FRIDAY, AUGUST 31, 2007
NICARAGUA’S ENVIRONMENT: WHY SHOULD WE CARE?
Nicaragua's environment is of hemispheric and world importance in comparison to Central America's "green" countries such as Costa Rica and Belize, Nicaragua is known more for its history of political conflict than for its natural riches. Yet the popular images are deceiving. Given its intact expanses of tropical rainforest, diverse coastal and marine habitats, and large mineral and oil deposits, Nicaragua stands out as holding both the greatest share of Central America's natural resources and excellent potential for sustainable development.1. For its size Nicaragua is incredibly rich in biological diversity. The Central American isthmus is estimated to hold 7% of the world's biodiversity in less than one-half percent of Earth's land area. This biological richness is due to two primary factors. First, the region's high species diversity corresponds to the great variety of landscapes that are packed within a small area: rugged mountains, lush forested lowlands, coral reefs, coastal mangroves, and large lakes (including Lake Nicaragua, which contains over 300 islands and is home to rare freshwater sharks and sawfish). Second, the isthmus serves as a "land bridge of the Americas" where species from the north mingle with those from the south. Nicaragua lies at the biological heart of this land bridge, and represents a melting pot of plant and animal species. The country's diverse fauna includes 750 bird species, 200 mammal species, 161 reptile species, and 59 amphibian species. More than 9000 plant species have been identified in Nicaragua, with an estimated 4000 to 5000 yet to be discovered.
2. Nicaragua contains the greater part of the largest tropical rainforest remaining in Central America. Compared to neighboring Central American countries, Nicaragua still has extensive areas of rainforest, and supports populations of animals that have largely disappeared or are endangered elsewhere including the harpy eagle, scarlet and green macaws, the resplendent quetzal, the giant anteater, five species of wild cats, Baird's tapir, and three monkey species.
AN ENVIRONMENT IN CRISIS
Landslide on the Las Casitas Volcano that occurred during Huricane Mitch. The effects of natural disasters in Nicaragua are worsened by the nation's severe poverty and environmental degradation. Photo by Orin Langelle.
Due to economic and social imbalances, Nicargua's natural environment is in crisis. After a long history of imperialism, underdevelopment, and U.S. military and economic intervention, Nicaragua is recognized as the second-poorest nation in the Western Hemisphere (after Haiti). Half of all Nicaraguans live on less than U.S.$1 per day, and the nation has recently been included on the World Bank and International Monetary Fund's list of Highly Indebted Poor Countries. Given the worsening poverty of Nicaragua's citizens and conditions imposed by the nation's crushing external debt, enormous pressure is being placed on the country's remaining natural resources. This pressure has taken on a number of forms:
-Rampant deforestation. Nicaragua's forest cover declined from an estimated 8 million hectares in 1950 to a current level of less than 4 million hectares, and today deforestation is spiraling out of control. The claim is frequently cited that if current rates of deforestation are allowed to continue, Nicaragua's remaining tropical rainforests will be all but gone within 10-15 years. There is a frightening and very real possibilty that unless immediate steps are taken, Nicaragua may follow the path of its smaller neighbor, El Salvador, which has already lost 97% of its original forest cover. Weakened environmental regulation.
-Austerity measures imposed by international financial institutions have led to major reductions in government spending, including allocations toward environmental programs and enforcement.
-Exploitation by multinational corporations. Given the need to repay external debts with foreign capital, the Nicaraguan government has gone to great lengths to adopt neoliberal economic policies, privatizing major sectors of the economy and attracting investment by multinational corporations. Massive resource extraction concessions have been granted to foreign logging and mining companies, and enforcement of environmental standards has been compromised. This approach has exchanged the nation's hopes of long-term sustainable resource development for immediate but unsustainable profits. In addition to deforestation, other results of these policies have included toxic contamination of soils and waterways by mining companies, overfishing by foreign fleets, and the widespread use of pesticides that have been banned in developed countries.
-Widespread land degradation. Decades of unsound agricultural practices in the pursuit of an agro-export development model based on products such as cotton, cotton, and beef have left large portions of the Nicaraguan countryside highly degraded. In the pursuit of quick profits, soils in many regions were stripped of their natural vegetation and nutrients, contaminated with pesticides, and left highly susceptible to erosion. The results of these practices became painfully clear following Hurricane Mitch in October 1998 when untold tons of soil were eroded, fatal landslides and flash floods were widespread, and the nation's agricultural and transportation infrastructure suffered huge losses.
-Advance of the "agricultural frontier". The aftershocks of the 1980s civil war, high unemployment, and renewed consolidation of the nation's best land in the hands of wealthy owners have created masses of peasants that lack access to arable land. Use of the nation's best agricultural lands for export crops has displaced peasants to marginal lands that are even more prone to rapid degradation. Land colonization by these peasants has been occurring along a rapidly advancing deforestation front commonly referred to as the "agricultural frontier".
-Violation of indigenous land rights. Many of Nicaragua's remaining natural resources, including its rainforests and mineral resources, are on lands traditionally claimed and used by the nation's Miskito, Mayangna, and Rama peoples. Although the Nicaraguan constitution and a number of laws recognize the validity of indigenous communal land rights, the Nicaraguan government has failed to provide land titles to most of the nation's indigenous communities. Instead the government has given resource extraction concessions to foreign companies and has allowed widespread illegal resource theft on indigenous lands.
The Social Costs
Nicaragua's people are directly dependent on the country's natural environment for their survival. Along with utilization of raw natural resources, subsistence and commercial agriculture form the foundation of Nicaragua's economy. Thus the fate of Nicaragua's people and its natural environment are inextricably intertwined. Rather than a hypothetical set of problems, environmental deterioration is already a reality of which many Nicaraguans are acutely aware. The results of widespread deforestation, for example, have included regional climatic changes, droughts and drinking water shortages, flooding, soil erosion, crop losses and malnutrition, fuelwood shortages, and destruction of marine resources due to siltation. If allowed to worsen, these conditions will ultimately fuel increased poverty and potential for military conflicts, both in Nicaragua and beyond.
Labels: Archives