect the densely populated community along one of its banks. But the price tag is steep, and no one has agreed to fund it, she adds. Nevertheless, other smaller projects proposed by locals and supported by PRVAS members are now moving ahead.
"We're trying to organize community councils so we can put together project proposals and seek support," says Canjura. She points to the recent construction of a seawall in La Playa as proof of what's possible when enough people get behind an idea. Designed to keep high tides from slopping onto the coastal road and into the homes of people along it, the seawall was built with help from Caritas, the mayor's office, and plenty of manual labor provided by the community.
"All of us felt very proud," says Canjura. "We were very happy we were able to achieve that."
Other projects in the works include the paving of a dirt evacuation route in the community of El Milagro. All it takes is two hours of heavy rain before the neighborhood floods with water up to people's knees, says José Vidal Aguillón, chairman of a local community council. A paved evacuation route will allow them to get out fast—without vehicles getting stuck in the mud. A broad drainage ditch, also under construction, will help the floodwaters to drain away more quickly—and prevent possible contaminants in the water from lingering.
But construction projects aren't all that's needed to help poor people in coastal Acajutla weather the increasing challenges they face. They need a voice and they need influence—both of which PRVAS is slowly helping them muster.
"From the training in disaster risk reduction we've gone through with the PRVAS program, we've built our skills to advocate for greater aid from the government—and we're also getting more involved in working with the government," says Aguilar, the community coordinator. "The biggest achievement is the unity in the five communities—that we're united behind the same goal—and the influence we're starting to have in different government institutions."
With that influence, perhaps the communities will be able to lobby successfully for more opportunities for advanced schooling or vocational training in Acajutla—both critical if people are to become competitive in the job market. With fishing drying up, many of the Acajutla's breadwinners are going to have to find other means of making a living.
Canjura seems to be keenly aware of that. She has only a sixth-grade education, and her husband stopped his schooling after the third grade. But all four of their children are steadily moving up through the grades, even as finding the resources to buy the necessary school supplies is a constant worry for Canjura and her husband. Their oldest son will soon be entering eighth grade.
Would she like to see them go on to high school?
Canjura sighs deeply at the question, and is silent for a moment.
"That's my goal," she says finally. "I really want them to get ahead. But the way things are now, it's pretty hard."
]]>El Salvador is a densely populated nation, with over 300 people living in each square kilometer (with roughly 800 people living in each square mile). It is also a country where 96 percent of the surface water is contaminated, and where only 3 percent of the original forest cover still stands. It is for these reasons that Oxfam, the Catholic Church, the Roundtable on Metals Mining, and other sectors of society believe that mining projects are inappropriate for the country under current conditions. With this telephone call to the radio station, the President agreed. His strong and firm position could have far reaching implications for the efforts of various civil society organizations to reform the current Mining Law.
The arrival of mining companies to El Salvador in recent years has provoked tensions and conflicts between affected communities and other sectors of society. Under the rules of the Central America Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA), Canadian mining company Pacific Rim began an arbitration process last December against El Salvador for refusing to grant the company a mining production license. Saca says he would prefer to confront the company and be forced to pay it the US $77 million it says it has invested in the country rather than negotiate with the company and grant the license.
Oxfam America, which has raised concerns about mining activity in El Salvador, its impacts on communities, and its role in the development process, supports Saca's position.
"It's an important step for El Salvador to be the first Latin American country that undertakes a critical analysis of the costs and benefits of these mining projects and exercises its right to say 'no' to mining within its borders," says Andrés McKinley, a program officer for extractive industries with Oxfam's office in Central America. Oxfam America has an international campaign which maintains that both communities and governments have the right to know the full extent of the potential impacts of mining projects and the right to freely decide whether or not they want these projects in the country. (Right to Know, Right to Decide Campaign).
In its desire to turn the words of the highest government authority into a firm commitment, the National Roundtable On Metals Mining presented a memorandum in the legislature on March 3. This correspondence asks the legislators to vote in favor of a bill that prohibits metals mining in El Salvador. The bill was originally presented by the Roundtable in December 2006.
"The position of the president is an excellent one, albeit belated," says Francisco Pineda of the National Roundtable on Metals Mining."After four years in government he proved us—the communities, the church and the studies—correct: mining is bad. That's why we are presenting this memorandum, so that the President's message can become a political position," he said. "This issue was second on the agenda, which means it is considered important. Legislators of different parties and factions that wouldn't meet with us in the past are now doing so. We listened to the speech given by an ARENA legislator and he took the same position as the President. We hope this is not merely because we are in a campaign season, but that they continue to take this position for the good of the Salvadoran people."
Since 2005, Oxfam America has been working on the issue of mining in Central America. Through its studies, such as the recently published report, "Metals Mining and Sustainable Development in Central America: An assessment of Benefits and Costs"; its participation in forums; its dialogue with NGOs and government agencies; and media interviews, Oxfam has promoted public debate on mining. We provide information on mining and its impacts, and provide advocacy training to coalitions of organizations concerned about the possible impacts of this industry. In addition, we help coalitions engage in productive dialogue with the government, to develop concrete proposals, and use non-violent strategies.
]]>That was 15 years ago. Today, clean water in the small communities of El Recuerdo and Agua Zarca is as precious as ever—and still hard to get. There's no turning on the tap over a kitchen sink and letting the gallons gush. Here, many people trudge to a communal source, fill their jugs, and lug the heavy load home again. But seasonal flooding—sometimes hugely destructive and, with climate change, possibly becoming more severe—contaminates many of the area's hand-dug wells, exposing people to waterborne illnesses.
But now, with the help of Oxfam America and its local partner, PROVIDA, the well that Cruz worked so hard to dig on the school grounds in El Recuerdo is pumping enough clean water to satisfy the drinking needs not only of the students but of about 80 families in the surrounding area. The well is one of five "healthy wells" in southern Zacatecoluca province PROVIDA lined, surrounded with a filter, capped to ensure its cleanliness, and outfitted with a pump that sends water to a large tank for chlorination and storage.
"The families in this area are living in extreme poverty, living as subsistence farmers or low paid day laborers in the nearby sugar cane plantations," says Karina Copen, an Oxfam humanitarian program officer. "They face numerous challenges in having to adapt to the increased frequency and intensity of the flooding in their area. With access to a healthy well, they can at least know that in the next flood, they will have a safe source of water for their families and the good health that comes along with it."
Adaptations, such as these healthy wells, are essential for Salvadoran families living in the department of La Paz in the lower region of the Lempa River where seasonal rains, tropical depressions, and hurricanes, make it one of the country's most flood-prone areas.
Coupled with those natural hazards is the fact that communities in the region have significantly less access to improved water sources and sanitation than other parts of the country. The "healthy wells" along with 27 new composting latrines have been a boon to families in the area.
"Kids are getting sick less; families are healthier," says Santos Efrain Coto, one of the local leaders in El Recuerdo. "When they drank contaminated water they got diarrhea and parasites."
The improved wells are based on a model that's new to El Salvador and designed by an organization called Swiss Labour Assistance. Besides having their tops sealed with cement to prevent polluted flood waters from slopping in, the wells are lined with a type of plastic pipe, known as polyvinyl chloride, or PVC, that extends down into the aquifer. Packed around the outside of the lining is a filter of volcanic rock that prevents contamination from seeping through underground.
At the El Recuerdo school one day recently, teacher Ana Elsa Cubias describes how students used to bring their own water from home to drink during the school day. Now, the refurbished well guarantees them a clean supply right on the spot.
"They're drinking water from a protected source and the kids have water right in the classroom," says Cubias.
A short distance from the classrooms sits a large plastic tank, sky blue and able to hold 1,100 liters of water pumped fresh from the well. Chlorinated, the water from the tank flows to two taps standing just outside the gates to the school. They're accessible to whoever is driving or walking by. And to ensure the stored water stays safe for drinking, the water committee arranges to have the tank cleaned every couple of weeks—a task that falls to a child small enough to wiggle inside and scrub the interior walls with a brush and bleach.
"We make sure he bathes before he gets in the tank," adds Coto, the local leader.
In Agua Zarca, a few communities over, Jose Luis Funes Cruze says that before PROVIDA and Oxfam installed the new well, most of the local residents depended on their own backyard wells for drinking water—and that was a problem.
"The household wells take on a lot of rain water and a lot of filthy water when there's flooding," says Cruz, pointing in the direction of the polluted San Antonio River, which spills its banks during big storms. "The things people throw in—there are pigs up river. And the cheese factory is up river."
In the past, when their drinking supply has been contaminated, families in Agua Zarca have had to rely on the government or aid groups to truck in drinking water for them.
But now, with a new communal well their supply of drinking water is much improved.
"We're very grateful—the whole community is—to have that water," says Blanca Lidia Jiménez, who lives close to the well makes about six trips a day to fetch enough water for the seven people in her house. "We don't get sick so much when we drink the water from this well. The little kids would get swollen bellies, but with the new well that problem has been solved."
Still, the situation in Agua Zarca points to the challenges of providing clean water in this area. The community's new well was built on the only land available: next to a cow pasture—an arrangement that could be problematic during the wet season when rain sloshes manure about and allows it to seep into the groundwater.
The deep plastic lining on the well and its volcanic-rock filter help, though, says Guillermo Morán, a professor and researcher at the University of El Salvador's Earth Sciences Institute. He worked with Oxfam America and another of its partners, the Harvard Humanitarian Initiative (HHI), to evaluate the effectiveness of the wells while studying the health practices of families who use them.
The study is an important component of Oxfam's public health work: It promotes accountability and offers a different model for aid groups by linking their work with that of universities.
"We have the field experience and they have the technical expertise," says Miriam Aschkenasy, Oxfam America's public health specialist. "Together we're able to evaluate programs at a higher standard and at one that increases accountability."
In its draft report, HHI said that individuals who live in communities with "healthy wells" were less likely to have diarrhea and reported fewer cases of the illness during the time of the study. But the draft report also revealed that in two of those communities, some people were still using hand-dug wells for their drinking water while other people from places without "healthy wells" were making the trek to a community that had one to fetch their water.
"The study gives us insight in a way we couldn't have anticipated," says Aschkenasy. "It gives us an idea of where to focus in the future. We now know we need to find a way to encourage people who are still relying on the hand-dug wells to use the healthy ones instead. And it gives us great incentive to build more of them."
]]>The report, Metals Mining and Sustainable Development in Central America: An Assessment of Benefits and Costs, looks at the current debate surrounding mining in Central America and the need for informed public discussion over the potential costs and benefits of aggressive development. Launched yesterday at a regional forum on metals mining, the report focuses on mining projects in El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras.
"Metals mining is often associated with vast wealth," said Raymond C. Offenheiser, President of Oxfam America. "Unfortunately, this is not the reality in many developing countries where natural resources continuously fail to contribute to the long-term reduction of poverty and communities have little say in how the industry affects their lands and livelihoods."
Despite a long history in Central America, mining has never played a significant role in the economies of Guatemala, Honduras, and El Salvador. Even if all the resources of these nations were developed, revenue from minerals would amount to only a small fraction of their broadly diversified economies.
But high gold and minerals prices in recent years have renewed mining companies' interest in Central American metals. The Oxfam report pays special attention to Pacific Rim Mining Corporation's El Dorado Mine in El Salvador, Goldcorp Inc.'s Marlin Mine in Guatemala, and Goldcorp's San Martin Mine in Honduras.
While mining companies and the governments that support new mining proposals have emphasized the benefits of mining, organized sectors of civil society are more concerned with the long-term costs. And there is a growing awareness of the decision-making role of communities near these projects.
"Mining companies must respect local communities' right to free, prior, and informed consent," said Offenheiser. "If they do not, a mining' project's costs will likely outweigh its benefits for local people."
While mining may create great net value, most of that value flows out of the country to the foreign owners of the mining company. Minerals commodity markets are highly volatile, modern open-air pit mining creates relatively few jobs, and the life cycles of open-pit mines are short, offering a small window of opportunity for integration with local economies.
Environmental risks include acid mine drainage and dam leaks. Although some of the worst environmental outcomes are preventable, mining companies have often not been held accountable for obeying environmental rules set out by the government or their mining contracts.
To date, community protests have delayed mining activities in Guatemala, prompted public scrutiny of exploration activities in El Salvador, and generated legislative reform in Honduras. The level and intensity of the resistance to metal mining in these three Central American nations demonstrates that local communities have judged the costs of mining projects to exceed the local benefits.
"Communities closest to the mines almost invariably suffer. This can be prevented if they have a voice in the decisions for the project," said Keith Slack, Extractive Industries Program Manager at Oxfam America. "What the mining industry could contribute to these communities must be balanced with the full scope of its costs, and communities are bringing legitimate concerns about financial, environmental, and personal costs to the table."
]]>La Paz is a small collection of rustic shelters, on the side of the road 20 minutes from Lake Izabal in eastern Guatemala. It blends into the intense green hills, dotted with small corn fields and criss-crossed by footpaths. It is the scene of a struggle between indigenous farmers and an international corporation intent on exploring for minerals on the land the Q'eq'chi use for growing corn and beans.
Freddie Mo Qub, a young leader of the community, explains the situation: A mining company called Skye Resources has a license from the government of Guatemala to explore for minerals in the area. Property rights are not clear, and the company insists it has the right to charge them rent to farm on the 3,300 acres where they have lived and worked for many of years. Eventually, they are told, they will have to leave.
The people of La Paz have designated Mo Qub, 30, to learn about the plans for the mine, determine what dangers they face, and help them develop a strategy for the way forward. He has been participating in workshops run by the Association of Friends of Lake Izabal, or ASALI as it is known in Spanish. ASALI has also taken him to visit mine sites in the western highlands of Guatemala, as well as in Honduras.
ASALI's director Eloyda Mejía is at the meeting. She says the workshops, which are done with help from Oxfam America, are designed to help the indigenous people in the area learn about their rights, and the ways that modern mines operate. When Mejía addresses the meeting, she says, "we want you to learn, see for yourselves, and make your own decisions about mining."
Mo Qub says the ASALI workshops are an invaluable source of information. La Paz is now connected to different areas of the country where indigenous people are experiencing similar problems. "If it weren't for these workshops, we would not have any clear information about the effects of mining in our communities," he says.
He has seen that mining communities in Guatemala do not benefit much from the revenues from the minerals taken from their lands. While they may be relocated and lose their fields and water sources, they may or may not get a decent job at a mine site, which usually hires skilled workers.
Mo Qub says after seeing the effects of mining on other indigenous people in Guatemala, Las Paz is not in favor of the Skye Resources project. "Everyone wants the mine to leave," he says about La Paz. "The same way it came is the way it can go. Mines use a lot of water, they pollute the water, and will damage the agricultural potential here."
For the Q'eq'chi people, the situation is curious, and a bit infuriating. They pay to work land that has been theirs for many generations, and are being pushed to leave it altogether. "We are 100 percent Guatemalans," Mo Qub says. "How is it possible that a foreign company can accuse us of illegally occupying this land? The words they say to us are offensive, and deeply anger us."
The meeting ends with a prayer, just as it started. The farmers may pray individually, but afterwards a woman says they are working together to defend their small part of the world, where they have lived for centuries. "We are united," she says. "We know our children will have no place to go if we don't fight for our land now." Like many others, she is not eager to share her name with strangers.
As if to show they will remain here, several of the men sharpen their machetes, and start clearing the grass and weeds away from the entrance of the meeting place. They slice the grass with long graceful slashes. The machetes make a metallic ringing sound as the grass jumps away from the blades, which blur as they arc off to the side and back again.
]]>Thanks to a US Agency for International Development (USAID) agricultural diversification program, the melons have brought unprecedented prosperity to Cortez and other farmers in rural Parras Lempa, El Salvador. USAID's program helps farmers improve their growing techniques, cultivate new crops, and earn higher incomes.
While the present is a time of great success, it's the future that Cortez is thinking of: his two teenage sons, who attend high school during the day and then help him in the fields. "This is the example I try to set for them: to keep learning and to work hard," he says. "That's their heritage."
This hard work is paying off. Cortez leads a group of 64 local farmers who take part in the program; in the past two years, they've collectively invested $90,000 in renting additional fertile land. Cortez's group now manages 40 percent more land—a total of 252 acres—generating an additional $184,000 in annual income and 306 new jobs for the community.
The origins of this particular USAID program go back to early 2001, when two strong earthquakes struck central El Salvador and smashed a series of rural farming towns. USAID's country office quickly assessed the needs of these communities and began a $200 million multiyear project to rebuild damaged houses, roads, and schools.
Through those assessments, the USAID team saw that it wasn't enough to use the agriculture component of the project just to bring communities back to where they were before the earthquake; people would still be struggling to earn a living from subsistence crops. USAID would need to create new long-term solutions in order to bring about true economic development.
USAID found that new growing techniques could help the farmers of central El Salvador improve their productivity. The agency selected Fintrac, a US-based private contractor specializing in agriculture, to implement a four-year program. Fintrac built on local knowledge by hiring top Salvadoran agronomists to work closely with the farmers on the new methods.
"Other agronomists that have come with previous projects barely spent any time with you," says Cortez. "What's been different about these agronomists [from Fintrac] is that they are here with us every week, and they really get involved in teaching us every single trick of the production techniques."
In communities like Parras Lempa, farmers learned new techniques—different seed varieties, more efficient fertilizing methods, new planting patterns—to improve upon the crops their families had been growing for generations.
In other communities, like nearby Calderitas, farmers learned how to cultivate tomatoes and peppers, which fetch high prices on the domestic market. A drip irrigation system made it possible to grow the vegetables using less water and without the time-consuming labor of hand-watering.
Along the way, Fintrac had to adapt the program to the reality on the ground. Fintrac's agronomists learned that their approach didn't work well with farmers who had less than an acre of land, limited access to credit, or insufficient access to water or roads. But the farmers who met these criteria thrived under Fintrac's assistance.
Fintrac's successes led USAID to rehire the company for an additional four-year program cycle. Today many of these rural entrepreneurs—like the group in Parras Lempa—earn enough to invest their own resources, with the goal of eventually becoming independent from the program.
Fintrac succeeded at promoting economic development by doing the following:
As the second four-year cycle nears its end, USAID must now tackle the challenge of making its lessons live beyond the program's end date and boundaries. The agency is currently transferring Fintrac's knowledge to agronomists in the Ministry of Agriculture. USAID is also building partnerships with local nongovernmental organizations that will allow it to reach smaller-scale farmers—including those who originally weren't able to take part in the program.
And in a domestic market increasingly dominated by supermarket chains, USAID will need to invest in new partnerships that enable organized farmers to retain their selling power.
"In spite of the earmarks and political concerns that often keep aid programs from achieving their full potential, this example shows that USAID can implement meaningful, transformative programs," says Omar Ortez, Oxfam America's senior coordinator for programming and partnership, who visited the program in spring 2008.
"This program came about because of an emergency, but made an early commitment to long-term development. By hiring the best Salvadoran agronomists, USAID built on local knowledge and became context-driven. It learned hard lessons about its approach and adapted the program accordingly. If the US funded more long-term aid programs like this one, just imagine what could be accomplished in the fight against rural poverty."
Learn more about Oxfam America's Aid Reform initiative.
]]>It is hard to reconcile the beauty of the lake with the violence along its shores. Mejía's work to defend the environment, and propose sustainable ways of living and working, has angered some who would prefer to rely on industrial mining for economic development in the region. A local citizen's organization has written a threatening letter to the Interior Ministry in Guatemala City, saying her work to educate community leaders about the risks of mining is unacceptable. She continues working, with international observers with her at all times to protect her.
Mejía first came here 10 years ago. She and her three children settled in the lakeside town of El Estor, promoting ecotourism and waging a series of campaigns to protect Lake Izabal from oil and mining projects that she says threaten the natural resources of the region—and won—t do much to benefit the local farming and fishing communities.
In 2002, Mejía and a handful of teachers, fisherman, environmentalists, a local physician and other citizens took on Shell Oil, which had a concession to drill right through the bottom of the lake. The small band of opponents founded the Association of Friends of Lake Izabal (ASALI) and succeeded in blocking the licenses for this project. ASALI then turned its attention to nickel mines along the sides of the lake.
There has been industrial mining in Izabal since the 1950s, but it has been in fits and starts as the prices of commodities have spiked and crashed over the years. But mining is now booming everywhere, so the Canadian company Skye Resources, which bought the mine in 2004, is now preparing to work a 100-square-mile concession it acquired in 2005. The area is home to 30 indigenous Q'eq'chi communities. None were properly consulted about the concession. This constitutes a violation of Guatemala's 1996 Peace Accords and international laws that protect indigenous people. The company is now engaged in talks with communities to convince them to go along with the plan to mine.
Skye Resources is now operating at a loss as it seeks financing so it can start mining in 2009. The company estimates it could get as much as 673,000 tons of nickel out of the mine. As part of its effort to clear people out of the concession area, the company and police forcefully evicted a number of Q'eq'chi communities in January of 2007, burning their humble shelters to the ground.
"We need a strong defense of the environment here," Mejía says at her home in El Estor. She has just finished a meal of traditionally prepared fish from Lake Izabal, and dines with visitors and two members of Peace Brigades International, who accompany her to ensure her safety.
ASALI is working in 29 communities to teach their leaders about mining: how much water is used, the chemicals, the transportation, and the rights of indigenous communities to be consulted. "We want every community leader to attend one of these workshops, and share their ideas and problems and work on them together," Mejía says. With help from Oxfam America, ASALI also arranges for these leaders to visit other mining areas in Honduras and in Guatemala's western highlands to see the effects of mining on indigenous people. "This is so they can see the consequences and talk to affected people," she says.
With the laws around land rights so unclear in Guatemala, indigenous people lack the required title and other official documents they need to defend their territory. Mejía says this needs to be addressed. "Through our contacts we have put the issue of land on the national agenda; it's been discussed in congress, so people are aware of the problems of land in mining concession areas."
Much of Mejía's motivation comes from her commitment to the people, all those who fish and grow corn on the fields near the lake. "When you come here and see the needs of the poor communities, you can see that people are not asking for much in life. But when you see the injustices and the way things are taken from them, it is so unfair that they are so poor and have so few opportunities despite the richness and national treasure here," she says. "This leads you to fall in love with this place. It makes you want to do something to contribute to changes here—and to denounce the injustice."
It is just this commitment that puts her at risk. Her Peace Brigade guardians are with her and several of her colleagues from ASALI, all of whom are working under threat. Mejía says they are not radicals."We want people to understand that there is another healthy and just way to develop this area, through rational use of the national treasures we have here."
"If at some time we no longer exist, we hope that we have sowed some seeds of awareness, solidarity, and respect to the environment. In this threatening climate for our work, our vulnerability makes us do what little we can—with all our hearts."
]]>