2023-09-09 07:22:30
The murder of activist Berta Cáceres, in March 2016, put Honduras in the international spotlight as the real risk faced by those who confront powerful business interests became evident.
And yet Honduras and El Salvador have not yet signed the agreement, while Guatemala and Costa Rica have done so, but have not ratified it, meaning it is neither law nor binding in those nations.
The Escazú Agreement, as it is called after the Costa Rican town where it was approved, was signed by 25 of the 33 Latin American and Caribbean countries and ratified so far by only 15. Of the seven Central American countries, five have signed it and three have ratified it.
It is an instrument that, in essence, seeks to give voice and participation to communities in decision-making on environmental matters, especially if there are business or state projects threatening them.
It also obliges States to provide them with pertinent information on this matter, and establishes protection mechanisms for those who defend their ecosystems.
In Central America, it is common for communities to not be taken into account or informed of the arrival of corporate or state megaprojects that will impact their natural environment and their livelihoods.
Or in any case, citizen consultations and environmental impact studies tend to be manipulated, as IPS has been able to gather in its investigation of different cases in the countries of the area.
Digital model on the page of the Autonomous Port Executive Commission of the Pacific Airport project, an initiative undertaken by the Salvadoran government that keeps the residents of the area in anxiety and in uncertainty about the future of its fragile ecosystem. Image: StrainEnvironmental conflicts on the surface
A recent conflict has arisen in El Salvador, the smallest of the Central American nations, with 6.7 million inhabitants.
The government of President Nayib Bukele is going to build an airport in the coastal area of the department of La Unión, facing the Pacific Ocean, in the east of the country, in an area of mangroves and lots of wildlife.
The country’s main air terminal is the San Óscar Arnulfo Romero y Galdámez airport, 60 kilometers southeast of San Salvador, but the president is promoting the construction of a new one on the coast, about 175 kilometers from the capital.
“What I am fighting to take care of is the water, the water sources, the trees that give us life, defending our mother nature,” farmer Erme Martínez, a resident of the Flor de Mangle village, in the municipality, told IPS. of Conchagua, in the department of La Unión, in the east of El Salvador.
They also defend and fight to preserve their lands and their way of life. That village is within the area that will be affected by the megaproject.
Some 200 families will be displaced not only in Flor de Manglar and Loma Larga, but also in Condadillo, Nuevo Amanecer and Bendiciones de Dios.
Martínez, 65, and his wife Tránsito Lazo, 58, are part of the dozens of families of farmers and fishermen who have been pressured and deceived, according to what they told IPS, into giving up their properties to the State, at a lower cost than real, and thus give way to the construction of the airport.
“Using deception, they came and said that they were doing a property census, without mentioning anything about the airport,” Martínez told IPS.
Earlier this year, government workers began felling trees in an area that borders the mangrove swamp, where a river and several streams flow.
“They are destroying the place where we earn our living,” fisherman Salatiel Bautista, 63, also from Flor del Manglar, told IPS.
He and his children make a living by going fishing in the river and catching mollusks and crabs in the mangrove swamp.
Several interviewees in the area assured that at first the government offered to pay them for their houses and plots at a good price, since the amount would include the investment made by the families in the fields of mangoes and other fruit trees.
In addition, they assured them that when they left their properties they would be given houses and plots in another place, so that they could go live in peace.
“They said that this payment would be in March and April, and to date there is nothing at all,” Bautista stressed.
Bautista and the Martínez spouses stated that they and the more than 70 families of Flor del Manglar were forced to sign a document to give up their land, since the authorities who arrived in the area threatened to sue them criminally for opposing the country’s strategic projects. , if they didn’t.
“We have signed, but against our consent,” Bautista stressed.
The uncertainty weighs on them, not knowing where they will go to live, and under what conditions.
The Las Chepas River, which meanders along the edge of the mangrove and leads to the Pacific Ocean, is located in the area where the Salvadoran government intends to build an airport, with a negative impact on the ecosystem and the livelihoods of the residents. of the area. Image: Edgardo Ayala / IPSThe usual modus operandi
“There must be consent from the community, and what we see here, in Flor de Mangle, is that the families have accepted under pressure, it has not been free,” César Artiga, coordinator of the Promoting Team for the Escazú Agreement of El Savior.
And he added: “If Escazú were in force, those gaps would have been corrected.”
The agreement provides guarantees to people in three key areas in environmental matters: access to information, citizen participation in decisions and access to justice in environmental matters.
Artiga added that in the background is the fact that governments conceive the concept of development as the construction of megaprojects that, in practice, negatively impact ecosystems and the way of life of communities.
The refusal to sign or ratify the Escazú Agreement has to do with the permissiveness of governments to leave the way free to business consortia, without rules that bind them too much to comply with environmental regulations, said those interviewed.
“This border between companies and the government is diffuse, it is distorted, it is not clear,” Rafael Herrarte, a member of the Alianza Escazú Guatemala, told IPS from Guatemala City.
That country signed the agreement in 2018 but has not ratified it, due to the democratic setback experienced after the dismantling of the effort against impunity and corruption launched in the country, led by the International Commission against Impunity in Guatemala, dissolved in September 2019. .
Herrarte said that the local business community felt they had the right to send to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, which assumes the main role in everything related to adhering to international agreements, a letter in which they stated that it was not convenient for the country to be part of the agreement.
The businessmen are united in the powerful Coordinating Committee of Agricultural, Commercial, Industrial and Financial Associations.
“Why did the business community say no? What is the basis for denying transparency in information on environmental issues? Why would people’s participation be denied in aspects that directly affect them?” Herrarte asked.
And the response was: “There is a lot of discomfort on the part of the business sector with issues of basic principles that are contained in the Escazú Agreement.”
For her part, Honduran activist Kelly Sorto stated that in her country there continues to be criminalization of environmentalists and the structures that attack them have not been weakened or dismantled.
“They are all these power structures, where there are national and transnational companies linked,” he said.
Meanwhile, the Martínez spouses, Salatiel Bautista and the families of Flor de Mangle stated that they would only leave their properties if the government pays them a reasonable price for their houses and plots, which includes the investments and years of work there.
“Otherwise, they will take us out only with the force of the police,” Martínez said.
ED: EG
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