The "Greening" of Costa Rica: Women, Peasants, Indigenous Peoples, and the Remaking of Nature 9781442620032

Citation preview

THE “GREENING” OF COSTA RICA Women, Peasants, Indigenous Peoples, and the Remaking of Nature

Since the 1992 Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro, the concept of sustainable development has become the basis for a vast number of “green industries” such as ecotourism and carbon sequestration. In The “Greening” of Costa Rica, Ana Isla examines the effects of economists’ rejection of physical limits to growth, biologists’ obsession with environmental controls such as debt-for-nature exchanges, and the indebtedness of Latin American countries. Isla’s work is based on a case study of the 250,000 hectare ArenalTilaran Conservation Area, created in the late 1990s in connection with the Canada–Costa Rica debt-for-nature swap programs. Rather than reducing poverty and promoting equality, development in and around the conservation area has in fact resulted in the disenfranchisement of local subsistence farmers and their communities, and the expropriation of their land, water, knowledge, and labour. Drawing on a decade of fieldwork in these communities, Isla exposes the duplicity of a neoliberal model in which the environment is converted into commercial assets such as carbon credits, intellectual property, cash crops, open-pit mines, and ecotourism, the consequences of which are often more detrimental than beneficial to the local populations. is an associate professor in the Department of Sociology and the Centre for Women’s and Gender Studies at Brock University.

ANA ISLA

This page intentionally left blank

ANA ISLA

The “Greening” of Costa Rica Women, Peasants, Indigenous Peoples, and the Remaking of Nature

UNIVERSITY OF TORONTO PRESS Toronto Buffalo London

©  University of Toronto Press 2015 Toronto Buffalo London www.utppublishing.com Printed in the U.S.A. ISBN 978-1-4426-4936-1 (cloth) ISBN 978-1-4426-2671-3 (paper)

Printed on acid-free, 100% post-consumer recycled paper with vegetablebased inks.

Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication

Isla, Ana, 1948–, author The “greening” of Costa Rica : women, peasants, indigenous peoples, and the remaking of nature / Ana Isla. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-1-4426-4936-1 (bound). – ISBN 978-1-4426-2671-3 (pbk.) 1.  Debt-for-nature swaps – Costa Rica.  2.  Debt-for-nature swaps – Social aspects – Costa Rica.  3.  Debt-for-nature swaps – Canada.  4.  Ecology – Economic aspects – Costa Rica.  5.  Costa Rica – Social conditions – 21st century.  6.  Human ecology – Costa Rica.  7.  Debts, External – Costa Rica.  8.  Debt relief – Costa Rica.  9.  Costa Rica – Economic policy.  10.  Sustainable development – Costa Rica.  I.  Title. HJ8525.I85 2015  336.3’435097286  C2014-906877-8

University of Toronto Press acknowledges the financial assistance to its publishing program of the Canada Council for the Arts and the Ontario Arts Council, an agency of the Government of Ontario.

University of Toronto Press acknowledges the financial support of the Government of Canada through the Canada Book Fund for its publishing activities.

To Felipe, Xochitl, and Nelson

This page intentionally left blank

Contents

List of Figures and Tables  ix Preface and Acknowledgments  xi Introduction: The “Greening” of Costa Rica  3 Part I: Foreign Debt, Debt-for-Nature, and the National System of Conservation Areas 1 The Political Economy of Costa Rica’s Neoliberal State  35 2 Political Ecology, Debt-for-Nature, and National Conservation Areas  48 Part II Embodied Indebtedness: The Remaking of People and Nature 3 Nature and People in the Arenal-Tilaran Conservation Area   69 4 Biological Diversity and the Dispossession of Peasants’ Knowledge   86 5 Forests and Peasants’ Loss of Access  100 6 Ecotourism and Social Development  114 7 Women’s Microenterprises and Social Development  132 8 Mining and the Dispossession of Resources and Livelihoods  147 9 The “Greening” of Capitalism  158

viii Contents

Abbreviations Notes

179

Bibliography Index

175

197

183

Figures and Tables

Figures 0.1 0.2 2.1 2.2 3.1 4.1 5.1 6.1 7.1 8.1

The “iceberg” model of capitalist patriarchal economics: A subsistence perspective, with some modifications 9 Main Contradictions figure, incorporating Ariel Salleh’s discourse 10 Costa Rica’s National System of Conservation Areas (SINAC) 52 NGOs in the Canada/Costa Rica debt-for-nature investment 58 Communities of the Arenal Conservation Area 70 Cerro Chato Genetic Reserve in Z-Trece 87 Teak monoculture plantations as a carbon sink 101 Arenal Volcano National Park in the La Fortuna area 115 Odilie at her tilo medicinal plant organic farm in Abanico 134 Bellavista Mining processing plant collapsed over the lixiviation lagoon in Miramar 155

Tables 1.1 1.2 1.3 1.4 1.5

Costa Rica’s Total External Debt and Debt Service 37 Average Productivity of Coffee and Banana Plantings per Hectare, in Metric Tons 41 Sex Ratios for the Rural Population, 1970–2005 44 Evolution of the Economically Active Rural Population, by Sex, 1980–2000 45 Distribution of the Rural Economically Active Population, by Sex and Sector, 1999 46

x

2.1 2.2 3.1 4.1 4.2 5.1 6.1 9.1

Figures and Tables

Costa Rica’s External Debt and Debt Service (US$ million), 1980–1996 49 INBio’s Funding Sources 64 FUNDACA Loans, July 1996–July 1998 72 ACA-Tilaran Nucleus Areas 90 ACA-Tilaran’s Flora and Fauna Species, as a Percentage of Total Costa Rican Species 90 Unemployment among Young Females (% of female labour force ages 15–24) 112 Production Structure in La Fortuna City, December 1999 126 US Bilateral Debt-for-Nature Transactions under the Enterprise for the Americas Initiative 165

Preface and Acknowledgments

While a member of Toronto Women for a Just and Healthy Planet (T-WJHP), I took part in the Social Forum at the Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro in 1992. It was at the Social Forum that Alternative Treaties were signed by nongovernmental organizations. The Debt Treaty (1992) was signed by those aware of the contradictions of the dominant model that built on the myth of unlimited growth, and began the International Debt Treaty Movement (IDTM). As a member of IDTM, my role was to discuss debt-for-nature exchanges. With this responsibility, I decided to enrol in the PhD program at the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education (OISE) at the University of Toronto. There, I decided to study the most recent debt-for-nature agreement signed by Canada. It happened to be with Costa Rica, which received an international prize as a green state at the Rio Summit in 1992. To introduce this book I will illustrate the problem of promoting sustainable development, defined as the management of the complete life cycle of people and nature for economic growth, with an encounter I had during my field research. In 1999, in Zona Fluca, Costa Rica, I was invited to visit a small chili-pepper farm, of less than five hectares, by a Ministry of Agriculture and Livestock engineer who was responding to a reported pest infestation.1 What I noticed immediately was that the peasant’s house was falling apart. We then walked directly to the infested area, and there we saw the chili-pepper plants covered with white spots, symptoms of the infestation. The farmer mentioned two or three chemicals he had used, and the engineer advised him to add even more chemicals to resolve the problem. However, the peasant needed more money to buy the new chemicals to cure the pest, and to receive a bank loan the engineer had to write a letter explaining the peasant’s need for money.

xii

Preface and Acknowledgments

While they were discussing the chemical problem, I saw a small dog chained to a pole, on a day when the temperature had reached thirty degrees Celsius. Next to the dog was an empty plastic container that I supposed was for water. As he struggled to stand up, I could count his ribs. He seemed to be dying. The farmer’s grandson was playing close by. While I was talking to the boy, who told me that he was not going to school because he couldn’t learn anything, the engineer and the peasant finished their conversation and asked me to join them inside the house. There I met the peasant’s daughter, the child’s mother. In her face I could see poverty, defined not by lack of money but by fatigue. She was using four eggs to make gallos (tortillas with eggs), for the engineer and me. When I saw the meal she had prepared, I thought of the dog and how anemic and hungry the family looked; I declined the invitation so that the child could eat. All the while, I reflected on the payments the peasant had to make in order to use the new agrochemicals and to repay bank loans. As the engineer and I returned to the truck, I asked why this family was living in such terrible conditions. I also questioned why a fivehectare farm was unable to provide a livelihood for three persons and a dog. Then I understood: The farm had been in debt because of a bank loan to buy chemical fertilizers. Five years previously the farmer’s wife had died, which meant a huge loss in terms of unpaid work. Consequently, the farmer started to introduce more chemicals to increase productivity, but these chemicals burned the soil and the land became unproductive. This experience also reminded me of an interview I conducted in 1998 with engineer Miguel Alfaro, the head of the Ministry of Agriculture and Cattle Ranching, in La Fortuna. He told me how certain chemicals spread from the unwashed hands of farm workers to their children, and seep into the drinking water, when rain washes the chemicals from the fields into local streams, and how these substances have caused learning disabilities in children. In the farmer’s family I had visited, I saw this process brought to life. By the time the grandchild was seven years of age, he had already left school because it had no facilities to accommodate his disability. Highyield agriculture seemed to have destroyed not only this land but also its people.2 This book is dedicated to several women in my professional and personal lives: Xochitl, my daughter, who suffered from my absences during research trips; Juana, my sister, who enjoys the green Amazon

Preface and Acknowledgments

xiii

rainforest; and colleagues who helped make possible its publication. Angela Miles was my doctoral thesis supervisor at the University of Toronto/Ontario Institute for Studies in Education (OISE), and Sheila Molloy was my editor. Both were members of T-WJHP, an ecofeminist organization. I also dedicate this book to these friends and colleagues: Terisa Turner and Leigh Brownhill, who housed me several times in Cahuita, Costa Rica; Terry Baker, who edited the first draft; Luciana Ricciutelli, who has played an important part in the editing of this book; and Liz Bayley, who edited the final version of this book. In Costa Rica, I would like to thank Josefa, Julia, Odilie, Irma, Maria Rosa, Lorena, Jorlene, and Soledad from the Grupo Ecológico de Mujeres de Abanico (GEMA) (the Abanico Ecological Women’s Group), who allowed me to research their work and their lives; also, the Z-Trece, La Fortuna, Abanico, and Miramar communities for their contributions to my research; and lawyer Magda Rojas, for her objective perspective and friendship. Most of all, I thank Don Felipe Matos, director of the Natural Resource Program of Universidad Para la Paz, in Ciudad Colon, who helped me to connect with key people crucial to the completion of this work. Their support has been invaluable to me, and I am indebted to all of them. Data for this book were collected over ten years in a number of sites in the Arenal-Tilaran Conservation Area (now the Arenal-Tempisque Conservation Area) located in northwest Costa Rica. In Canada, I am indebted to two institutions for their support: the International Development Research Centre (IDRC), and the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC). IDRC granted me an award to write my doctoral thesis during the summers of 1998 and 1999. With IDRC support, I spent forty-five days in 1998 and another forty-five days in 1999 in the Albergue Ecoturístico La Catarata, at the base of the Arenal Volcano, to learn about the La Fortuna, Z-Trece, and Abanico communities. There I interviewed seventy community members. I also spent a month in Tilaran, where I collected information on the structure and functioning of the Arenal Project from the Arenal-Tilaran Conservation Area library and also carried out interviews with World Wildlife Fund–Canada (WWF–C) and officials from the Ministry of Environment and Energy (MINAE).

xiv Preface and Acknowledgments

The Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC) awarded me a postdoctoral research fellowship for the year 2001. I spent forty-five days in Miramar in Montes de Oca and in Abangares, where I interviewed thirty community members, attended several town hall meetings, and took part in hundreds of informal conversations with community members. In the United States, I am indebted to the University of Kentucky for granting me a postdoctoral Rockefeller fellowship during the last semester of 2002. During this tenure, I wrote a chapter and participated in the ninth Latin American Feminist Encounter, held in Costa Rica, where I had the opportunity to present my research to a wider audience. Also in the United States, I am grateful to the Rachael and Ben Vaughan Foundation for its economic support, which allowed me to complete my research. I would like to thank Brock University for granting me a sabbatical year in 2009–10, which enabled me to complete my field observations in Costa Rica. Several chapters in this book have been published in works from Inanna Publications and Education, in the journal Canadian Woman Studies, and in Routledge’s Capitalism Nature Socialism. I thank the publishers for permission to credit them. An earlier version of Chapter 4 was published in Capitalism Nature Socialism , 16(3), 2005, pp. 49–61. An earlier version of Chapter 5 was published in Women and Gift Giving: A Radically Different World View Is Possible, edited by Genevieve Vaughan (Toronto, ON: Inanna Publications, 2007), pp. 157–170. An earlier version of Chapter 8 was published in Canadian Woman Studies/Les cahiers de la femme 21/22(4) (2002), pp. 148–154. An earlier version of Chapter 9 was published in Women in a Globalizing World: Transforming Equality, Development, Diversity and Peace, edited by Angela Miles (Toronto, ON: Inanna Publications, 2013), pp. 169–187. In Costa Rica, I would like to thank to Sonia Torres for granting permission to reproduce two photographs: one of a teak monoculture plantation, and the other showing a Bellavista Mining processing plant collapsed over a lixiviation lagoon in Miramar. I also would like to give map credit to Loris Gasparotto, from the Geography Department at Brock University. Lastly, I am indebted to the University of Toronto Press, whose reviewers’ comments have made such a great impact on the final version of this book, and to Douglas Hildebrand, editor at the University of Toronto Press, who encouraged me to finish it.

THE “GREENING” OF COSTA RICA Women, Peasants, Indigenous Peoples, and the Remaking of Nature

This page intentionally left blank

Introduction: The “Greening” of Costa Rica

Every conservation area in Costa Rica has a godfather. Canada is the godfather of the Arenal Conservation Area–Tileran. – Rogelio Jimenez, Director of the Arenal Volcano National Park (personal interview, July 1998)

When and how the Costa Rican neoliberal state became a “green” state is the subject of this book. Using a debt-for-nature exchange between Canada and Costa Rica, delivered from 1995 to 1999, I analyse the work of three nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) operating in the Arenal-Tilaran Conservation Area (ACA-Tilaran), now named the Arenal-Tempisque Conservation Area. I also examine their impact, on the lives of women and men – peasants and Indigenous peoples – as well as on nature itself. The context in which these NGOs operate is a combination of the economist’s assumptions of unlimited growth, the biologist’s concern with the natural limits of the Earth, and a country’s indebtedness. Jimenez’s assertion comprises an appropriate point of departure for this book insofar as he establishes the new tendency to recolonize the land in conservation areas. Furthermore, it establishes the link of the United Nations Conferences on Environment and Development that opened the way for the direct management of nature and people by giving responsibility to the World Bank and to environmental non-governmental organizations (ENGOs). The Canada-Costa Rica debt-for-nature exchange is a bilateral initiative for implementing so-called sustainable development programs in Costa Rica. The Canadian and Costa Rican governments are not allowed to receive debt titles directly; the titles must be donated to NGOs, which

4

Introduction

become the government’s creditors. Debt titles were donated to the World Wild Life Fund-Canada (WWF-C), an NGO of the International Union for Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources (IUCNR), and to the Costa Rican National Biodiversity Institute (Instituto Nacional de Biodiversidad), INBio. In addition, I analyse the work of the ANDAR Association, a Costa Rican NGO that benefited from a debt-for-nature exchange between Costa Rica and the Netherlands but worked in association with ACA-Tilaran in a gender and development program in the town of Abanico. The term greening is used here to indicate how, under the conditions of neoliberal political ecology (so-called sustainable development), the ecosystems of an indebted Costa Rica are increasingly becoming destabilized, especially through an ever-growing pressure for resource extraction. In a green economy, goods and services provided by nature depend on the stock exchange. This process was made possible due to the loans given to Costa Rica’s governmental agencies, businesses, and individual residents by industrialized countries, commercial banks, agencies, and multilateral institutions, such as the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank, during the 1970s and 1980s. During the 1992 Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, Agenda 21, a negotiated plan of action, linked together development and the environment as sustainable development (Pearce & Warford, 1993). The argument is that sustainable development is good and desirable for the entire world, including and most particularly for the so-called underdeveloped world. This redefinition of conservation within a development paradigm translates nature into something with monetary value (Hamilton, 2001). The greening of Costa Rica entails the use of new instruments, new experts, new types of nature, and new labourers. New instruments, such as debt-for-nature exchanges, are financial mechanisms for times of environmental crisis. The debtor country’s obligation is to allocate domestic resources for financing ecological projects in exchange for extinguishing a limited portion of the country’s foreign debt. Debt-for-nature investments are based on a negative assessment of the debtor country, meaning that the debt must be considered beyond the country’s ability to pay. In practical terms, this means the debt titles can be sold at a fraction of their value in the secondary market where one investor purchases a debt title from another investor rather than from the issuer country. The new experts are environmental non-governmental organizations (ENGOs) that claim debt-for-nature exchanges can reduce the burden of

Introduction 5

indebted countries’ external debt, as well as confront the environmental crisis. By the end of the 1980s, under the neoliberal agenda, ENGOs emerged as new models of modernization and environmental protection by using the discourse of protecting land, air, and water. Conservation International (CI) initiated the first debt-for-nature transaction in Bolivia, in 1987 (Conservation International, 1991). During the 1980s, the Costa Rican economy was so strangled by debt repayments that the government accepted assistance from the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), allowing it to become virtually a parallel state power. As a result, USAID and the US chapter of the World Wildlife Fund (WWF-US) were able to reshape Costa Rica’s nature (as defined below) into conservation areas. At the same time, women in development NGOs came forward to empower women. Since the Rio Summit, the Global Environmental Facility (GEF), which is under World Bank management, and the industrial countries, have funded numerous NGOs involved in debt-for-nature programs. The new experts in this Costa Rican case study are three NGOs: the World Wildlife Fund-Canada chapter (WWF-C); the Instituto Nacional de Biodiversidad (INBio), (the National Biodiversity Institute), both of which use the Canada-Costa Rica debt-for-nature exchange; and the Asociación ANDAR de Costa Rica (the ANDAR Association of Costa Rica), using the NetherlandsCosta Rica debt-for-nature exchange. The new types of nature are located in conservation areas. A conservation area is a designated domain where private and public activities are interrelated in order to manage and conserve the area’s nature for capital accumulation. In 1989, the Sistema Nacional de Areas de Conservación) (SINAC) (National System of Conservation Areas) was organized in Costa Rica. SINAC divided the country into eleven conservation areas comprising wildlife, private lands, and human settlements, under the supervision of the Ministry of the Environment and Energy (Ministerio de Ambiente y Energía) (MINAE). The Arenal-Tilaran Conservation Area (ACA-Tilaran), the case study examined in this book, is one of these eleven nationally designated conservation areas. At the heart of the ACA-Tilaran is a large hydroelectric dam on Arenal Lake. Two of the towns studied in this book are located near this dam. The new labourers are rural women working to produce medicinal plants in micro-credit schemes, as well as peasants and Indigenous people who acquired new roles as service providers in the new industries: biotechnology, forests as carbon credits, ecotourism, and open-pit mining.

6

Introduction

Ecofeminists are critical of sustainable development within the framework of capital accumulation because programs associated with sustainable development result in enclosure and housewifization. Enclosure is the fencing of common land, water, and air resources (the commons) and appropriating the common wealth of workers through the elimination of customary right. According to Eric Hobsbawm, enclosure was initiated in England circa 1500 (Hobsbawm, 1996, p. 31). This antique practice continues today, however, revitalized by the sustainable development policies of international institutions, particularly the World Bank. At the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development (UNCED), or Earth Summit, held in 1992 in Rio de Janeiro, responsibility for organizing sustainable development was seen as shared by governments, states, and the World Bank (World Bank, 2003). Agenda 21, the outcome of the Earth Summit, describes sustainable development as a combination of economic growth and environmental management. Sustainable development theory claims that the environmental crisis is a crisis of control. It therefore encourages conservation and proposes the commodification of nature to include water and air as the means to achieve this conservation (Fenech et al., 1999). To control and manage nature, the World Bank created the Global Environmental Facility (GEF), which would establish the founding of numerous NGOs. The aim was to expand market relations and assign property rights to free resources by finding an adequate price to protect the global commons. The global commons (air, forests, mountains, genes, biodiversity, water, oceans and seas, atmosphere) includes areas not commodified, where natural and social capital should be expanded. Conservation within sustainable development was expected to increase economic growth and capital accumulation by converting nature into natural capital, through an expansion of the price system. In this process, according to Maria Mies (1986), unwaged or poorly paid rural women, peasants, and Indigenous peoples dependent on the commons for their subsistence, autonomy, and sociality are housewifized, that is, their unpaid or poorly paid labour is the outcome of a “Eurocentric” economic policy that assumes unpaid work has no value. When women, peasants, and Indigenous people are described as “closer to nature,” Mies argues, they are considered “housewives” (1986, p. 106). This concept is applied to such socially marginal and externalized economic sectors and actors as Indigenous people and peasants, when their land and products are taken from them with little

Introduction 7

or no compensation through structural violence. It reflects an ideology that defines some human beings and nature as a resource, to be appropriated, exploited, raped, extracted, and destroyed. That is, what were stable biological, cultural, and communitarian patterns – both human and nature – are transformed into colonies of “extracted commons” (Salleh, 1997). In direct opposition to sustainable development policies, ecofeminists have proposed a subsistence perspective to confront the resulting environmental and economic crises. This book presents grounded theory on the politics of sustainable development, which is at the heart of debates in every discipline since the recognition of the ecological crisis. It is a contribution to ecofeminist subsistence perspective theory, insofar as it argues for approaches to sustain life. Global Capitalism In this book the ecofeminist analysis of neoliberal political ecology and sustainable development departs from Marx’s notion of primitive accumulation. The separation of the workers from their means of production is what really produces so-called primitive accumulation. The great merit of this concept is, precisely, identifying primitive accumulation as the social event that placed the producer as an autonomous entity in the market to rent its labour force. The body and the mind, or labour capacity, become the spark of capital. This process literally alienated producers from their products and their means of subsistence; this was done, Marx argues, by blood and fire. Marx called this type of worker a naked man, that is, a man without means of production to produce the means of subsistence. In other words, primitive accumulation creates perpetual structural social hunger for the dispossessed, the potential salaried producers. In this way, the deprived have no choice but to sell their labour power to produce the “free” plus-value for the individual capitalist and so to obtain a salary to buy subsistence goods that he and his family previously produced to meet their human needs. This change, first initiated in England (Aston & Philpin, 1985; Marx, 1977; Wood, 2002) is still an irreversible social tragedy that continues in the globalized world of today, not merely with the same connotations, but worse. This book departs from Marx’s primitive accumulation but also discusses a radically different world-view that incorporates the relationship between capital accumulation and women’s labour, as well as the exploitation of nature. Ecofeminists have examined critically several

8

Introduction

of the underlying assumptions of the patriarchal capitalist conceptual framework. Hierarchical thinking is promoted. Capital (visible labour) is valued over household, peasant, Indigenous peoples’, and nature’s work (invisible labour). Veronika Bennholdt-Thomsen and Maria Mies (1999), sociologists and women’s studies scholars, have defined the housewife as central to the process of capital accumulation, in contrast to Marx’s view of wage labour’s value. Ecofeminist analyses claim that in a capitalist economic system, a patriarchal hierarchy usually dominates or controls unwaged labour. Ecofeminists look at the system as a whole and shift their focus from production towards social reproduction, or life-supporting labour (Mies, 1986, p. 58). Housewife means no salary, no labour laws, and violence. Housework is not the only type of work that is exploited at practically no cost to capitalism. The concept of expropriation of women’s work applies not only to housewives in industrial countries. Indigenous people and peasants have been colonized all over the world and are not wage labourers either. They, similar to women, are naturalized, their land labelled unoccupied or unused, and thereby easily appropriated by those who can make it productive. Economic man calls them externalities. These externalized economic sectors are exploited not so much through low wages but by their provision, free of charge, of service and material inputs to capital, e.g., their knowledge of biodiversity, ecosystems. Claudia von Werlhof (2007b, p. 16), a political science professor, argues that colonial peasants and Indigenous peoples are treated as if there is no real value attached to their labour, so they do not have to be equitably remunerated, or remunerated at all. As a result of this analysis, Mies, Bennholdt-Thomsen and Werlhof maintain that the main contradiction in capitalism is not between waged labour and capital, as Marx and orthodox economists argued, but between all labour – wage labour (producing surplus), household work, child labour, voluntary work, the work of peasants, Indigenous people, and colonies, including nature – and capital. Werlhof states that “none of these relations of production are to be understood as precapitalist – they are all inherently capitalist” (2007b, p. 15). Thus, capitalism is not only about wage labour but also about unpaid labour or the cheapest possible forms of commodity production. This approach shows how women, peasants, Indigenous people, and nature are integrated into the process of capital accumulation, represented visually by the Iceberg Model (see Fig. 0.1):

Introduction 9

The Iceberg-model Capital vs. Wages Invisible: Women and other colonized subjects are diminished, primitivized and resourced

Visible: GDP

Women Peasants

Indigenous People Colonies East Europe, Latin America, Africa, Asia

Nature

Figure 0.1 The Iceberg Model of Capitalist Patriarchal Economics Source: Veronika Bennholdt-Thomsen and Maria Mies (1999)

Dualism is encouraged. The man/woman dichotomy is sustained. Ariel Salleh (1997), a sociologist, philosopher, and ecologist, also responds to the ideology that women and their labour as nature can be appropriated without cost. She argues that the powerful nature of Eurocentric culture created the original contradiction from the Cartesian dualism that places greater value on the mind (reason, male) than on the body (emotion, female), and associates masculinity with productivity and femininity with reproductivity. Applied to gender dynamics, this is translated as man is different from woman and woman equals nature (Salleh, 1997). Man is seen as a whole; he is the norm, unmodified (represented by the number 1) whereas woman, by contrast, is lacking (represented by zero, 0) (1997, p. 35). Salleh further argues that the

10

Introduction

most fundamental contradiction within the capitalist patriarchal world system is that which splits off humanity (men) from nature (women, natives, children, animals, plants), turning the latter into an extractive commons. The Eurocentric economic regime privileges masculine subjecthood, while women and other colonized subjects are considered “not quite labour” and thus cannot achieve equality in the workforce (1997, pp. 172–3). They are all linked by the discourses of naturalization or otherization; they are defined as resources, all of them deemed by capital to be inferior groupings (Salleh, 1997, p. 194). A logic of domination is enforced. Sexism and naturism are seen as interconnected. Ecofeminists expressed the view that there is a direct link between the oppression of women and the oppression of nature. For

The Main Contradiction Capital surplus Invisible: Feminized Subsistence, social reproduction All labour

vs. Wages

Visible: Masculine Subjecthood

Household Work

Peasants Work

Indigenous People’s Work Colonies East Europe, Latin America, Africa, Asia

Nature

Figure 0.2 Fundamental Contradiction Incorporated into the Iceberg Model

Introduction 11

example, patriarchal capitalist point of view sees animals as inferior to men specifically and is used to justify the mistreatment of animals (Dunayer, 1995, p. 11). This ideology sees humans as superior to other animals, so superior that often humans don’t consider themselves animals. The language used to categorize animals as inferior is used simultaneously as an insult towards women and to justify genocides against target minorities. Speciesism, or discrimination against nonhuman animals, is similar to classism, sexism, and racism towards humans. Carol Adams elaborates on the relationship between women with animals as a means of patriarchal oppression. Adams (1990, p. 62) believes that all oppressions are interconnected. She argues that in Western societies, factory meat is a symbol of patriarchal power and its hierarchical structure of class, gender, and race. Industrial societies produce animal products through so-called factory farming or by confining large numbers of animals that will be processed into foodstuffs for mass consumption. This leads to horrific experiences from the time the animals are bred to the time they are slaughtered, when the body parts are transformed into edible portions for human consumption. This androcentric (male-centred) culture has built sex and meat eating into a cycle of violence, making animals, like women, objectified (object-like treatment), fragmented (seen as body parts), and consumed (literally and metaphorically) (p. 73– 91). For ecofeminists, neoliberal global capitalism is the latest stage of patriarchal capitalist civilization, in which women and nature are dominated and used as resources in the market economy. For ecofeminists, neoliberalism and economic globalization have been activated by global capitalism’s assaults on the livelihood and resources of the world’s populations. Claudia von Werlhof argues that the category ongoing primitive accumulation implies that the expropriation of women, peasants, and marginal mass is repeated everywhere. She defines neoliberalism as a war system based on a continuing process of primitive accumulation that leads to a forced economic growth through the direct expropriation of the peoples of the globe and the globe itself” (Werlhof, 2007a, p. 139). The experience of Latin American countries shows that primitive accumulation did not occur only once but has been repeated under current globalization processes. How did neoliberal globalization occur in Latin America? By the late 1960s and the beginning of the 1970s, demand-side development economics (Keynes’s theory), where government action is seen to eliminate economic fluctuations, provide

12

Introduction

full employment through appropriate state spending, investment, and fiscal and budgetary policy, gave way to the supply-side model (i.e., the Milton Friedman “School”), where it is crucial to keep the state out of economic life and, in general, to reduce its role to a minimum (Friedman, 1992). With the monetarist school in power in the United States, official development assistance declined rapidly as a percentage of the total resource transfer, and there was a switch from official to private sources of funds, namely, commercial banks. The commercial banks, according to a so-called outward-looking development policy, could more efficiently fulfil the role the aid organizations played previously (Corbridge, 1993). The push of neoliberalism and the deterioration of the terms of trade for Latin American countries, expressed in balance of payments (BOP) deficits, allowed the world banking system to grow stronger after 1970. The banks were able to expand their credit operations, owing to an excess of capital in the industrial countries, resulting in a mushrooming of international commercial loans to peripheral countries. Latin America, in particular, seemingly began to offer a source of profits for US and European banks that started a fierce struggle with their Japanese rivals. By 1972, commercial banks were the creditors of 42% of Latin American debt. In 1975, the banks provided 50% of the credits. US banks in 1977 held 53.4% of the total international bank credit, while by 1978, commercial bank credits were the sources of two-thirds of the debt. By 1982, six countries – Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Mexico, Peru, and Colombia – received 92.3% of their eurodollars (a US dollar on deposit with a bank abroad, especially in Europe) from the United States (Ugarteche, 1980, pp. 27–30). An increased portion of this debt was short term. James Petras (1977) argues that neoliberalism, a social and economic policy approach first applied in Chile in 1973, played a central role in asserting capitalist economic development and class power in Latin American countries ruled by military and civil dictatorships. After a military coup that deposed and killed the elected president, Salvador Allende, the Chilean experience became the US model for neoliberal politics and economics. The “Chicago Boys” (economists from the University of Chicago’s Department of Economics and adherents of Milton Friedman’s works) proposed economic growth by reducing “superfluous” state expenditures and expanding private-sector potentialities, particularly those of the minority faction linked to the international market. It was argued that the benefits of this particular form of

Introduction 13

wealth would trickle down to a country’s broader society as a whole. This model of economic growth was strongly supported by the United States and its allies, resulting in vast investments by the World Bank ($133 million),1 the International Monetary Fund (IMF) ($420 million), the Inter-American Development Bank (IADB) ($400 million), commercial banks (including First National City and Manufacturers Hanover Trust, $680 million), as well as by some Japanese and European banks (Petras, 1977). In applying a neoliberal political economy model to build a neoliberal state, General Pinochet Ugarte, the chief commander of Chile’s ruling military junta since the 1973 military coup, imposed state terrorism to counter opposition. In 1998, a Spanish judge, Baltazar Garzón had requested General Pinochet’s extradition from England. Pinochet organized and headed an international criminal organization, the Dirección de Inteligencia Nacional (DINA) (National Intelligence Direction). The goals of this criminal organization were political and economic: DINA’s aim was to conspire, develop, and execute a systematic criminal plan for the illegal arrest, kidnapping, and torture of ideological opponents, such as communists, socialists, Mapuches (Indigenous peoples), and Jews, followed by killings and disappearances. DINA had two branches: the national, which coordinated officials and neo-fascist civilian groups, responsible for the elimination of Chileans and foreigners in Chile; and the international, Operación Condor (Operation Condor), which coordinated the killings of its ideological opponents with other military governments in South America (particularly Argentina, Paraguay, Uruguay, Bolivia, Brazil, and Peru), or in any country where its Chilean opponents resided, such as Spain, the United States, Portugal, France, Italy, or Mexico (Mendo, 1980; Rodriguez, 2010). In Chile, under Pinochet, a feminist movement using the slogan “Democracy in the Country and at Home” began and spread throughout Latin America. The authoritarianism of the military dictatorships that pervaded public life combined with authoritarian machismo in private life aggravated women’s impoverished living conditions. Women’s subordinate status became more visible after the military coup. For instance, in Santiago in 1974, a group of approximately thirteen Chilean women began to encounter each other in the same places – morgues, hospitals, and torture centres. They had similar histories, principally the detention of children and husbands and the subsequent disappearance of their loved ones. These women invented strategies to challenge their fear, feed their children, and engage in a new form of political

14

Introduction

activism and of struggle against authoritarianism. They developed arpilleras, patchwork tapestries decrying human-rights violations in the country, using worn remnants of fabric, even from their own closets, to denounce and expose authoritarianism. Through the initial formation of these groups, the women acquired a deep sense of politics and became radicalized. They undertook a collective dialogue grounded in social justice and the commitment to transform an authoritarian politics into a democratic and cooperative one (Agosin, 1994). The criminal methods used by the Pinochet regime were justified by the “success” of the economic development program in Chile, success being measured by the expansion of the goods and services that are in the market in relation to the goods and services produced by subsistence households (domestic work) and communities (peasant and Indigenous knowledge systems), which are not in the market. Months after the Chilean coup, so-called populist civilian-military governments were overthrown in Bolivia in 1973, in Uruguay in 1974, in Peru in 1975, in Argentina in 1976, and later in Ecuador and Grenada, as well as in other Latin American countries. Military regimes controlled the entire region. Women joined efforts to protect each other from state terrorism during dictatorships and later from misery during the debt crisis. A similar situation in Chile arose in Argentina, where General Videla imposed state terrorism. Between 1975 and 1983 more than thirty thousand Argentineans were killed or disappeared. According to the Comisión Nacional de Desaparición de Personas (CONADEP, 1984), among the disappeared 67% were men and 33% were women. The “Argentina method,” as it is known in the region, involved the disappearance of an opponent, systematic torture in jails and in clandestine torture centres, and the kidnapping of babies. Around 480 babies born to pregnant prisoners were kidnapped from their mothers and offered for adoption to military personnel or others (CONADEP, 1984). The recurring use of terror destroyed almost every community in Argentina, except organizations such as Families of Detained and Disappeared for Political Reasons, and Mothers and Grandmothers of the Plaza de Mayo. Mothers and grandmothers confronted government crimes by asserting their moral right as life givers, as mothers. Through thirty years of struggle, they transformed the identity of the country and their own identity. Argentinean society has finally come to support the political identity that mothers and grandmothers of the Plaza de Mayo won in the memory of their children.

Introduction 15

From being mothers and grandmothers of subversives, as the government propaganda portrayed their children, they are now recognized as the mothers and grandmothers of those who struggled for social justice. According to Sternback as cited in Radcliffe (1993, p. 94) these women also have changed locations: From a starting point as housewives they inserted themselves as subjects of history, claiming the role of witnesses and recorders of events, which officially and socially, they had been denied. By so doing, this generation of women changed the traditional family model and the wider sociopolitical power relations in their country. Radcliffe challenges this view, however. She argues that perpetuating the gendered stereotypes of motherhood and women as life-givers reinforces patriarchal hierarchies; these women did not generally voice any gender issues, such as divisions of domestic labour or male violence against women (p. 110). Nevertheless, in the context of surviving dictatorships in Latin America, the family was the source of resistance and served as a protection against genocide (Isla, 2007). By 1976, with cooperative dictators in place and terror imposed, Latin America was ready to implement neoliberal development policies, based on the export economy model that privileges international markets, deepens the exploitation of workers, households, and communities, and reproduces dependency on a major scale. Jacqueline Roddick (1988) argues that in the name of neoliberal globalization, the United States produced a new colonialism based on debt burdens. Between 1978 and 1982, a time of neoliberal politics in the United States, interest rates increased, and Latin America’s total interest payments swelled. In 1982, the Mexican crisis marked the beginning of the generalized debt crisis. The number of loans diverted and the increase in interest rates prohibited the possibility of debt repayment by Latin American countries. Mexico was the leading recipient of capital inflows, as well as the model for the neoliberal experiment celebrated by development banks and the business press. When Mexico announced that it was suspending payments on its debt, most of which was owed to American banks, it frightened the international financial community, which sought shelter under the institutions they had created. In 1982, Mexico was a pioneer, where the neoliberal International Monetary Fund (IMF), World Bank, and aid donors went to rescue commercial banks because the country could not pay its debt interest. The role identified for the IMF and the World Bank was to guarantee private bank loans while simultaneously imposing on debtor nations a package of conditions, the Stabilization and Structural Adjustment Programs (SSAPs).

16

Introduction

Robert Devlin (1985) argues that since the 1982 test case of Mexico, the IMF and the World Bank have compelled one country after another to reorganize its economy around the priority of regularly servicing its commercial debts. The conditions embodied in SSAPs are premised on the belief that in order to pay the debt, indebted peripheral countries must adopt market economies integrated within a deregulated international market and guided by free trade principles. The IMF growthoriented model takes a monetarist view and sees a balance of payments (BOP) deficit as having been caused by a surplus of money over the demand for money emanating from excessive domestic credit expansion. To restore BOP viability, IMF programs try to reduce budget deficits and thereby reduce governments’ credit needs. To reduce budgetary pressures, the World Bank and the IMF insist on cuts to education, health care, and other public services. The privatization of public enterprises, raising prices, and eliminating subsidies are also stipulated. The IMF’s approach is inflationary because of the price-raising effects of devaluations and interest rate liberalizations. It often results in reduced investment levels and shortages of imported inputs, reduced real earnings, cuts in budget subsidies that impose large social costs, devaluations of local currencies, increased poverty, and political instability. These policies are based on the theory that Latin American countries have brought their problems on themselves and, therefore, have to solve those problems through their own efforts. They must repay the money. The flow of loans that built the neoliberal states and enforced the IMF and the World Bank’s SSAP also reorganized societies. In Peru, the globalized economics of the debt crisis created conditions for an armed conflict between the Peruvian state, and the Shining Path and the Movimiento Revolucionario Tupac Amaru (MRTA). By 1990, the Fujimori dictatorship prioritized a strictly military solution. It brought the highest human cost in the country’s history (Peruvian Truth and Reconciliation Commission, 2003). The principal victims were rural populations living in the Andes and the rainforest. Rural women, particularly Ayacucho’s women, as they worked on and participated in defence of their communities, their families, and themselves, suffered massive sexual violence through the general practice of gang rape by state agents. Sexual violence was accompanied by ethnic and racial insults. Kimberly Theidon, a professor at Harvard University, worked with the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) in Ayacucho and analysed an Andean theory “la teta asustada” (the frightened breast). With that term, Theidon (2009) sought “to convey how

Introduction 17

strong negative emotions can alter the body and how a mother could, via blood in utero or via breast milk, transmit this disease [terror and toxic memories] to her baby” (p. 9). According to Jacqueline Roddick (1988), between 1982 and 1986, “Latin America’s net transfer of capital reached $121 billion, or $20 billion more than the total net transfer of resources received after 1974” (pp. 45–46). Yet, their total debt grew in more billions. With the loss of capital flowing into the region, Latin American countries were forced to open up even more to foreign investment and trade, and to restructure their productive systems to fit world demand by replacing state-centred policies with market-centred ones. ECLAC (UN Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean) coined the phrase lost decade to reflect the gravity of the situation in Latin America in the 1980s. In sum, the 1973 overthrow of the Allende government in Chile, the uprising of important sectors of the middle class in Argentina in despair over the failure of the ruling class to modernize the country (1973–1976), the movements in Nicaragua and El Salvador that mobilized communal organizations (1980), the debt crisis since 1982 and the upheaval of the poor in Peru (1980), saw generations of Latin Americans physically eliminated, that is, killed, disappeared, or exiled (Castañeda, 1994). Together, the military dictatorships and the debt crisis that implemented IMF and World Bank policies defeated working-class and grassroots organizations. In Central America, in places such as Guatemala, El Salvador, and Nicaragua, the American Institute for Free Labor Development (AIFLD), a counterinsurgence anticommunist US branch, disrupted and weakened a progressive union movements through persecution and clandestine methods by using USAID and US Information Agency (USIA) funds (Brooks & Tate, 1999). The enormous setback opened the door for further assaults on waged and unwaged workers as well as on nature. These stories bring to light fifty years of US foreign and development policy in the region that installed military dictatorships, facilitated the violation of human rights, and trained torturers in the School of the Americas, or as it is known to many, America’s “School of Assassins” (SOA Watch, 2013). The alternative to military dictatorships and foreign debts is the subsistence perspective. According to the pioneering ecofeminist Maria Mies (2005): “Recent developments and insights in the field of ecology have shown that the subsistence perspective is not only an approach to overcoming exploitation by capital, patriarchy and colonialism, the basic structure of the modern industrial system; it also constitutes a

18

Introduction

liberation of nature within us and around us from the self-destructive growth logic of capital” (interview with the author). Subsistence means independence (autonomy), self-sufficiency, and self-reliance (cultural identity). It is the key to dissolve capitalist patriarchy, which threatens to destroy the earth. Salleh suggests that as women’s relation to nature, capital, and labour has been constructed differently from that of men. Women’s involvement across cultures in life-affirming activities has resulted in the development of gender-specific knowledge grounded in a material base and reality. Salleh uses the term meta-industrial class (Salleh, 2004) to describe all invisible reproductive labourers (mothers, household labourers, peasants, Indigenous peoples, informal economy workers, volunteer workers, Third World workers) whose unwaged labour and knowledge sustain natural processes but who are exploited by capitalist markets. She finds in the meta-industrial class the historical agent par excellence who may be able to begin steps towards liberation and subsistence living. Salleh argues that productive labour is historically contingent, whereas reproductive labour is universal, necessary, integral, and attuned within an ecosystem. The construction of minorities, so-called underdeveloped countries, women, and nature in the capitalist patriarchal model provide a useful theoretical framework to scrutinize the sustainable development perspective. Vandana Shiva (1989), a physicist, uncovers an important Western cultural bias in the myth of subsistence provision as poverty, pointing out that “subsistence economies which satisfy basic needs through self-provisioning are not poor in the sense of being deprived” (1989, p. 10). These economies could only be universally labelled as poor when, after World War II, gross national product (GNP), which counts only goods and services that pass through the market, was introduced as the international standard to measure a nation’s wealth. Gauging value and wealth by money alone leaves the wealth of nature and the everyday skills and production of women, peasants, and Indigenous peoples invisible. It allows the very “maldevelopment” (Shiva, 1989) that destroys this wealth and brings misery and deprivation to these communities, to be legitimized as poverty reduction. Recognition of the wealth inherent in nature and support of the work and knowledge required to ensure subsistence and survival will transform the nature of our society and economy, including the existing sexual division of labour, and give women autonomy over their bodies and lives.

Introduction 19

Marilyn Waring (1988), a political science scholar, argues that the international economic system constructs reality in a way that excludes the great bulk of women’s work, peasant and Indigenous labour, and nature. Official economic measures of production only count production for the market and give no value to nature, women’s work of reproduction, or other production work, largely in the economic South or the Third World or the periphery. Consequently, the contribution or loss of both reproductive work and nature to the community’s well-being remains invisible in these systems, and is neither protected nor supported by policy-making (Waring, 1988, p. 176). Neoliberalism also has a contradictory and contested political ecology. For the current attacks on nature and its poor waged and unwaged workers, I turn to the neoliberal environmental management approach propounded by the World Bank. Environmental Management and Sustainable Development Policy David Harvey (2009, pp. 10–18) argues that two important agreements established new conditions for neoliberal globalization. First was the Bretton Woods agreement for trade and economic development, which in 1944 put in motion the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund, the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT), the International Bank of Settlements, and the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD). Second, the Washington Consensus, in 1989, set policy prescriptions for market fundamentalism or neoliberalism. The World Trade Organization (WTO), in 1995, was born by eliminating GATT and assuming new roles for capital accumulation. Both Bretton Woods and the Washington Consensus put the financial system or the stock market (e.g., Wall Street) at the centre of capital accumulation. Internationally, Mary Mellor (2010) argues that since the 1980s and 1990s, the financial system has had access to unlimited credit creation. Selling debt has been a huge source of profits in the financial service industry. If a person is indebted, he or she has to look for a job to pay this debt, but if it is a country that is indebted, the creation of money as debt is linked to bank-issued money. Money, as debt, is created by private banks in order to speculate. This capital escapes from the control of central banks. She continues: “This ability has enabled the commercial sector to gain control of the money system via the banking sector and placed the state, and therefore the people, into the role

20

Introduction

of public debtor” (2010, p. 31). Since there is no limit to the creation of money as debt, nor a system of supervision, the banking system does not need to be transparent in its transactions and, as a result, the financial system is at permanent risk of crisis and in need of rescue using public money. According to Mellor (2010), in the age of “financialized capitalism … money is invested in financial assets to create more money (M-M-M+)” (p. 85). The stock market became a forum for speculation (p. 88). Neoliberalism employs monetary economics assuming that macroeconomic problems, such as inflation and debt, originate in excessive government spending. Harvey defines neoliberalism as “a theory of political economic practices that proposes that human well-being can best be advanced by liberating individual entrepreneurial freedoms and skills within an institutional framework characterized by strong private property rights, free markets, and free trade. The role of the state is to create and preserve an institutional framework appropriate to such practices” (2009, p. 2). Since the recognition of the ecological crisis, monetary economics of the neoliberal political economy is also applied to nature. According to John Bellamy Foster (1999), the historical view of the environmental movement in the industrial world was that “industrial man was a disturbing agent” (Marsh in Man and Nature, as cited in Foster, 1999); a major concern was the rate of extinction of animals, birds, and forests. Preservationists, such as Marshall in The People’s Forests (1933, as cited in Foster, 1999), emphasized the intrinsic value of nature and wanted to protect wilderness areas from commercial exploitation by expanding public ownership. Conservationists, in contrast, “came to be dominated by more business-oriented forces who sought not so much to oppose the environmental depredations of the large corporations as to regulate and rationalize the exploitation of natural resources for the purpose of long-term profits” (Foster, 1999, p. 75). This environmentalism is instrumental where the ecology exists for human beings. The United Nations assumed the conservationist model, since the World Commission on Environment and Development’s publication of Our Common Future (1987), also known as the Brundtland Report (BR). The BR entangled the international debt crisis and the ecological crisis, and suggested sustainable development as a means to eliminate poverty and to contain environmental disaster (Sachs, 1999). Sustainable development was defined as “development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet

Introduction 21

their own needs” (World Commission on Environment and Development, 1987, p. 8). The 1992 Earth Summit opened the way for the direct management of nature and human resource development by giving responsibility for sustainable development to the World Bank. W. David Pearce and J. Jeremy Warford (1993) of the World Bank Environment Department stressed the importance of permanent growth and development based on the industrial world’s experience. They argued that sustainable development is good and desirable for the entire world, particularly for the so-called underdeveloped world. If poverty is to be reduced and the standard of living of the average person improved in developing countries, economic growth must remain a primary objective of national governments and the world economy. Environmental destruction is simply part of the price that must be paid to achieve a higher standard of living. Although they recognize that the industrial world has sacrificed environmental quality for economic growth, they believe that the industrial world has achieved sustainable development. Pearce and Warford (1993) also argue that growth in real income per capita can be achieved without major degradation, by getting the price right. This means that price calculations to allocate the use of scarce resources (e.g., water or air) should be based on the laws of supply and demand operating in the marketplace. If markets function nearly perfectly, prices in the marketplace will reflect their private costs of production, and the rise or fall in price will deter or induce purchase. In this way, scarce resources are allocated efficiently. However, proponents of sustainable development warn that there are two possible forms of market failure. First, although many marketed goods have prices that reflect private costs of production, these prices ignore major externalities such as social costs. Pearce and Warford (1993) also claim that these externalities can be regulated through pollution taxes and tradeable permits. Second, many goods have no markets at all; for example genes, air, and scenery, and prices must be established for them. That is, the economy requires a fully monetized world in order to be protected. A World Bank official, Kirk Hamilton (2001, p. 21), argues that one possible definition of sustainable development is the process of creating, maintaining, and managing a nation’s portfolio of assets in national asset accounting. These assets include built infrastructure (roads), natural capital (minerals, energy, genetics, agricultural land, forests, rivers), human capital (education, health care), and social capital (networks, the court system, the political regime). Hamilton argues that many of the

22

Introduction

critically important ecological and life-support functions provided by natural systems – the genetic material, the forest, water, and the atmosphere – are not yet measured as part of the wealth of nations. These elements must be embedded in the economic system as natural capital to become integrated within the sustainable development framework and thereby ensure sustainable growth (Hamilton, 2001, p. 30). Hamilton also states, “Natural capital, the base for all life, is much more equitably distributed than other forms of capital. What matters is how this resource is managed and whether the rents from the natural capital endowment are invested or consumed” (Fenech et al., 1999, p. 6). Following this logic, the World Bank developed genuine saving measures that expanded the national accounts definitions of assets to include minerals, energy, forest resources, and the stock of atmospheric CO2 (Hamilton, 2001), thus legitimizing the privatization of the commons (areas not commodified such as air, forest, mountains, genes, biodiversity, water, oceans and seas, atmosphere). The idea of sustainable development is that there must be an exchange process between those with money to buy and those with natural capital to sell. This point of view assumes that the well-being of human agents is of primary importance for economics, in terms of maximizing the satisfaction of human wants. According to the World Bank, “There is a considerable willingness worldwide to pay to preserve nature and the critical functions that ecosystems provide” (World Bank, 1997, p. 20). The impacts on the ecology and the local population are made invisible and/or hidden under the cost and benefits theory. Critiques of the environmental management position come from two main sources: ecological economics and ecosocialists. Ecological economists, economists who are also environmentalists, judge this approach incapable of challenging the environmental crisis. Instead, they propose a management focused on the adaptability of human economies. Ecological economics, using an ecological economic stewardship paradigm, rejects traditional economics’ use of the market for determining economic optimality, because markets do not function at all with goods and services that cannot be privately owned, such as the atmosphere. Herman Daly and Joshua Farley (2011) identify several fundamental limits to traditional economics, such as the belief that growth is the only way to solve the ecological problem; that human behaviour is driven by dynamics stemming from self-advantage; that technology will find human-made replacements for lost ecosystem materials and service; that the economic system is a self-sufficient whole

Introduction 23

entity unto itself; that free markets exist in the absence of government regulation and intervention; or “that the laws of thermodynamics are irrelevant to economics” (Daly & Farley, 2011, p. xviii). These authors also argue in favour of standard economics: While we are especially critical of standard economics’ excessive commitment to GNP (Gross National Product) growth and its neglect of the biophysical system in which the economy is embedded, we also recognize that much environmental destruction and other forms of misery are caused by insufficient attention to standard economics. For example, subsidized prices for natural resources, neglect of external costs and benefits, and political unwillingness to respect the basic notions of scarcity and opportunity cost are problems we join standard economists in decrying. (Daly & Farley, 2011, p. xvii)

Their perspective proposes a social dialogue to establish what a society would like itself to become, based on a new valuation system where the ecosystem’s health is more important and human economy is adaptable. The second challenge to the environmental management school comes from the ecosocialists who maintain that the planet is materially finite, meaning there are biophysical limits to the volume of economic activity the biosphere can support. Elmar Altvater (1994, pp. 84–85) asserts that the first law of thermodynamics (i.e., the total amount of energy in the universe is constant), and the second law of thermodynamics (entropy always increases in the universe), are natural laws that the economic system cannot overcome. He contends that ecological modalities of time and space are irreversible and inevitable as disorder increases in the universe. Ecosocialists argue that “one must therefore ask questions about the physical limits of all growth, and, more profoundly, about the entropic nature of all economic activity” (Deléage, 1994, p. 50). They also contend that capital cannot control the reproduction and modification of the natural conditions of production in the same way it aims to regulate industrial commodity production (Altvater, 1994; Deléage, 1994). Further, Michael Goldman (1998) declares that: “as long as the commons is perceived as only existing within a particular mode of knowing, called development, with its unacknowledged structures of dominance, this community [the Global Resource Managers (GRMs) or large international environmental NGOs] will continue to serve the institution of

24

Introduction

development, whose raison d’être is restructuring Third World capacities and social-natural relations to accommodate transnational capital expansion” (p. 47). Goldman elucidates that “GRMs have replaced the barefoot peasants as the ‘experts’ on the commons; now, within the new discourse, it is their knowledge, rules, sciences and definitions that have become paramount for explaining ecological degradation and sustainability” (p. 35). But these managers are more concerned with the expansionary demands of the North’s industrial base than about the health of the ecology. GRMs make sure that industry receives what it needs: more raw materials extracted from the earth, rivers, forests, aquifers, as well as cheap labour. Radicals of many stripes understand the political ecology of neoliberalism – the transforming of global nature into “market natures,” but they still deny that class politics of capital accumulation is tied to the experience of the unwaged (women and Indigenous people) or poorly waged (peasants and colonies), being resourced as nature. Their interconnection is the issue of this book. Conclusion This ecofeminist analysis departs from Marx’s concept of primitive accumulation, and it advances the concept of housewifization to uncover how a neoliberal political economy not only exploits the waged but the unwaged as well. Ecofeminists show how the provisions of women, peasants, Indigenous people, entire nation-states, and nature are turned into an extractive commons whose provisions are taken through violence. Ecofeminists look at reproductive labour or lifesupporting labour as an important area of human activity that needs to be revalued, and they yearn for recognition of our naturalness, our physicality and materiality, our carnality and mortality. By conceptualizing reproduction as part of capital accumulation, ecofeminists challenged the hierarchy that capital has created between wage workers (paid) and non-wage workers (unpaid). In this book I analyse how the political ecology of neoliberal political economy, so-called sustainable development, has developed in Costa Rica since the 1992 Earth Summit, when governments were seen as responsible for organizing it. The “greening” in this book is a new form of oppression on nature combined with a new kind of exploitation of the unpaid and poorly paid worker. This new essentialism results from the economist rejection of physical limits to growth, the biologist

Introduction 25

fetish with such limits, and the indebtedness of peripheral countries. The research hypotheses in this book are grounded in the fact that the livelihood of subsistence forest-dwelling households in a market context continue to be encompassed by two sets of objective conditions: free access to natural and disposable resources and the knowledge and means of production to use and transform them; and dependence on the availability of natural resources and market goods. If the second condition induces us to think that forest-dwelling societies are in a situation of dependence, knowledge of and free access to forest resources also make them free. In the margin between dependence and freedom thrives a forest-dweller’s art of life, which is at the source of the conflict we observe today. In the sustainable development framework, subsistence production is replaced with commodities and local markets by a world market, in which women and nature are forced to participate, by violent means. The political ecology of sustainable development encourages a totality of destruction by transforming into merchandise or paper money the biodiversity we eat, the air we breathe, the scenery we enjoy, and the water we drink. This is the “West End” referred to by Claudia von Werlhof (2007a), meaning the “end of capitalist rationality.” Since the 1980s, the stock market has been a forum for speculation and, for the most part, the source of investments: first, the income of mutual funds, which collect money deposited by individuals and invest it in an array of financial assets; second, pension funds, which are the retirement savings of individuals; third, the earnings of hedge funds, which are essentially pools of capital contributed by institutions, handed over to a small circle of managers given licence to borrow heavily and speculate aggressively, and which grow ever larger; and fourth, debt swaps, which are financial mechanisms to exchange debt for ownership in national industries, public enterprises, bank assets, and nature, in the form of debt-for-nature exchanges, were also set in place. This book is about relationships and communities, and it is structured into two parts. Part I gives an overview of the debt issues affecting Costa Rica and the creation of national conservation areas as a means meeting debt obligations. It includes Chapters 1 and 2, where I establish the link between debt and debt-for-nature exchanges with the national system of conservation areas. In Chapter 1, I also trace investment patterns developed historically by the dynamics of capitalism in Costa Rica. Since 1987, debt exchanges have been used to confront poverty and environmental crises (Conservation International, 1991). In 1989,

26

Introduction

during President George H. W. Bush’s administration, the new secretary of the treasury, Nicholas Brady, established a debt-restructuring plan (Vasquez, 1996). As a result, an important part of financial capital was created through trade in debts whereby ownership in national industries, public enterprises, bank stock, or natural resources is exchanged for a reduction in a country’s indebtedness. My purpose is to show how Costa Rica became the first green neoliberal project following the 1981 debt crisis, which brought the IMF and the World Bank, as well as the Reagan administration, to its doorstep. During the debt crisis, the country agreed to a reconfiguration of its economy based on large capital requirements to earn more hard currency to pay its external debt. This process accelerated the concentration of land into large commercial farms and was responsible for changes in rural activities, from agriculture to service-oriented work. The political economy described in Chapter 1 sets the frame for the political ecology that Costa Rica initiated in 1988. In Chapter 2, I examine how, during the 1980s, indebtedness was used by the United States to impose USAID as a direct agent in the management of the Costa Rican state. During USAID’s tenure, the political ecology of the country was manufactured at the ECODES conference (Conservation Strategy for Sustainable Development/ Estrategia de Conservación para el Desarrollo Sustentable). At ECODES, it was recognized that the pursuit of development as a means of fostering economic growth, capital accumulation, and technology was the cause of the debt crisis, poverty, dispossession, deforestation, and water poisoning in Costa Rica. Nevertheless, economic growth, capital accumulation, and technology were offered as a cure, in the form of sustainable development. Debt-for-nature proponents argue that conservation areas, such as the Arenal-Tilaran Conservation Area highlighted in this book, are based on the science of nature. Part II, a discussion of what I call embodied indebtedness illustrates how the lives of women, peasants, and Indigenous peoples, and their relationships to nature, are entwined with issues relating to Costa Rica’s foreign debts. This second part of the book begins with Chapter 3: using the Canada-Costa Rica debt-for-nature agreement, I describe how WWF-C and MINAE divided the 250,000 hectares of ACA-Tilaran into three priority working units (PWUs): Bijagua, Río Aranjuez, and La Fortuna. The history of the La Fortuna PWU is told in detail because it has been described by its managers as a success story. Each PWU was assigned a protected wildlife area where local

Introduction 27

residents were encouraged to organize NGOs and set up ecotourist lodges (albergues) as microenterprises using debt-for-nature funds. The results in Bijagua, Río Aranjuez, and La Fortuna are very similar. The social tensions between the demands of local communities for security and livelihoods and the demands of private capital and national governments for economic growth and globalization are exposed. In local communities, Indigenous people and peasants have always played a fundamental role in biodiversity conservation, improvement, adaptation, and selection of species useful for human beings. This interaction between people and nature has been possible only through the transmission of collective knowledge from generation to generation, which maintained family and community sustenance, as well as a recognition that food sovereignty depends on the health of the ecosystem. In Chapters 4 to 8 I establish links between foreign debt, political ecology, and accelerated impoverishment and environmental degradation. In Costa Rica, the territorial dynamics are undergoing intense transformation owing to the sustainable development agenda that promises to address the debt and environmental crises through new natures and the “rebranding” tactic of open-pit mining. Chapter 4 demonstrates how land transformation trivialized and excluded the traditional knowledge of Indigenous people and peasants that has long been part of the subsistence economy of tropical rainforests. In 1992, the World Resources Institute, The World Conservation Union, and United Nations Environment Program (UNEP) produced a global biodiversity strategy guide in which it was claimed that a fundamental reason for the loss or unsustainable use of biological resources throughout the planet was the failure of societies to value the environment and the goods and services it sustains. The strategy argued that wildlife-related activities should be incorporated into the economic valuation of ecosystems and expressed in market terms to contribute to national GDPs. Within this framework, biochemistry, genes, proteins, microorganisms, and other products with actual or potential economic value were placed directly in the hands of “ecological authorities,” turning nature and community knowledge into arenas dominated by secrecy and paranoia. The International Convention on Biodiversity, which came into force in 1993, abolished the idea that genetic resources are a common patrimony of humankind. Since then, the enclosure of genetic material for economic prospecting has transformed biological organisms into mere resources for scientific research. Moreover, local knowledge of native

28

Introduction

plants and animals has been expropriated through the legislation of intellectual property rights. Indigenous species identified as having valuable traits are collected and shipped to laboratories for modification by pharmaceutical, medical, and agricultural companies. Chapter 5 shows how the global environmental crisis has drawn attention to the process of forest vegetation storing carbon that, when released, traps heat in the atmosphere, driving up temperatures and speeding climate change. In 1997, the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change committed its parties to set internationally binding emission reduction targets. It recognized that high levels of greenhouse gas emissions in the atmosphere come as a result of more than 150 years of industrial activity. However, it placed a heavier burden on the “indebted forest” as a source of carbon credits. Rainforests have been converted into oxygen generators and sites of carbon credits for the polluting countries of the global North. The goal of generating an economic value from forests as carbon sinks has produced two crises: a crisis of nature by establishing monoculture tree planting, and a crisis for peasants by taking away their land and destroying sustainable ways of living, creating destitution and misery as a consequence. Chapter 6 exposes the enclosure of land for tourist attractions. Ecotourism has transformed the economy of the people living in the area from one of agriculture, subsistence farming, and cattle ranching into one of being service providers. Further, internal boundaries have been built, separating local people from the nature that they had shared equally and freely: volcanoes, waterfalls, rivers, hot springs, and wildlife. Tourism promotion has also deprived local communities of access to natural settings where families and neighbours came together during their free hours, walking in the countryside, climbing hills, swimming, and fishing. The chapter asserts that the remaking of nature reproduces certain negative gender politics originated in the ideology that women and their labour as nature can be appropriated as free goods. It shows how the redesigning of the rainforest as a primary ecotourism destination made Costa Rica a sex-tourism destination for tourists and other travellers. Betsy Taylor and Herbert Reid (personal communication, October 2002) argue that “some people mistakenly come to see mainstream environmentalists as the key to environmental and social justice. But corporate environmentalism [or mainstream environmentalists] in the industrial world has been dominated by a white male hierarchy, which aims to conserve wild areas for recreation and aesthetic and spiritual

Introduction 29

renewal, to free themselves from the space/time of industrial production, and to enjoy relatively undamaged natural wilds.” The natural wilds are women and nature that are seen as objects. New gender politics of land enclosure and dispossession have enclosed and restricted women and children. Although I was unable to include some direct information about conditions in La Fortuna Conservation Area, because of threats I experienced in trying to interview certain subjects, I was able to find descriptions of women and children’s condition in the capital city, San José. Chapter 7 presents a case study of microenterprises that produce medicinal plants with the stated but superficial aim of contributing to women’s empowerment. Throughout the centuries rural women have created a rich and elaborate culture, a culture of medicinal plants whose biological value is intrinsically linked to social, ethical, and cultural values. Medicinal plants were traditionally produced for a family’s consumption, that is, they had no exchange value but only use value. When medicinal plants and organic agriculture are put together for the market, they shift from being a source of women’s power, as it was women who provided the knowledge, to being a source of women’s exploitation. In this chapter research is also presented on rural women’s condition through an Abanico microenterprises that produces medicinal plants. A microenterprise is an economic unit that operates in the market. For any enterprise operating in the market, accessing production factors such as credits is crucial. Microenterprises usually get small amounts of capital from government and from NGOs. The Abanico microenterprise is a Women in Development (WID) income-generating activity with credit facilities organized by NGOs. Since the 1970s, WID, as an international policy, aims to integrate women into development. WID legitimizes the claims of women to an equal share of the benefits of development. In the effort to keep the growth model going, development recognized gender relations as a central aspect to overcome if women are to be taken into account and incorporated into the market successfully. WID generally supports the current model of development, suggesting that women’s status will be improved through evolutionary change. The goal of WID is to mainstream women’s issues into the conception and design of economic policy as a whole; in other words, to push states into recognizing the real differences that exist between women and men as social subjects, and the need to consider the effect of macro policies on the sexual division of labour. WID concentrates on women’s

30

Introduction

access to cash income via the market, either as individuals or members of some form of collective, as the base strategy. This problematic WID strategy has been incorporated into the political ecology of the World Bank and is now one of the programming priorities of sustainabledevelopment agencies that NGOs use to expand markets. These WID programs have been expanding the sexual division of labour and the enclosure of labour. Chapter 8 links land expropriation for open-pit mining with harassment and intimidation. It describes how, women and men in the Miramar community have for generations lived by traditional ways of life and livelihoods based on agriculture. By custom, forests and mountains provide rural communities with access to water, agriculture, and animals. The Bellavista gold-mining project is located two kilometres north of Miramar de Montes de Oro, in the province of Puntarenas. Mining has pitted municipalities and communities against the national government, which allows mining in its territory, despite its rhetoric of rejecting mining. At the 2002 Earth Summit in Johannesburg, the designers of the Global Mining Initiative, as a means of promoting sustainable development, were the International Chamber of Commerce, the World Business Council for Sustainable Development, and the Business Action for Sustainable Development. Thirty mining corporations and several NGOs, among them the International Union for Nature Conservancy, and Conservation International, sponsored this initiative. Open-pit mining produces new ecological abuses. It takes control of large areas of land for mountaintop removal mining; uses the extremely toxic cyanide lixiviation technique, which has led to severe pollution; opens deep holes in the rock to remove entire mountains, forests, and glaciers, with the aim of finding rocks with gold, silver, and other metallic minerals; kills the surface matter such as forests, mountains, glacier covers through the use of dynamite; eliminates biological diversity of flora, fauna, and microorganisms by employing heavy machinery; scars the landscape with the creation of giant craters; destroys ecological cycles and contaminates ecosystems; poisons hydro resources and pollutes the atmosphere due to the release of poisonous substances, thereby affecting all life. Mining leaves a legacy of permanent water contamination from cyanide, metals, and non-metals. Chapter 9 links the Earth Summits of 1992, 2002, and 2012, which produced the Plan Puebla Panama (PPP) in Central America, the Iniciativa para la Integración de la Infraestructura Regional Sudamericana

Introduction 31

(IIRSA) in South America, and “green” capitalism with the sustainable development generated at ACA-Tilaran in Costa Rica. In documenting the practices of NGOs such as WWF-C, INBio, and the ANDAR Association, I challenge claims that debt-for-nature swaps, sustainable development, and green capitalism reduce poverty, create equality, confront ecological destruction, and combat climate change. Instead, the book uncovers an inadequacy in market-based solutions. To conclude, I should mention that as price mechanisms become overextended with respect to the local commons (including species biodiversity, forests, mountains, other scenery), and given that economic growth has the objective of capturing these natural ecology, each chapter of this book presents locality as a site of confrontations and resistance.

This page intentionally left blank

PART I Foreign Debt, Debt-for-Nature, and the National System of Conservation Areas

This page intentionally left blank

1 The Political Economy of Costa Rica’s Neoliberal State

This chapter discusses Costa Rica’s recasting as a neoliberal state. It examines the reasons why Costa Rica’s debt crisis had outcomes different than the other Latin American countries. In the 1980s, neoliberal economic policies led to higher interest rates and the cut-back in new commercial bank credit, resulting in increased difficulties in meeting the conditions imposed by the IMF and the World Bank. These conditionalities prompted riots of the poor in Peru, uprisings of the middle class in Argentina, and liberation movements elsewhere, such those as in Nicaragua and El Salvador. Neoliberals and conservatives alike have used these differences to showcase Costa Rica as a successful example of IMF and World Bank neoliberal policies applied during the debt crisis. Since 1981, the Costa Rican economy has been transformed from one of state-sponsored entrepreneurial initiatives to a neoliberal state management that articulates the political economy by private property rights, deregulation, and free trade through free markets. From State Intervention to Neoliberalism In Costa Rica between 1948 and 1951, the formation of the ruling classes and the early dismantling of the politicized and unionized working class movement played a critical role in the events leading to the building of a neoliberal state (Cerdas Cruz, 1998). During the Cold War, the United States could not tolerate a strong communist party in Costa Rica because of the country’s physical proximity to the Panama Canal (Cerdas Cruz, 1998). The victory of José Figueres in the 1948 revolution created the general investment conditions required to develop individual capital; and the United States, through Padre Nuñez, a Catholic priest

36

The “Greening” of Costa Rica

with links to US intelligence, created the climate necessary to fight the communists (Cerdas Cruz, 1998). Costa Rica’s working class was, in fact, the first casualty of the Cold War, which virtually eliminated the working-class masses as a political movement. Workers’ consciousness is still deeply marked by the repression under which people lived during the 1948 revolution. Their historical defeats have inflicted a deeply felt insecurity and fear about the consequences of political organization. As a result, working-class organizations were replaced by a union system linking entrepreneurial state and private enterprises in an attempt to merge workers’ and owners’ interests. These circumstances explain the current lack of organization and participation of Costa Ricans in civil and public life and made possible the three-decade rule of Partido Liberación Nacional (PLN) (the National Liberation Party). With the union movement destroyed, there was no longer any need for military forces. Since then, Costa Rica has been demilitarized but is protected by US forces that remain in the region (Cerdas Cruz, 1998). Ana Sojo (1984) and Rodolfo Cerdas Cruz (1998) suggest that both the Figueres (president in 1948–1949, 1953–1958, and 1970–1974) and Francisco Orlich (president from 1962 to 1968) governments were committed to economic development and saw the transition to industrialization and modernization directed by the state as central to successful development programs. The state’s entrepreneurial initiatives were advised and promoted by the United Nation’s Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC). According to Prebisch (1963), director of ECLAC, the cause of underdevelopment in Latin American countries “is their trade dependence resulting from the specialization of the ‘periphery’ in raw materials and the ‘center’ in industrial goods.” To overcome the condition of underdevelopment, “a more comprehensive ordering than that afforded by markets [is needed], and such an ordering is possible only through planning” (Hague, 1999, pp. 92–3). Assuming that the national economy was the basic unit of development, ECLAC proposed that Latin America follow its own industrialization path to import substitution, through the domestic production of industrial goods (Furtado, 1970). It promoted state intervention in food production, roads, land tenure, and nationalization in key sectors of the economy. ECLAC wanted to integrate the Latin American economies more closely and attempted to ensure that transnational corporations operating in these countries would never again threaten Latin American governments (Escobar, 1995).

Costa Rica’s Neoliberal State

37

Table 1.1 Costa Rica’s Total External Debt and Debt Service Year

1980

Total External Debt

2.744 billion

Debt Service

335 million

Source: World Bank (n.d.)

In Costa Rica, the move towards industrialization and agricultural modernization required a strong state. By 1970, following ECLAC’s prescriptions, the state had reduced its support of private accumulation and organized the state as an accumulation centre. This situation allowed the state some autonomy from the private interests that supported the 1948 revolution (A. Sojo, 1984). By the end of the 1970s, Costa Rica was generally regarded, socially and economically, as one of the best examples of the implementation of successful ECLAC economic development programs in Latin America. Its health, education, and gdp indicators were surpassed only by Cuba (A. Sojo, 1984). But by July 1981, as a result of borrowing and high interest rates, Costa Rica had become the first nation in Latin America to unilaterally suspend all payments on its foreign debt. The IMF closed its doors and Costa Rica was unable to obtain any further loans (Petch, 1988; C. Sojo, 1992; V. Carballo, 1992). In 1980, Costa Rica’s total external debt was $2.7 billion with a debt service of $335 million (see Table 1.1). During the 1980s debt crisis, the understanding of development based on local knowledge promoted by ECLAC was replaced with IMF stabilization policies and World Bank structural adjustment programs (SAPs), which form the basis of neoliberalism. By 1982, the application of neoliberalist stabilization and SAPs, through the daily devaluation of its currency, coupled with high inflation, reductions in real wages, user fees in education and health care, erosion of retirement pensions, deregulation of prices, polarization of income, growing unemployment, and the spread of poverty, transformed Costa Rica. Petch (1988) and C. Sojo (1992) argue that USAID funds were used to avoid the turmoil and protests against the IMF and World Bank that took place throughout Latin America during the debt crisis. The US government needed Costa Rica’s territory to fight the Cold War against Nicaragua; it thus turned the country into a strategic military resource

38

The “Greening” of Costa Rica

and forced the acceptance of USAID as a parallel state in Costa Rica. Luis Alberto Monge, president from 1982 to 1986, sold Costa Rica’s geopolitical and military location in conflicted Central America to USAID and the Reagan administration to help them in their fight against communism in Nicaragua (C. Sojo, 1992). The Monge administration adopted USAID advice and renegotiated the debt with the Paris Club and US commercial banks, and started full implementation of the IMF–World Bank packages agreed to in 1981. Carlos Sojo (1991, p. 59) cites Fernando Zumbado, Costa Rica’s former ambassador to the United Nations: “The country was in need of foreign aid to re-establish the economy and the only possible funding source was the United States. The Monge government understood the Reagan administration’s obsession with Nicaragua and Costa Rica’s importance for the United States politics of aggression.” In February 1982, the Washington Post reported that the Reagan administration had allotted $19 million to overthrow the Sandinistas (C. Sojo, 1991). Carlos Sojo (1992) argues that Costa Rica had an historical enmity with Nicaragua; this was combined with the profound anticommunism of the PLN. He states: “In August 1984, in answer to U.S. demands that Costa Rica take a more confrontational stance, the Monge Administration accused the Sandinistas of penetrating Costa Rican territory” (p. 25). This accusation produced a political crisis in Costa Rica that aimed to create a consensus between poor and rich that a patriotic stand was needed to confront the Sandinistas, thus discouraging strikes or uprisings against the economic policies imposed by the IMF and the World Bank (C. Sojo, 1991). He also contends (1991) that USAID, as a parallel state in Costa Rica, used the Iniciativa Cuenca del Caribe (Caribbean Cuenca Initiative) and created the Programa de Estabilización y Recuperación Económica (ERE) (Stabilization and Economic Recuperation Program), which had three components: the opening of US markets to Costa Rica; increased investment; and direct aid from the United States to Costa Rica. The ERE corrected three economic difficulties. First, it relieved the country’s financial problems by expanding the private banking system and devaluing the currency to increase profit in the export sector. Second, it alleviated an investment and export-promotion problem by creating a private organization called the Coalición Costarricense de Iniciativas para el Desarrollo (CINDE) (Costa Rica Development Initiatives Coalition). CINDE channeled foreign exchange and national currency to expand non-traditional export projects and buy goods from

Costa Rica’s Neoliberal State

39

the United States. ERE also privatized eighteen public enterprises and transferred the funds to the private sector. Third, ERE brought direct aid from the United States. US-Costa Rica Direct Aid Building the neoliberal state in Costa Rica cost USAID $1.02 billion, from which $926 million was poured into the ERE program: $193 million (28.1%) was channeled to the private sector, and the import sector had $733 million (71.9%) to purchase goods and services from the United States (C. Sojo, 1992). Dawkins (1992) acknowledged the use of $80 million in debt-for-nature swaps. Trevor Petch (1988) has shown that as the war between Nicaragua and the United States intensified, USAID funds to Costa Rica increased. In 1981, the United States contributed $15.3 million, two-thirds of which came in the form of loans. In 1982, the amount rose to $52 million, only $9 million of which were grants (money that pursued US initiatives) (p. 203). In addition, the Monge administration received $2 million for security assistance to equip and train for the Civil Guard. As the United States escalated the war against Nicaragua, US direct aid, a voluntary transfer of resources from one country to another to reward a government behaviour desired by the donor, also soared. In 1983, US direct aid was augmented to $214.1 million, of which only one-quarter came in the form of a grant. However in 1984, the total fell back to $179 million, two-thirds of which were grants, with an additional $9 million for security assistance (p. 203). The reduction of aid came when Monge “refused to cooperate with plans for regional maneuvers and to support the U.S. invasion of Grenada in October 1983” (Petch, 1988, p. 203). In 1985, to regain the US aid, Monge allowed the setup of a military camp at El Murcielago, where US advisers could train the Nicaragua contras, as well as an airstrip at Santa Elena, for resupply efforts to the contras (Petch, 1988, p. 205). A further reduction of aid came following the Oscar Arias administration’s (1986–1990) opposition to the presence of Nicaraguan contras and President Reagan’s Central American policy. President Arias developed in 1987 the Esquipulas II Accords, which called for an end to outside aid for guerrillas, a ceasefire, more peace talks, and a ban on the use of one country as a base for attacks on another. As a result, in 1987, “USAID deferred $120 million from January until September, while the IMF held back a $55 million standby loan and insisted on further reductions in

40

The “Greening” of Costa Rica

the budget and the fiscal deficit” (Petch, 1988) (p. 209). In addition, aid to Costa Rica from Canada also plummeted from Can$16.17 million in 1989–90 to some Can$9.5 million in 1990–91 (Cox, 1992). In 1989, Costa Rica and the IMF signed a new standby agreement for the continuation of the neoliberal economic policy and the restructuring of public finances. It soon became clear to the creditors that the targets given in the letter of intent to the IMF would not be reached. Until the government complied with their demands, the IMF and USAID withheld millions (Petch, 1988). In 1990, USAID and the international financial institutions were satisfied with the application of their policies, and Costa Rica was included in the Brady Plan Accord that restructured the commercial banks’ loan agreements. Costa Rica’s inclusion in the Brady Plan Accord restored investor confidence and capital investments from the United States, Europe, and Asia were renewed. The Agro-Export Development Model Traditionally, US multinational corporations enclosed Costa Rica’s land and converted it into cattle ranches in the north and banana plantations in the south (A. Ramírez & Maldonado, 1988). The local business community set aside the central valley for coffee plantations, with support coming mainly from the national government (Winson, 1989). To support, encourage, and facilitate coffee production, the formation of small- and medium-sized peasant property owners was crucial. By the late 1970s, Costa Rica was seen as a successful Green Revolution story. The Green Revolution introduced modern farming techniques that increased agricultural productivity resulting from the introduction of high-yield and pest-resistant varieties of crops. Costa Rica’s main exports, from 1955 to 1984, were bananas from the south, coffee from the centre, and meat from the north. C. Sojo (1992) maintains that from the beginning of the 1981 debt crisis, the IMF and the World Bank pressured the country to increase its export income in order to earn more hard currency that could be used to pay its external debt. The basic idea behind this new policy was that the country’s structural problems could be solved by increasing nontraditional export production. This so-called nontraditional agriculture is also referred to as diversification of agriculture (agricultura de cambio), or alternative agriculture production, or exchange agriculture. During the 1980s debt crisis, two types of investments were designed to augment productivity and diversification of production. The first type was based on large capital requirements. To be successful with the

Costa Rica’s Neoliberal State

41

IMF–World Bank SSAP policies implies a large land area, high capital investment, and intensive use of agrochemicals, modern techniques, and technologies. This necessarily means good access to credit, technology, and marketing. Coffee, banana, beef cattle, and non-traditional agro exports (pineapples, oranges, lemons) are capital-intensive programs directed at agricultural entrepreneurs with sufficient resources to invest in agribusinesses. According to Alonso Ramírez and Tirso Maldonado (1988), from Costa Rica’s Neotropical Foundation, the land appropriation policy accelerated the concentration of land into large commercial farms and was responsible for an increase in the number of rural landless Costa Ricans. The increase in export production and revenue was based on the application of fertilizers, pesticides, herbicides, and fungicides. According to Ramirez and Maldonado (1988, p. 56), between 1981 and 1984, Costa Rica consumed 2,251,400 metric tons of fertilizers; in 1985, pesticide imports increased to 12 million kilograms; and by 1988, imports had decreased to 8.4 million kilograms owing to an increase in internal production. In 1984, the annual average application of pesticides was 4 kilograms per hectare and 139 kilograms of fertilizer per hectare in the crop area in La Fortuna, Alajuela. Since the Green Revolution (beginning in 1970), the use of chemical fertilizers on coffee and banana plantations has been an integral component of state programs aimed at intensifying agriculture. Table 1.2 shows the increase in productivity of coffee and bananas per hectare. Between 1955 and 1984, coffee productivity increased by 39% while banana productivity increased by almost 47%. The rise of agro-industry productivity was as follows: Between 1957 and 1963, the agriculture sector grew by 4.3%; between 1963 and 1973, by 7.1%; and between 1973 and 1985, by 2.3% (A. Ramirez & Maldonado, 1988) (p. 47). Table 1.2 Average Productivity of Coffee and Banana per Hectare, in Metric Tons Years Crop

1955

1963

1973

1984

Coffee

2.3

3.6

4.7

5.9

Banana

20.3

22.7

34.6

43.6

Source: Ramirez & Maldonado, 1988, (p. 50).

42

The “Greening” of Costa Rica

In 1985, 9.4% of the national territory was used for agriculture. A total of 2.4% of land was used to grow coffee, 0.8% for sugar cane, 0.6% for banana, 3.3% in annual cultivation, and 2.3% in other types of cultivation. Cattle-raising land occupied 32%, while 5.6% was in charrales (abandoned pastures where forest regeneration occurs naturally) (Quesada, 1990, p. 20). The remaining 45.9% of land was composed of forest, volcanoes and other nonresidential land areas. Land seizures by foreign and local businesses deeply divided Costa Rican society over the issues of land control and power. In 1973, land concentration in farms of five hectares accounted for 45.8% of the total and occupied 1.9% of the surface. Large farms of five hundred hectares accounted for 1% and occupied 36% of the total surface area; in 1984, 44.4% of the first farms occupied 2.4%, while the latter accounted for 0.7% of the farms and occupied 27% of the surface (A. Ramirez & Maldonado, 1988 (p. 53). The application of neoliberal policies resulted in further land concentration among just a few landowners. For instance, in 1996, excluding the owners of one hectare of land or less, landowners with less than one hundred hectares controlled a very small part of the national territory, while few owners with more than one hundred hectares owned more than half of the country’s territory (PEN, 1996). In 1997, the US multinational corporation United Fruit (now Chiquita Brand International), which covered the southern part of the country with banana plantations, became the largest export producer in the country (Costa Rica, Datos e indicadores básicos, 1998). Coffee represented the second most important crop. The second type of investment in the wake of the 1980s debt crisis was based on small loans. Credit was directed to thousands of peasant families living on small farms (fincas) or in squatter zones (asentamientos humanos), barely able to eke out a livelihood. Before implementation of IMF and World Bank policies, the Ministry of Agriculture and Livestock (Conservation) supported cash cropping among peasants. With the new policy, peasants were urged to intensify productivity through the use of agrochemicals, which increased production costs. They began to take out heavy loans at high interest rates to expand their plantations. As loans are productive loans, debt must be paid with revenue from subsequent harvests. As a result, they became more dependent on the politics of international agriculture. The bank loans rested on the decisions of Ministerio de Agricultura y Ganadería (MAG) agronomists who controlled the peasants’ land. Agronomists forced peasants to use specific fertilizers and specific pesticides in the production process and forced

Costa Rica’s Neoliberal State

43

the sale of harvests to repay the loans. All these precautions were taken to ensure the repayment of the loans. Between 1980 and 1990, the land dedicated to basic food staples (maize, beans, and rice) increased by only 5%, although this was when Costa Rica had one of the highest rates of population growth in Latin America (Brockett, 1988). Women’s Unwaged and Waged Labour In a country like Costa Rica, where historically the majority of the population lived in rural areas (51% in 1998), livelihoods depended directly on access to nature. Table 1.3 shows that in rural areas, men have outnumbered women over the past thirty years, mainly because men worked in agriculture and owned the farms. Women were legally barred from owning farmland and were prone to leave the area to find jobs elsewhere. Women’s work in the rural areas of Costa Rica was frequently linked to production for family consumption, food security, and working without salary at their husbands’ farms because there is no marital title to land, and not for the market. Therefore, most rural women had no salary, so that there are no figures reflecting the length of their workday or their participation in agricultural activities (T. Valdes & E. Gomariz, 1995). Grettel Baldizán and Francisco Guido Cruz (1987) demonstrate that in general during the 1980s, rural women’s labour could be divided into three main areas: (a) domestic workers coping with a lack of basic services, such as treated water, electricity and toilets, and child care and health care; (b) agricultural workers, maintaining the subsistence family unit while men went to work for a salary outside the home and/ or outside the area, significantly increasing women’s workday; and (c) seasonal agricultural salaried workers, with no social or economic benefits, and at a lower salary than men’s. In 1985, the General Direction of Women and Family, a government institution cited in Cruz Ramirez et al.(1988), reported that close to 60% of rural women earned salaries less than the legal minimum, and 34% earned less than half of the minimum salary. These kinds of jobs were generated at the cost of subsistence agriculture, which provided food security to all. Despite women’s contributions to both subsistence agricultural production and market production, they were unrecognized labourers. The bulk of work performed by women is overlooked, and women’s productivity is assumed to be low. According to Marilyn Waring (1988), women’s exclusion is achieved

44

The “Greening” of Costa Rica

Table 1.3 Sex Ratios of Costa Rica’s Rural Population (Women per 100 Men), 1970–2005 1970− Year 1970 1975 1980 1985 1990 1995 2000 2005 2000

1980– 2000

1990– 2000

(Percentage change) 91

91

91

91

92

92

92

92

0.38

0.39

0.22

Source: CELADE/CEPAL 1999a, cited in Davis, 2003.

by making women’s contribution to subsistence production and to market production invisible, and by leaving the negative impact of economic development and growth on women unrecognized and unrecorded. The inequality crisis faced by Costa Rican women became recognized during the debt crisis (Cruz Ramirez et al., 1988). To confront women’s perception of growing poverty, the Arias administration created the Women’s National Program. This program was aimed to incorporate women into the production process. However, training programs only included women who were close to the leaders and the activities were limited to the traditional role of cooking, sewing, and cleaning. In reality, no real policy of job creation for women was implemented. The economic crisis pushed women outside the household anyway, looking for jobs to earn an income. As Table 1.4 shows, since 1980 women’s participation in rural economic activity has become more visible. It increased from 13% in 1980 to 21% in 2000, but the proportion of women reported is probably lower than it was in reality due to the underreporting of women’s activity in rural areas and given that their work also includes family subsistence production. Changes in Productive Structures and in Livelihoods By 1984, the agro-export model had deregulated the traditional instruments that protected agriculture. The agricultural policy of deregulation was developed expressly for export purposes, consequently it discouraged subsistence agriculture for family consumption, and peasants restricted their own food security to a very few varieties also in demand on the international market. Very few peasants produced vegetables for their own family’s consumption and the weekly market (feria). As a result, hundreds of varieties of fruits and vegetables started to disap-

Costa Rica’s Neoliberal State

45

Table 1.4 Evolution of Rural Economically Active Population in Costa Rica: Activity Rates by Sex (per 100 population aged 10 years and over), 1980–2000

1980

1985

1990

1995

2000

2005

1980–2000 (% change)

Males

78

79

79

78

78

78

−0.17

Females

13

14

17

19

21

24

68.98

Source: CELADE/CEPAL 1999b, cited in Davis, 2003.

pear. Biodiversity in general, biodiversity for agricultural production, and food security have been decimated, magnifying not only the poverty of the peasants but of the ecological environment itself. Since 1990, a new feature appeared in the employment profile: the service sector. It was accompanied by a tendency towards self-employment and waged work in small businesses and microenterprises. These waged jobs have usually been low paid and insecure, representing what Maria Mies (1986) describes as the housewifization of labour. Since 1998, due to the changes forced in economic production, MAG agronomists were replaced by the Consejo Nacional de Producción (CNP) (National Production Council), and a Productive Reconversion Program (PRP) was created under Law No. 7742. The PRP’s goal was to increase the competitiveness of small- and medium-sized peasant farmers in the international market through the creation of new enterprises and the modernization of the old ones through the incorporation of modern technology. The producers of pineapple, tropical flowers, heart of palm, ginger, medicinal plants, ornamental plants, and foliage are in this category of enterprise. Some of these are classified as “organic agriculture” (Gonzalez, 1998). With these policies in place, Table 1.5 shows how Costa Rica changed its economic structure, from agricultural producer to service provider. In 1999, there were also marked differences between women’s employment and men’s employment at all levels of the job structure. Women became salaried workers in the service sector, representing 42.0% of such workers. If services are added to the 24.6% that commerce, hotels, and restaurants represent, working women constituted 66.6% in that sector. On the men’s side, 11.6% worked in services; 42.9% worked in agriculture and 12.7% worked in industry. In the rural areas, women’s and men’s wages remained both depressed and unregulated. With depressed wages in the rural areas, having a job or being employed does not necessarily ensure that people can cover their basic needs.

46

The “Greening” of Costa Rica

Table 1.5 Distribution of the Rural Economically Active Population in Costa Rica, by Sex and Sector, 1999

Country/Sector Females Males

Industry

Commerce, hotels, & restaurants

Services (personal, public, and social)

9.9

19.5

24.6

42.0

4.0

42.9

12.7

12.8

11.6

19.9

Agriculture

Other

Source: CEPAL (2002b), cited in Davis, 2003, based on special tabulations of national household surveys.

Environmental Impacts As agriculture is the main source of Costa Rica’s income, it has organized the country’s social relations but has created major environmental impacts. Fundación Neotrópica (the Neotropical Foundation) (A. Ramirez & Maldonado, 1988) argues that deforestation was caused by the expansion of commercial agricultural areas to produce coffee, bananas, and sugar cane, and to develop cattle ranching. In addition, commercial logging to exploit a few selected species accelerated deforestation. The timber industry flourished, producing wood for both export and local consumption. In the process of extracting key species, a large number of non-commercial trees and plants were destroyed, while at the same time legislation promoted tree clearing as a mechanism to enable access to land property titles. This legislation included the Law of Private Possession (Ley de Informaciones Posesorias No. 139); and the Law of Land and Colonization (Ley de Tierras y Colonización No. 2825). Application of the law was in the hands of the Agrarian Development Institute (Instituto de Desarrollo Agrario), or IDA. The Neotropical Foundation also points out that the repayment of the debt, between 1981 and 1985, required high levels of pesticide and fertilizer application to increase agricultural productivity. With the expansion of export agriculture, the results of applying chemicals are far-reaching, destroying watersheds and spreading the effects of deforestation to other areas, because runoff fouls waterways and increases flooding. Guha and Martínez-Alier (1997) argue that the social and environmental costs of the production of coffee, banana, sugar cane, and cattle cannot be integrated into the price of export products. In other words, they represent an ecological subsidy to the international market. These

Costa Rica’s Neoliberal State

47

authors claim that the recent ecological history of Costa Rica must be interpreted as a history of ecological dependence and exporting natural capital. From an ecological point of view, there is no value brought to Costa Rica by the export of bananas, coffee, sugar cane, and meat. Cashcrop exports include not only solar energy captured through photosynthesis but soil nutrients as well. Consequently, Costa Rican exportoriented production subsidizes the international market but destroys the biomass of local communities, at great social and environmental cost to local inhabitants. Only a very few benefit. According to Vega Carballo (1992), by 1990, a small number of families from the Central Urban Area monopolized the national income, while controlling the state apparatus, financial capital, bonds market, investments and transfer of credit, information communication technology, and tourism. Conclusion Costa Rican governments did not undergo military coups, or military and civil dictatorships, as elsewhere in South America, to impose neoliberal policies. USAID funds arrived to use Costa Rica’s geopolitical location for the Cold War in Nicaragua, as well as to implement a neoliberal policy. These policies have changed the role of the state, from being a public accumulator and organizer to a supporter of international private accumulation, and reoriented the economy towards nontraditional export agriculture for international markets. Non-traditional export agriculture increased dependence on activities related to natural resources extraction and increased the use of high input agriculture applications derived from the Green Revolution, leading to the intensive use of soils and increased deforestation. This model, by concentrating property and wealth among a few landowners, has had tremendous implications for Costa Rican society. Meanwhile, peasants face international markets that define their present and future possibilities. In these conditions, peasants’ male children, who eventually might own the farm, remain there to engage in non-traditional agriculture, while their daughters go to the city to look for work in the service sector. Chapter 2 shows in detail how this neoliberal political economy produced its political ecology.

2 Political Ecology, Debt-for-Nature, and National Conservation Areas

The political ecology of the sustainable development framework proposes to address the debt and the environmental crises by expanding natural and human capital through marketing tropical nature and using poorly paid and unwaged work for capital accumulation. Sustainable development is a process whereby the natural resources base is not allowed to deteriorate. During the 1980s, the Costa Rican state effectively accommodated itself into this new framework, while USAID funds manufactured the political ecology of the country and pressured local powers to share geopolitical and commercial interests with transnational corporations. USAID took control of Costa Rica’s economy, and biologists took control of its ecology. Since then, debt-for-nature exchanges directed Costa Rica’s ecology into the hands of private and commercial enterprises. Since 1992, USAID and the WWF have portrayed Costa Rica as a poster child of economic growth and environmentalism in the so-called underdeveloped world. Chapter 2 uses the Canada-Costa Rica debt-for-nature exchange to begin the analysis of sustainable development. Within this framework, the stated aim of Canadian debt-for-nature investment in Costa Rica is to develop a model of environmental management that reduces poverty and environmental degradation. This is done through funding the activities of two non-governmental organizations, or NGOs: the Costa Rican National Institute of Biodiversity (INBio) and World Wildlife Fund-Canada (WWF-C). Neoliberal Political Ecology During the debt crisis, throughout the decade of the 1980s, indebtedness was used by the United States to impose USAID as a direct agent in the political economy and ecology of Costa Rica. USAID, as a Costa Rican parallel state, was inspired by the World Commission on Environment

The National System of Conservation Areas

49

Table 2.1 Costa Rica’s External Debt and Debt Service (in US$ million), 1980–1996 Year

1980

1990

1991

1992

1993

1994

1995

1996

Total External Debt

2.744

3.756

4.021

3.933

3.863

3.905

3.793

3.454

Debt Service

335

440

376

513

527

462

576

541

Source: World Bank, (n.d.).

and Development, or the Brundtland Report (World Commission on Environment and Development, 1987) to organize a conference with the title Estrategia de Conservación para el Desarrollo Sostenible de Costa Rica (ECODES) (Conservation Strategy for Sustainable Development) (Quesada, 1990), held in October 1988, during the Arias administration. “The project was consolidated thanks to the economic support and cooperation provided by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), the World Wildlife Fund (WWF-US), the Conservation Foundation, Conservation International, The Nature Conservancy” (Quesada, 1990, p. v), and local organizations. The purpose of ECODES was to evaluate past economic development strategies and to propose new ones. At the centre of the discussion was the financial obligation of Costa Rica, with a population of 2.6 million (in 1985). Debt service represented around 60% of the total exports. Table 2.1 shows a debt approaching $3.5 billion by 1990, one of the highest per capita external debts in the world. At that time, selling debt at high interest rates was a major source of profit for the financial services industry. Carlos Quesada (1990), president of the ECODES conference, reported that government organizations, such as the then Ministry of Natural Resources, Energy and Mines (MIRENEM), recognized deforestation as the price imposed by development and modernization. MIRENEM showed that from 1970 to 1980, Costa Rica had one of the highest deforestation rates in the world: from 36,000 hectares per year in the 1950s to an average of fifty thousand hectares of old-growth trees in the 1980s (p. 43). Biologist Christopher Vaughan, head of the World Wildlife Fund in the United States, while discussing Costa Rica’s sustainable development programs, emphasized the role of human population growth and peasants in hastening environmental degradation (C. Vaughan, 1988). He defended the case that local biodiversity would be seriously threatened if the ecological and social landscapes were not transformed into conservation areas. For instance, he notes that Costa Rica had more than 8,000 species of vascular plants, 2,000 orchids, 1,239 species of butterflies, 205 mammals, and 850 different kinds of birds (p. 5). Carlos Quesada (1990)

50

The “Greening” of Costa Rica

informs that Vaughan also estimates that between 1940 and 1977, the forested habitat for twenty-eight species of wildlife in the process of extinction was reduced by 40%; and by 1983, these species had only an average of 28% of their natural habitat (pp. 50–51). Participants of ECODES recognized that development aimed at economic growth and capital accumulation had caused the Costa Rica’s debt crisis, increasing levels of poverty, dispossession, deforestation, and water poisoning. Nevertheless, economic growth for capital accumulation was offered as a cure, in the form of sustainable development. Sustainable development, like economic development, was supposed to bring wealth, progress, social achievements, and environmental protection standards, while also enabling debt repayment. During the ECODES conference, a reconfiguration of Costa Rica’s territory through neoliberal conservationist concepts of enclosure and preservation prevailed as top priorities. Quesada reported that at ECODES, the debates concerned how to create and maintain conservation areas. In the end, participants agreed that “an effective way to achieve national unification and consolidation of existing protected areas is the creation of the National System of Conservation Areas (SINAC) under the supervision of the Ministry of Natural Resources, Energy and Mines. As reported by the Directorate of National Parks, SINAC will require approximately $160 million for its operation. [This will be obtained] through a National Conservation Fund, and major resources will be obtained through donations from friendly countries and international organizations” (Quesada 1990, p. 48). The conservation area model in Costa Rica was not new (PEN, 1996).1 Within these areas, local communities were permitted to hunt, gather, and fish. However, the ECODES conference marks the point when the conservation model and the control and management of these areas under the sustainable development framework were extended to incorporate new international actors. A megaproject, the Sistema Nacional de Areas de Conservación (SINAC) (National System of Conservation Areas), was designed by linking three ministries: Forestry, National Parks, and Wildlife. SINAC: The National System of Conservation Areas Through the creation of SINAC, the conservation area model was implemented to manage the country’s wildlife and biodiversity. SINAC divided the country into eleven conservation areas: Guanacaste, ArenalTempisque, Arenal-Tilaran, Arenal-Huetar Norte, Cordillera Volcánica

The National System of Conservation Areas

51

Central, Pacífico Central, Tortuguero, La Amistad Caribe, La Amistad Pacifico, Osa, and Isla del Coco. The national park system was organized into public areas, including twenty-five national parks, eight biological reserves, of wetlands or mangroves, two national monuments, and two natural reserves. It was also divided into privately owned areas that include thirty-two protected zones, eleven forest reserves, fifty-eight wildlife refuges, and twelve other categories in which farms have been subdivided. In 2007, the total size of public and private conservation areas was about 1.3 million hectares. Private land remains private property but is subject to conservation restrictions on land use (PEN, 2007, p. 403). As the organization responsible for directing sustainable natural resources in Costa Rica, SINAC’s goal was to act as policymaker and planner. Hence, SINAC created Ministerio de Ambiente y Energía (MINAE) (the Ministry of Environment and Energy), later rechristened as Ministerio del Ambiente Energía y Telecomunicaciones (MINAET), with offices in each conservation area.2 MINAE was set up to manage the conservation areas through these regional offices and to set policies for the use of energy, natural resources, mines, and water. SINAC’s eleven conservation areas are shown in Figure 2.1. New organizations for environmental management were created: the Consejo Nacional Ambiental (National Environmental Council), whose institutional mandate is unclear; the Secretaría Técnica Nacional Ambiental (National Environmental Technical Secretariat), which conducts environmental impact evaluations of productive activities; the Oficina del Contralor Ambiental (Environmental Inspector’s Office), which receives complaints on such things as poor garbage disposal and tree cutting without permit; the Tribunal Ambiental Administrativo (Environmental Administrative Tribunal), which created a price system for environmental damage; and the Consejos Regionales Ambientales (Regional Environmental Councils), whose institutional purpose is also unclear. The establishment of the new conservation areas resulted in the enclosure of 24.8 % of the national territory by 1996 (PEN, 1996, p. 120); this figure had increased to 26.3% by 2007 (PEN, 2007, p. 245), and to 28.5% by 2009 (PEN, 2010, p. 194). The ECODES conference also decided that sustainable development was to be achieved through the backing of the Costa Rican state, with debt-for-nature investment. To obtain international money, USAID and the WWF have promoted Costa Rica as a successful example of sustainable development. USAID supported Asociación Costarricence para la Conservación de la Naturaleza (the Costa Rican Association for the Conservation of Nature), and Centro Científico Tropical (the

52

The “Greening” of Costa Rica

Figure 2.1 Costa Rican National System of Conservation Areas (SINAC) (Isla, 2000)

The National System of Conservation Areas

53

Centre for Tropical Science); while the WWF and other private multinational corporations (e.g., Bayer, Merck, and Sharp) have provided money for MINAE’s operational costs (E. Mora, 1993). As a result, at the 1992 Earth Summit in Brazil, Costa Rica was among the countries that received an international award for its conservation policies (Boza, 1993). In 1999, more than ten years after ECODES, I interviewed its former president Carlos Quesada, then director of the Sustainable Development Research Centre based in San José, Costa Rica. He criticizes ECODES’s framework: “In the neo-liberal monetarist paradigm, civil society, represented by NGOs, is part of a discourse formulated outside Costa Rica with the goal of reducing the state’s capacity to organize itself as a country” (C. Quesada, personal communication, August 1999). Quesada suggests that in the name of conservation, a whole range of foreign actors had become authorities on Costa Rica. Eduardo Mora (1994), editor of the journal Environmental Sciences, published by the National University of Costa Rica, also criticizes ECODES.. He argues that although economic development was supposed to have become sustainable development by definition, economic development continued to determine what needed environmental protection. In other words, the cart preceded the horse. Mora critically appraises the sustainable development framework for structuring conservation around specialized institutions to plan, organize, and order the relationship between society and nature; selected beautiful scenery, wildlife species, and natural resources as service providers; and exploitation of the communities themselves. Mora indicates that in the ECODES framework, environmental protection is a by-product of economic development, and economic development is at risk if natural resources or ecosystems collapse. Succinctly, environmental protection is seen as important only if it ensures profit; it is not about resource protection. Debt-for-Nature Exchanges As previously noted, one result of the 1988 ECODES conference was the setting up of national and global partnerships for public-private land conservation. These global partners established a management system in the conservation areas. The protection of natural resources through central management is very costly, because it involves acquiring land, hiring personnel to protect and control areas, and training staff to oversee administration and infrastructure. As a result, northern

54

The “Greening” of Costa Rica

powers, for example, USAID and involved NGOs, decided that direct donations by international institutions, as well as debt-for-nature exchanges, would fund both public and private conservation projects. From the management perspective, debt-for-nature exchanges are one way of getting the price right (see the introduction to this book). Following the Earth Summit in 1992, debt-for-nature exchanges, led by the World Bank, became a financial mechanism to reduce the burden of third world countries (TWCs), while opening new areas to environmental management. Debt-for-nature exchanges, in which debt instruments held by creditors such as commercial banks, and governments, are exchanged for natural resources, are core mechanisms of sustainable development. Supporters of debt-for-nature exchanges argue that they address both debt in poor countries and environmental crises. This approach was supported by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO, 1991) and the IMF (Asiedu-Akrofi, 1991), and was favoured by core countries (United States) and semi-periphery countries (Canada, the Netherlands, Sweden, United Kingdom), development agencies such as the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA, 1992), and many environmental NGOs, such as Conservation International (CI, 1991). These nations, agencies, and institutions developed the policy whereby, in times of environmental and development crises, the national-level agencies would be superseded by international agencies. Currently, debt-for-nature exchange continues to be central in the Tropical Forest Conservation Act (TFC) which is the political ecology of sustainable development (Sheikh, 2007, 2010). In Costa Rica, there have been two generations of debt-for-nature swaps. The first generation started in 1987 when Costa Rica’s debts were sold by commercial banks in the secondary market at discounts of up to 70%. Non-governmental organizations or other foreign organizations purchased highly discounted foreign debt bonds in this secondary market and then presented these bonds to Costa Rica, which committed itself to allocating resources to finance ecological projects. In such swaps, Costa Rica channeled resources in local currency, bonds or cash, corresponding to all or a major portion of the original value of the debt in foreign currency to the ngos or other foreign organizations (Conservation International, 1991; Cuoto Soarez, 1992). An example of this type of swap is the Guanacaste Conservation Area (GCA). Its major funding came from debt-for-nature swaps. GCA is managed as a publicprivate partnership between MINAE (the Costa Rican government)

The National System of Conservation Areas

55

and the Guanacaste Dry Forest Conservation Fund (GDFCF) directed by biologist Dr. Daniel Janzen, an NGO established in the United States. Second-generation debt-for-nature swaps started in the 1990s. They became a financial mechanism to exchange loans for sustainable development. The second-generation debt-for-nature initiatives are not typical swaps because there is no transaction of debts (buying in the secondary market) and there are no intermediary organizations (donors and brokers). The transaction is a bilateral one between a creditor government and a debtor government whose central bank creates debt-for-nature money. Signatory governments donate the value of the debt to their environmental organizations to promote sustainable development. The 1995 Canada-Costa Rica debt-for-nature swap, detailed in this book, is an example of this kind of swap agreement. Nongovernmental Organizations (NGOs) The sustainable development discourse developed by the World Bank argued that environmental issues are international, part of the global economic rationale, which means that individual states lose their decision-making power over use of their own territories. In 1988, during the Conservation Strategy for Sustainable Development conference (ECODES), the duties of the Costa Rican government were handed over to environmental NGOs, most of them biologists obsessed with the natural limits to growth, thereby making them responsible for the establishment and guardianship of the conservation areas. In Costa Rica, three NGOs became central actors in international negotiations to manage the conservation areas: the Natural Parks Foundation, which focused on national park creation and maintenance; INBio, a laboratory for biodiversity collection; and the Neotropical Foundation, dedicated to resource management and sustainable development. Organized as private for-profit enterprises, these NGOs managed international donations for environmental programs with the authorization of the government. Thus, they were central to most commercial debt-swap transactions (Hitz, 1989). Behind the changes in environmental policies rest structural changes in the nature of governance and class formation. Regarding the nature of governance, USAID during the ECODES conference created environmental experts (biologists grouped in environmental NGOs) and markets to facilitate conditions for capital accumulation. It generated a sustainable development framework of political ecology in which

56

The “Greening” of Costa Rica

nature is conceived of as natural capital. As natural capital, innovations in nature happen to produce new kinds of markets based on genetics, forests, scenery, medicinal plants, and mountains, among other innovations not discussed in this book. To spark economic growth, Costa Rican nature became natural capital, and rural women, peasants, and Indigenous people became human capital. As a result, Costa Rica became the centre of natural and human capital extension proposed by the World Bank. Costa Rica also assisted in the development of a new class formation around the management of nature and the construction of sustainable development. The basis of class changed from production to service, managing work and flows of capital. A privileged relationship to state power played a central role in controlling large segments of public assets, particularly nature. These assets freely passed into the private domain of NGOs, securing their tremendous economic power. USAID and WWF-US played central roles in this new class configuration as they put into action their transnational influence over global affairs and mobilized to sell the image of Costa Rica as an environmental state. Not coincidentally, the greening of the state also allowed fast fortunes to be made. Debt-for-Nature Exchange with Canada The debt-for-nature investment agreement between Canada and Costa Rica is a bilateral agreement, signed in May 1995. This exchange is the result of Costa Rica using Official Development Aid Loan Agreements with Canada for three lines of credit to purchase fertilizers between 1983 and 1985 (Government of Canada & Government of Costa Rica, 1995). Costa Rican economic development during the 1980s debt crisis focused on increasing revenue from agriculture and cattle ranching, and led to the application of the highest rate of fertilizers in Latin America. By 1995, as Costa Rica’s debt was bargain priced in the secondary market, Canada took steps to obtain parliamentary approval to reduce the portion of the debt owed to Canada by 50%. A Costa Rica-Canada trust fund for biodiversity (FIDEICOMMISSA) was created to receive Costa Rica’s payment in local currency (colónes) for the equivalent of approximately Can$11.36 million, which retired 50% of Costa Rica’s outstanding debt to the Canadian government

The National System of Conservation Areas

57

(Government of Canada & Government of Costa Rica, 1995). This meant that half of the debt was forgiven. The Canadian and Costa Rican governments were not allowed by the designers of the policy to receive the debt titles directly; they were to be donated to the so-called environmental NGOs (ENGOs) that became the government’s creditor. The FIDEICOMMISSA funds resulting from the Canada-Costa Rica debt-for-nature investment were channeled to the Arenal-Tilaran Conservation Area (ACA-Tilaran), co-directed by the Canadian chapter of the World Wildlife Fund, the creditor NGO, and by the Costa Rican National Biodiversity Institute (INBio), the debtor NGO. Half of the money went to ACA-Tilaran, which in 1995 covered 940,000 hectares (MINAE, 1993); in 1998 it covered 250,561.5 hectares (M.E. Mora, 1998 , p. 1) and was administered by WWF-C and Costa Rica’s Ministry of Environment and Energy (MINAE). The memorandum of understanding between Canada and Costa Rica, Stage II, is based on an agreement between MINAE, the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA), and WWF-C. The mission of CIDA in the Arenal Project was to provide technical and financial support to SINAC, to organize the management of nature and the establishment of MINAE regional offices (Garcia & Tremblay, 1997, p. 7). The other half of the money went to INBio’s Biodiversity Prospecting Division, the main objective of which is the systematic search for new sources of chemical compounds, genes, proteins, micro- and macro-organisms, and other forms of biodiversity that may be of commercial interest. The division identifies opportunities to profit from products and services that originate from biodiversity resources, including, for example, new agricultural or pharmaceutical products. World Wildlife Fund-Canada The World Wildlife Fund-Canada has played a crucial role in greening the Costa Rican state. Since 1989, WWF-C has been involved in genetic research at the privately owned Monteverde Cloud Forest Reserve (MCFR). It is one of the most important protected areas and research establishments in Costa Rica. MCFR started in the 1960s, when a Quaker community set up a forest reserve on the mountaintop to protect a water spring for its dairy herds. In 1975, MCFR joined another private reserve, the Tropical Science Centre (TSC), and began by managing 10,500 hectares in Monteverde. In 1988, MCFR began to purchase

58

The “Greening” of Costa Rica

Figure 2.2 NGOs in Canada-Costa Rica’s debt-for-nature (Isla, 2000)

The National System of Conservation Areas

59

additional lands financed by donations from children’s schools, initially from Sweden and eventually from more than forty countries. Now, MCFR is the largest private reserve in Central America, located within the large protected area of ACA-Tilaran, where WWF-C established its genetics research. In 1991, the event that defined the future of WWF-C in Costa Rica, already working in the area, was the assignation to the ACA-Tilaran of the protection and preservation of a dam and a hydroelectric plant constructed in the Arenal Reservoir (Lago Arenal), an artificial lake with an area of 87.2 square kilometres. This reservoir is central to the country and particularly to the Costa Rican Hydro-Electric Institute. The ACA-Tilaran is, in fact, considered the energy heart of Costa Rica because of its electrical projects, including the Arenal Sandillal Hydro-Electric Project and the Arenal Tempisque Irrigation Project. It also hosts the Miravalles geothermal project, Aeolian wind projects such as Plantas Eolicas S.A. in Ranchitos de Tilaran, Aeroenergia S.A. in Tejona de Tilaran, and Molinos de Viento Arenal S.A. (MOVASA) in Tierras Morenas de Tilaran. How these electrical projects relate to WWF-C is not an issue addressed in this book. Since 1991, CIDA has covered the operating costs of WWF-C in ACATilaran. The aim of the project, according to WWF-C, was to protect the area from further environmental degradation, to help stabilize land use by strengthening natural resource management capacities, and to improve the quality of life of the Costa Rican people (Tremblay & Malenfant, 1996a, pp. 9, 10, 11). In ACA-Tilaran, the management strategy was called “the Land Plan” (MIRENEM, 1993), described as the “science of nature,” and was an instrument for regulating land access and use. Vandana Shiva (1989), an ecofeminist scholar, exposes this science as presenting reductionist ontological assumptions, based on uniformity, which reduces complex ecosystems to a single component, and a single component to a single function; separability, in which the object of study is isolated from its natural surroundings, from its relationship with other objects, and from the observer; and experts and specialists, who are considered to be the only legitimate knowledge seekers and justifiers. Meanwhile, nonexperts – rural women, peasants, and Indigenous people – are deprived of the right both to access knowledge and to judge claims made on their behalf (pp. 22, 23). Shiva concludes that the rise of the reductionist paradigm of science is related to the destruction of the knowledge of nonWestern cultures, which she called “maldevelopment” (p. 22). Maldevelopment “is the violation of the integrity of organic, interconnected and interdependent systems, which sets in motion a process of exploitation,

60

The “Greening” of Costa Rica

inequality, injustice and violence” (p. 6). The ultimate reductionism is achieved when nature is linked with a view of economic activity in which money is the only gauge of value and wealth. WWF-C and Sustainable Development WWF-C is qualified as a conservationist organization, and in 1998 biologist Claude Tremblay, the director of WWF-C in Costa Rica had this definition of sustainable development: For sustainable development I understand the conservation of nature, the use and conservation of the natural resources in a way that maintains the economic capacity of the finca (farm), the community, the enterprise, the cooperative and the country. In this concept the richness of biodiversity and economic prospecting are fundamental ingredients. Biodiversity must be seen as a scenic value for tourism, and as an area for protection, for academic research, and for economic prospecting. The sustainable management of animals, micro-insects, plants, etc. must be useful for the economic activity that the market requires. The market is an important element to consider in the protection of wildlife and in the need to give them a use and sustainable management, particularly considering the demographic pressure and the globalization elements that in the economic sphere polarize the situation between rich, poor and destitute. (C. Tremblay, personal communication, July 1998)

Tremblay advocates the classical capitalist patriarchal theory of economic growth in which the earth and nature fail to provide enough for all, and economic growth is the only way to escape scarcity. The market is the central element in his definition of sustainable development. This paradigm maintains that if markets are used in conjunction with property rights systems, the world will never run out of minerals or fossil fuels, although they may well become so expensive that few people will be able to afford them. In this framework, ecological resources are treated as substitutable, and extinction of a resource is not a problem as the economy accepts the substitution. Current human preferences and market forces determine the value(s) of natural resources. As the director further notes: The challenge is how to manage the balance between conservation and usufruct [i.e., the right to enjoy the use of another’s property]. If we just take into account the protection of the resources [the historical vision of the

The National System of Conservation Areas

61

environmental movement] we are in a deadlock situation, unable to think of the future, of how we can sensitize others about the existence of poor populations living in highly risky environments. In addition, how can we offer to poor populations eco-friendly economic opportunities in the production of their fincas, cooperatives, and enterprises? With the concept of sustainable development, the economic and the socio-organizational dimensions of life are finally brought together in an optimal way. (C. Tremblay, personal communication, July 1998)

The WWF-C vision of sustainable development sets out two concepts of nature management expressing market criteria. First, nature has a price; this view supports the privatization of enormous sections of the land and assumes that natural resources can be freely appropriated up to the limits of their availability, and waste and excess outputs from economic production processes can be assimilated by the environment without affecting the production processes themselves. Second, the market is considered to be the best organizer of social and environmental relations. This position holds that the maximization of benefits, growth, and capital accumulation will minimize the impact of the transactions on nature itself. The WWF-C vision of sustainable development mobilizes local groups in favour of a service economy where scenery is sold for ecotourism, and forests are promoted as carbon credits; where collectively organized local knowledge is used to initiate the collection of biodiversity or bioprospecting. Further, the WWF-C director noted that ACA-Tilaran intended to establish a model of environmental management that could be reproduced in other conservation areas and around the world (C. Tremblay, personal communication, July 1998). This view ignores how economic growth leads to ecological degradation when growth means that more and more raw materials and energy are being used, and hence more and more waste is being produced. It fails to address the structural conditions shaping the ecological crisis, such as capitalism (Foster, 1999), industrialization (Sachs, 1999), economic growth (Daly & Cobb, 1994), inequality (Mies, 1986), and the asymmetric power relations in the labour market, which are “rapaciously dependent on the resources and labour of an ‘underdeveloped Other’” (Salleh, 1997, p. 24). INBio The National Biodiversity Institute of Costa Rica, INBio, was established on 24 October 1989. It is a Costa Rican NGO with fifteen shareholders, most of them high-level functionaries in the Costa Rican government.

62

The “Greening” of Costa Rica

Under the neoliberal framework, these functionaries were able to transfer to INBio the right to sell the biological resources that belonged to the nation and to the local communities. As a transnational project, INBio was supported by national and international scientific interest groups, by the private sector, and by the Costa Rican government. In 1994, it established a partnership with the Ministry of Environment and Energy (MINAE) to collect samples of plants and animals from the conservation areas for interested industries. It also established a partnership with WWF-C, and as part of the Costa Rica’s debt-for-nature arrangement with Canada, detailed previously, WWF-C became a member of INBio’s board of directors. INBio’s main objective was to provide the country with research and development in the areas of biotechnology and chemistry of the rainforest by prospecting for industrial products of high value. To organize the extraction, exploitation, and control of biodiversity from the conservation areas, INBio created four divisions. The Inventory Division generates properly identified reference collections and field guides, provides electronic identification services that offer knowledge of the organisms’ natural history, and documents their distribution throughout the national territory. The Information Dissemination Division promotes the commercial possibilities of conservation areas, trains staff, produces field guides and other types of biodiversity literature, and holds national and international workshops. The Information Management Division develops biodiversity software to help companies find commercial uses for the medicinal and therapeutic plants listed in the database. The Biodiversity Prospecting Division does systematic research of new sources of chemical compounds, genes, and proteins produced by plants, insects and micro- and macro-organisms that may be of use to pharmaceutical, medical, and agricultural industries, worldwide (Mateo, 1997). INBio invested the Canada-Costa Rica debt-for-nature funds in three areas. One area was Social Management, which supports the development of the “intellectual and spiritual” (to quote INBio’s Management Plan) uses of biodiversity, such as films produced by the Information Dissemination Division. A second investment was the Bioprospecting Division, which supports the development of industrial uses of biodiversity. This division absorbs most of the funds because it has the most sophisticated buildings, equipment, and processing facilities. The third was the Heritage Maple Leaf Foundation (in honour of the Canadian maple leaf), which aims to increase cooperative activities between INBio and Canada, such as encounters between the Indigenous peoples of Canada and Costa Rica.

The National System of Conservation Areas

63

The INBio Approach to Sustainable Development In May 1995, Spain awarded INBio the Prince of Asturias (Principe de Asturias) prize for technical and scientific research for opening the forest to multinational corporations. In response, the director of the Bioprospecting Division stated: “[INBio] operates on the philosophy that, unless biodiversity is economically and intellectually valued, it is difficult for society to continue to pay for its high level of maintenance and resist the political pressures that have guided the mismanagement of the resource” (Sittenfeld, 1994, p. 1, as cited in Rodriguez, 1995, p. 12). For him, biotechnology is an alternative to biopiracy. This vision of INBio’s sustainable development, which can be summed up as “selling to save,” sees the market as providing the best incentive to maintain natural resources and proposes converting the commons into private property in order to assign it a market value. However, the market is interested in conservation only if there is a profit to be made and thus, this is one of the weakest parts of INBio’s conservation program. INBio does not retain the property rights to its biological resources. Instead, it claims royalties that range from 1 to 10 per cent, depending on its interest in the product and potential benefits. This is an extremely serious loss to the local communities that are home to the resources, as all the biodiversity in plant and animal forms in Costa Rica come from the eleven conservation areas that now rest in the hands of MINAE and INBio. The neoliberal conservation model allows the extraction of resources without accountability to legal control of the state. As Gudynas (1995) declares, “INBio is outside of public opinion and control, outside of government apparatus, and not liable to the executive power nor to Parliament, despite the fact that INBio manages a national patrimony” (p. 6). This anti-democratic characteristic exemplifies the weakness of the neoliberal state. Under the auspices of INBio, the inventory, prospecting, and commercialization of Costa Rica’s biodiversity have been put mainly into international, private hands. To be specific, in 2001, INBio was funded by bilateral agencies, US NGOs, international organizations, research agreements with universities, and private institutions (see Table 2.2). Behind the changes in environmental policies rest structural changes in the governance of gender. Rural women, from being life-sustaining productive workers, have been integrated into formal sectors of the global economy, such as ecotourism, and micro-entrepreneurs. Here, the everyday life of gender and sexuality of rural women is not separated

64

The “Greening” of Costa Rica

Table 2.2 INBio’s Funding Sources Bilateral Agencies Norwegian Agency for Development (NORAD) Swedish International Development Agency (INBio)

US NGOs CRUSA Foundation Conservation NGO: Missouri Botanical Garden

International Organizations

Research Agreements

Private Institutions

World Bank

University of Pennsylvania

Earth Foundation

Inter-American Development Bank

Duke University University of Guelph

Nature Conservancy

Government of Holland (Castañeda) Source: http://www.inbio.ac.cr/es/memorias/Memoria2001/en/losfondosen.html

from the family, the economy, or the politics specifically embedded in neoliberal ecological policies. NGO practices generally support the Women in Development (WID) concept, suggesting that involving women in market-based projects will improve their status. ANDAR: Women in Development The microenterprise, Abanico Medicinal Plant and Organic Agriculture, was a project organized under the framework of Women in Development (WID). It was organized by ANDAR, a Costa Rican NGO. According to Carlos Ulloa (personal communication, August 1998), Coordinator of La Fortuna Priority Working Unit of ACATilaran, ANDAR has benefited from the Netherlands-Costa Rica debt-for-nature exchange, also called eco-cooperation, signed in 1994. ANDAR’s work emphasizes the important role of women in working with biodiversity, knowing that rural women take care of the medicinal plants and are knowledgeable about them. The microenterprise is organized in a way that is intended to increase gender equity as well as ensure sustainable development. WID critiques of economic development were incorporated into the neoliberal economic practices of the World Bank and are now

The National System of Conservation Areas

65

one of the programming priorities of development agencies. The WID approach arose because of a failure of economic development to recognize women’s productive role. To explain women’s lower status in “developing” societies, early feminist researchers, such as Boserup (1970) in her study of agricultural societies, calls “for the use of a distinction between two patterns of the sexual division of labour in production: the male and the female farming systems. Men were taught to apply modern technology in the cultivation of cash crops while women were relegated to the subsistence sector of food production using traditional methods which are omitted in the statistics of production and income” (p. 65). Furthering Boserup’s work, Barbara Rogers (1981) argues that the division of society into public and private spheres and the fact that women are placed within the private domestic sphere is responsible for women’s subordination. She claims that this process ignores women’s productivity and renders it invisible. Both Boserup and Rogers, separated in time, called for education and integration of women into development as a way of legitimizing the claims of women to an equal share of the benefits of development. Lourdes Beneria and Gita Sen (Beneria & Sen, 1981) critique Boserup’s work that offers a capitalist accumulation model to discuss the specific ways in which women in the Third World are affected by capitalist penetration. They propose to look at women in relation to the tensions existing between gender and class. Conclusion This chapter has presented a close analysis of the structural changes in the nature of governance of Costa Rica’s ecology. ECODES represents the archetype for the neoliberal political ecology to promote conservation areas. It shows class formation by the complex CanadaCosta Rica debt-for-nature investment relationship and the projects developed by WWF-C and INBio. In this context, the chapter also highlights the work of ANDAR, a result of the Netherlands-Costa Rica debt-for-nature arrangement, in gender formation through the microenterprise Abanico Medicinal Plant and Organic Agriculture Project. The activities of the three NGOs operationalize the commitment of the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development (UNCED), the World Bank, and the IMF to pursue sustainable development and gender equity by means of the market. The putative experts, created in the name of conservation, have advanced a process

66

The “Greening” of Costa Rica

of capital accumulation in ways that the World Bank and private capital could not have achieved on their own. In this framework, the less successful countries are responsible for the destruction of their biological wealth, and only biologists of industrial societies, through scientific knowledge, have the capacity to preserve it. In Chapter 3 I discuss this transformation in more detail.

PART II Embodied Indebtedness: The Remaking of People and Nature

This page intentionally left blank

3 Nature and People in the Arenal-Tilaran Conservation Area

In this chapter, which is divided into two sections, I first describe the process of sustainable development in transforming nature and people into “natural” and “human” capital. In the Arenal-Tilaran Conservation Area (ACA-Tilaran), this transformation was accomplished by the land plan designed by WWF-C, and the Ministerio de Ambiente y Energía (MINAE), advancing, as they see it, the possibility for a new era of economic growth in a material finite planet based on the local nature and the provisioning activities of subsistence economies. Secondly, I focus on local communities and their repositioning as expenditures or revenues within a sustainable development framework. The inhabitants of these local communities are Indigenous women and men whose ancestors were colonized in the sixteenth century. European culture, with its strategy of domination over the native population and exploitation of their natural resources, tried without complete success to destructure the functioning life cycles of the ecosystem by imposing monocultural economies; to destroy the key to survival in the ecosystem of the forest to remove the material basis of their culture; and to disrupt the millennia-old exchange of energy between the Indigenous population and its ecosystem (Alfaro, 2005). The inhabitants are also peasants with household holdings ranging from five to twenty hectares, who were beneficiaries of the agrarian reform of the Figueres Revolution in 1948. I.

The ACA-Tilaran Land Plan

The ACA-Tilaran covers more than 250,000 hectares. Between 1991 and 1993, ACA-Tilaran drafted the General Land Use Plan (Area de Conservacion Arenal, 1993), hereafter referred to as the Land Plan,

70

The “Greening” of Costa Rica

Figure 3.1 Communities of Arenal-Tilaran Conservation Area (Courtesy of Loris Gasparotto)

as a first step for their management strategy. It took twelve months and Can$140,000 to develop (Tremblay, 1998). The Land Plan was an instrument of land organization that regulated land access and use. It brought together natural science (biology), applied science (biotechnology), economics, and machinery. It outlined the territories, and produced an analysis of the area, as well as cartographic maps, plan regulations, and development proposals. According to the Land Plan, the area’s environmental problems were deteriorated natural resources as a result of over-exploitation of the land; contamination

The Arenal-Tilaran Conservation Area

71

by agrochemicals; biodiversity extinction; deforestation; and destruction of scenic beauty. The Land Plan provided an argument for new programs, including microenterprises, ecotourism, environmental services, environmental education, biotechnology research, a documentation centre, and a computerized geographical information centre (Tremblay & Malenfant, 1996a). Parallel to the Land Plan, another plan was drafted, the management plan for the development of the Arenal Lake, designed to administer, organize, and manage the country’s hydroelectric production. (The Management Plan for the Arenal Lake is not covered in this book.) Both plans have had a significant impact on the resource use of the 108 communities in the area. The communities have neither been informed of nor included in the decision-making processes that changed their lives and livelihoods. In the plan, WWF-C is in charge of the market incentive mechanism that brings the model of competition and inequality into the social and ecological domains, and MINAE is in charge of governmental administrative mechanisms such as state regulations and legal and political institutions. ACA-Tilaran has two directors: a Canadian and a Costa Rican. The Costa Rican director of ACA-Tilaran, Maria Elena Mora, describes the functioning of ACA. She argues that administratively, ACA-Tilaran was divided into two subregions: Tilaran and San Ramon. The Tilaran subregion head offices are in charge of the Arenal Volcano National Park, as well as the Quebradón, Río Naranjo, and seven other operative centres. It is involved in researching the area’s biodiversity resources and biodiversity knowledge; patrolling protected wildlife areas; receiving, evaluating, and approving forestry incentive programs (i.e., selling carbon credits); and publicizing the carbon credits provided by the wildlife areas and other forestry areas (M. E. Mora, 1998). Elias Badilla, director of the San Ramon subregion’s head offices, is in charge of Cedral and Bajo la Paz-Colonia Palmerena. San Ramon coordinates payments to owners of forestry plantations or to owners of land suitable for forestry regeneration who are participating in the forestry incentive programs and also develops registration programs for hunting, fishing, and tree cutting. The tree cutting program is enforced by control units, teams that patrol the protected wildlife areas. The San Ramon head office also supports and monitors on organized groups, encourages new socio-productive activities, and promotes environmental education (Badilla, 1998).

72

The “Greening” of Costa Rica

Table 3.1 Fundaca Loans, July 1996–July 1998 Organic Agro-industry Agriculture Apabi

Infrastructure Agroforestry

Abanico Asociación de Medicinal Mujeres de Plant and Cedral Organic Agriculture (a case study in this book)

Coopemontes Asociación FUNDACA de oro de Desarrollo Integral de Zapote, Bijagua Coopeldos

Agencia de Extensión Agricola MAG Cedral

Artisans

Zoo-criadero

Asociación de Sociedad de Mujeresde Mujeres de Cedral Cedral

Coopemontes de oro

Albergue La Catarata (a case study in this book)

Conservas El Lago S.A Source: FUNDACA Financial Book, 1998. The total amount of the loans was 15,449,650.92 colones (Can$83,428.11).

ACA-Tilaran established Fundación para el Desarrollo del Area de Conservación Arenal (FUNDACA) (the Development Foundation for the Arenal Conservation Area), an organization that provides loans for microenterprises. Table 3.1 lists the organizations that obtained microcredits from debt-for-nature funds to finance local projects with an interest rate a few points less than that charged by the banking system. In 1996, FUNDACA charged 20% interest on its loans. The results are discussed in Chapters 6 and 7. II.

Groups Affected by the Establishment of ACA-Tilaran

La Fortuna’s Priority Working Unit In ACA-Tilaran, three priority working units (PWUs) were organized: Bijagua, Río Aranjuez, and La Fortuna. The PWU committee formulated short-, medium- and long-term working plans for the communities under its jurisdiction in the so-called Proyecto de Conservación y

The Arenal-Tilaran Conservation Area

73

Desarrollo Arenal (Convenio: MINAE-ACDI-WWF-C) (Arenal Project for Conservation and Development, 1996). It was used to establish programs and microenterprise projects that were supposed to generate conservation practices and sustainable development. Carlos Ulloa Gamboa, the La Fortuna PWU coordinator, stated that, in the initiative: “Government, NGOs and communal actors set up mechanisms for community direct participation in the formulation, design and execution of strategies that contribute to the better use and management of the natural resources and the quality of life of the local population” (C. Ulloa, personal interview, July 1999). In this book only the La Fortuna PWU, which involves La Fortuna City and Z-Trece, is discussed. The La Fortuna PWU is located in La Fortuna de San Carlos Canton, in Alajuela Province, in the northwestern part of the country. The climate is tropical, with a rainy season that lasts eleven months of the year. La Fortuna covers 14,567.3 hectares (145.67 square kilometres). Water is the area’s main resource, around which many development projects are based. They include El Tabacon, a tourist resort that uses the hot spring waters from the Arenal Volcano to fill its numerous swimming pools; La Cataráta del Río Fortuna, another tourist resort and community project, which is located around a waterfall from Cerro Chato Mountain; and the Arenal-Corobicí basin, a hydroelectric project. The water from the basin is also used for community consumption, although it remains untreated for locals, in Z-Trece and El Castillo. In 1996, the La Fortuna PWU had 3,439 permanent inhabitants, of which 46.6% were women and 53.4% were men. Men outnumbered women by 7%, except in La Fortuna Centre. The urban population of La Fortuna was concentrated in the downtown of La Fortuna Centre (1,645 inhabitants), while the rural population was divided among El Bosque (220 inhabitants), San Francisco (230 inhabitants), El Jauri (140 inhabitants), La Palma (66 inhabitants), Z-Trece (420 inhabitants), el Castillo (259 inhabitants), and Zona Fluca (935 inhabitants in 1999) (Ulloa, 1996a). The case study also includes Abanico Town, where the women’s medicinal plant microenterprise supported by FUNDACA, using the Canada-Costa Rica debt-for-nature agreement, was located; and the town of Miramar, where a Canadian mining company had set up headquarters. la fortuna city La Fortuna is the major city in the area. Its original name was Burio, due to its closeness to the Burio River. But in 1932, peasants changed the name from Burio to La Fortuna to reflect the beauty of the surrounding

74

The “Greening” of Costa Rica

nature. Fortuna means feeling lucky to live in a place surrounded by beautiful mountains and rivers. By the mid-twentieth century, the Latifundio1 of coffee producers in Meseta Central (Winson, 1989) and banana plantations in the Atlantic South (Fallas, 1961) controlled the land in Costa Rica. Displaced peasants were motivated to search for an alternative to insecure wage labour in the cities. Landless peasants from Naranjo, San Ramón, Grecia, Palmares, Ciudad Quesada, and Tilaran moved into La Fortuna. Land colonization in La Fortuna began about 1941. However, when landless peasants arrived in the La Fortuna area, there was already a high concentration of land in the hands of a few cattle ranchers who were integrated into the international markets. The director of Ministerio de Agricultura y Ganaderia (MAG) described a significant event: “In 1999, 70 percent of productive land in La Fortuna was for cattle ranching, 30 percent was for agriculture. Agriculture was produced mainly in small fincas and almost all of them are beneficiaries of Instituto de Desarrollo Agrario (IDA) (Institute for Agricultural Development). This means that the government bought the land and divided it among the beneficiaries. IDA was created to solve land conflicts” (Alfaro, personal communication, August 1998). In the La Fortuna area, since the 1980s, IDA was responsible for resolving land conflicts. It bought almost 90% of the land used and divided it among the landless peasants. Therefore, the majority of the population formed a peasantry with small landholdings. Nevertheless, peasants and cattle ranchers, who controlled almost all the available land, were organized to produce solely for the international market. The average size of the peasants’ farms depended on when the land was claimed for possession. For instance, in 1962, Abanico peasants each received 10 hectares, but in the 1980s, Z-Trece peasants received only 3.5 hectares. To claim the right of possession, the land needed to be cleared. The value of the land was calculated using the number of trees the owner cut down, an action referred to as “development.” Old growth trees in the area were between 40 and 50 metres high. Historically, there had been a huge diversity of trees, many of them fruit bearing, which along with the surrounding vegetation provided shelter and sustained a wide range of animals and plants. But by 1998, only two, laurel and cedro, were cultivated because they had commercial value. Dora Hidalgo, who was born in La Fortuna in 1942, stated: My grandmother was a nurse and the first director of the Hospital in Ciudad Quesada. My mother, Amelia Alfaro Rojas, was the first woman to vote

The Arenal-Tilaran Conservation Area

75

in La Fortuna in 1950. My father, Antonio Hidalgo Quesada, and my mother immigrated with a family of six children from Aguas Arcas. They occupied a piece of land in the area, then bought almost half of La Fortuna for colones c/400 [currently, less than $2.00]. My father started a general store where they sold basic food and meat. It was also a bar and pharmacy. To supply the store, my father travelled, once a month, from La Fortuna city to Ciudad Quesada (capital city) for 14 hours by horse. Horses were an important way of travel, and all items had to be transported on horseback. Travelers used horses to cross rivers, such as the Peñas Blancas River, which was high in those days. (D. Hidalgo, personal communication, July 1999)

During the 1940s, life was difficult, but nature provided most people with a means of livelihood. In order to survive, families built a community and the community permeated every aspect of their lives. As Dora noted: We lived like a family. Actually, we still live in La Fortuna Centro like a family, because most of us are relatives in different ways. For instance, my mother attended pregnant women; my father helped anyone who required his attention. He was not a medical doctor; however, he cured snakebites, broken legs, etc. I learned from them to help the community members. (D. Hidalgo, personal communication, July 1999)

The Quiroz family used to live in Ciudad Quesada. Vital Quiroz worked to build a community in both the physical and emotional sense. He built the church, the Pastoral Centre, the elementary school, the first section of La Fortuna’s high school, and most houses in La Fortuna. He remembered what La Fortuna was like when he and his family first arrived. At that time, the town had government offices, a small jail, an elementary school with two rooms, a meat shop, two general stores, and a restaurant. The restaurant also functioned as a rooming house for visitors. Calle Ronda was the only street. Vital Quiroz stated: My family and I arrived in 1951. We came on a tractor that my father-inlaw contracted to make a road in order to bring in the needed merchandise. From the top of the tractor we saw a road surrounded by fields laying fallow (charrales), trees, and wide rivers. During the time I have lived here I have seen how rivers have become small mountain streams. In less than 50 years, trees have been cut down and the area deforested. The leaves of the few standing trees are dragged away by rain. When leaves are not able

76

The “Greening” of Costa Rica to decompose where they fall, erosion of the land is inevitable. Without trees to stop the sediment from going into the rivers, the streams become dry corridors. (V. Quiroz, personal communication, July 1999)

Cattle ranching and rubber plantations were the first development projects established in La Fortuna in the 1950s. Quiroz remembers the ferocity of the clear-cutting, when areas were deforested right up to banks of the rivers to increase the size of the farms, so that more cattle could be raised there. He says that “clearing the forest with axes and machetes was very labour-intensive. Cutting down a tree first required the construction of a three- to four-metre ladder because the trees were too wide to cut at the base. The most important trees were guayabón (terminalia oblonga), laurel (laurus nobilis), and cedro (cedrus) (V. Quiroz, personal communication, July 1999). He also remembers the scars left on rubber trees to produce a kind of milk used to make bags and raincoats for horseback riding, as well as for export to the United States, where companies used this byproduct to make car tires. Even though La Fortuna was a cattle-raising area, much of the area was cleared, drained, and brought under cultivation during the Green Revolution era, starting in 1970 (Nygren, 1995). The Green Revolution subverted the system of the commons in La Fortuna, further marginalized the Tonjibe Indigenous people, who owned the land, and began to eliminate common access to the land for livelihoods like hunting, fishing, and gathering, as well as subsistence farming. However, subsistence farming, hunting, and fishing continued to survive in the middle of the Green Revolution because the economic system did not pay sufficient wages for workers to survive. Consequently, wild animals and fish from the rivers constituted their main source of animal protein. But with the destruction of the forest, rivers became small mountain streams and the fish, which got most of their food by scavenging on the fruit and litter of the submerged forest floor during the rainy season, disappeared. After 1970, La Fortuna became cattle-raising land owned by rich absentee landowners living in San José or Europe, whose foremen lived on and worked the large landholdings. Cattle ranching were supplemented by raising cattle for dairy products associated with the Dos Pinos Cooperative, which collects milk from the various producers for transport to the San Carlos regional plant. By the 1980s, the rainforest of La Fortuna had degenerated from a place of abundance to a place of scarcity. Quiroz noted that “when we

The Arenal-Tilaran Conservation Area

77

arrived in La Fortuna, heavy rains used to fall for three months and rivers would flood. Cattle ranching dried up rivers, and reduced rain. Until recently, Costa Rica never had extremely hot summers. In Guanacaste, hot weather is killing earthworms, a major factor for land fertility. We are still lucky in La Fortuna, because we still have trees on the mountain, the reason for the rains” (V. Quiroz, personal communication, July 1999). La Fortuna City had basic services installed at different times. The first pipeline was built in 1953; since 1992 the Costa Rican Institute for Aqueducts and Reservoirs (Instituto Costarricence de Acueductos y Alcantarillados) has been in charge of the aqueducts. A rustic electricity system was installed in 1951. In 1975 the Instituto Costarricense de Electricidad (ICE) (Costa Rican Hydro) installed the existing hydro services, which are administered by Coopelesca, a cooperative. Health care was established in 1963. Public transportation is good and inexpensive (Ulloa, 1996a). An elementary education infrastructure exists in every community; however, the illiteracy rate is 7%. Secondary students find it difficult to finish their education because families need the young to work on the farm or generate income elsewhere (Ulloa, 1996a). the town of z-trece Z-Trece is a small town of peasants and Indigenous inhabitants located to the north of La Fortuna City, at the foot of the Arenal Volcano. Due to their proximity, they are almost indistinguishable. The average temperature is 28°C, with high humidity and a precipitation of thirty-five hundred to four thousand millimetres per year. Z-Trece was originally a cattle farm whose branding iron was Z-13. The town was planned in 1983 as a shantytown by the Costa Rican Bank, and was established in a way similar to many other small Costa Rican towns. Landless peasants occupied haciendas or large farms and took a piece of land to build their homes and their livelihood. The government, through the Institute for Agricultural Development (IDA), purchased the conflicted land and divided it among the landless people. People who received the land had fifteen years to pay the cost of the land to the government. In Z-Trece, the IDA bought the land and divided it into fifty-eight small holdings of 3.5 hectares. Peasants from Naranjo, San Roman, Palmares, Cartago, San Carlos, and Tilaran were the first inhabitants. With the advent of the debt crisis, the government attempted to introduce non-traditional agriculture or agricultural diversification in

78

The “Greening” of Costa Rica

Z-Trece. Agricultural diversification in this context did not mean the abandonment of specialization or monocultural production, but only added the cultivation of exotic species with the aim of exportation. These projects promoting the establishment of new kinds of products required huge investments in modern technology, in fertilizers, and in pesticides. Peasants living in Z-Trece, therefore, became dependent on loans, which were to be paid for with the harvest. Every year, poor peasants are convinced to participate in the production of new products for export proposed by the government. A Z-Trece peasant, Rosita Rios stated: In 1994, the majority of the Z-Trece community produced cocoa, cardamom, and ornamental plants because government policies promoted non-traditional production. The government promised export for those products and we saw a possibility of obtaining some money to survive. We all got credit to buy fertilizers, agro-chemicals, and technical assistance from the banks. The seeds were certified by CATIE; they supposedly had studied the soil of the area and supposedly produced a hybrid seed for this area. The seeds were supposed to give a high quality product and more products per hectare. However, after months of hard work, production was low and it soon become apparent that no one could survive with that, nor repay the loan. We all had to mortgage our land. (R. Rios, personal communication, July 1998)

The use of the agrochemical technological package with Dibromochloropropane (DBCP) produced residues, new pest infestations, and sickness (Glass, Lyness, Mengle, Powell, & Khan, 1979; Thrupp, 1991; Ugalde, 1993). Heavy rains washed agrochemicals into La Fortuna River, Chiquito River, Burio River, Burro River, Tabacon River, La Palma Ravine, Agua Caliente, Aguas Gatas, the Cano Negro River basins, roads, and the Arenal Lake. As a result, La Fortuna and Z-Trece’s communities of abundance degenerated into communities of scarcity. When Arenal Volcano became a tourist centre in 1992, the Z-Trece community began to change. By 1996, many of the original owners who received land from the IDA sold their properties because they were indebted. Many of the original landowners were reduced to living on a tiny portion of the land they once owned. Tourist centres and resorts continued to be constructed in the area and the price of land rose. In 1994, when the Arenal project arrived in Z-Trece, the peasants’ livelihoods were in ruins. By 1998, only twenty-four of the

The Arenal-Tilaran Conservation Area

79

fifty-eight families who were provided land in Z-Trece continued to live in the town. abanico town Abanico covers 520 hectares, parceled into forty small plots of ten hectares each. Abanico was the site of the first land occupations that took place in Costa Rica. Two hundred and seven landless peasants invaded the Pinto hacienda in 1960. Eugenio Araya, President of the Abanico Association in 1998, was a pioneer settler and one of the three leaders of the occupation: Abanico was a treed land and belonged to one owner who, in order to avoid taxes, had title only to the area of the front of the land but not the interior. We learned about this situation from a representative of parliament who knew about our need for land. He told us that we could have part of that land. Then, a group of landless people initiated a process of taking the land, but our first attempt ended up with many of us in jail. However, we started building our houses until the government mediated because the situation was getting out of hand. The government created a commission to solve the conflict. We cut the forest and cleared the land by ourselves. (E. Araya, personal communication, August, 1999)

Anaden Mora Costa was twelve years old when the invasion took place. She recalled how her family participated: In 1960, 207 landless peasant families organized to invade the Pinto hacienda, a property of 1,500 hectares. We went into the hacienda and started building our houses. The police arrived with orders of eviction. We decided to stay there and confront the police. The police started to burn our houses and throw out our belongings. We confronted the police for two years, and some of us went to jail. However, when some members were jailed, other members continued the struggle. When prisoners were free, they went straight back to the invaded land. One night, around 7 p.m. the police arrived at Isabel Murillo’s house. The young woman, whose parents were too sick to fight and had left town, valiantly confronted the police surrounding her house. She was thrown out of the house and it was burned to the ground. She was left in the middle of a mountain without a house. She was helped by other members with whom she left for San Isidro, but the next day they came back to rebuild the house. Because her parents were old, she was the victim of police brutality many times. The number

80

The “Greening” of Costa Rica of women resisters was almost the same as the men, because they were mostly couples. (A. Mora Costa, personal communication, August, 1999)

Women’s participation in this invasion made history. Many women, including Flor Jímenez, Luisa Zúñiga, Isabel Murillo, and Tulia Alvarado, confronted the police with sticks and stones. In 1961, the Orlich administration established the Land and Colonization Institute (Instituto de Tierras y Colonización or ITCO), to regulate the land conflicts initiated on the Pinto hacienda. In 1962, ITCO bought the land and divided the hacienda into four peasant settlements: Ivco, La Cruz, Los Angeles, and Abanico. Thirty-three families were granted land; each family obtained ten hectares of land and single men over eighteen years old received seven hectares. Only single women with children received ten hectares. In 1982, ITCO became the Agrarian Development Institute (IDA). The IDA’s mission, financed by international aid agencies, was to acquire land that could then be made available as private property to the rural poor in order for them to start productive projects. The IDA was also in charge of land reform and conflict resolution. In the 1980s, the peasant settlements of Ivco, La Cruz, Los Angeles, and Abanico were linked with Chachagua for administrative reasons. The five settlements became Colonia Trinidad, with a total area of more than twenty-five hundred hectares, much larger than the original Pinto hacienda. The example of the Pinto hacienda served as an inspiration to landless peasants in Guanacaste, Limon, and elsewhere. The formation of Abanico and the entire surrounding area was of historical significance because it led to the informal organization of Costa Rica’s poor and landless peasants, who continue to press for land. In Abanico, the major export crops are plantain, papaya, ginger, chili, yucca, tiquisque, and nampi (tubers). Bananas are produced throughout the year and are in permanent demand. The PROUDESA packing factory contracts with local peasants to grow the bananas. It provides for the collection, transportation, and delivery to markets. Banana collection uses a two-box system: red boxes for first-class bananas exported mainly to the Netherlands and England, and green boxes for secondclass bananas sold in weekly markets (M. Alfaro, personal communication, July 1998). During my research interviews, the peasant community in Abanico noted two main problems in their community. One problem was the abuse of agrochemicals and the use of machinery. All the producers were

The Arenal-Tilaran Conservation Area

81

engaged in intensive agriculture, characterized by the use of machinery to prepare the soil and the use of high levels of agrochemicals. The abuse of veneno (poison), as agrochemicals are called, is the cause of plagues and sickness. Heavy rains wash agrochemicals into the rivers and roads. The excess of agrochemicals was believed to be affecting the health of both children and adults while the excessive use of machinery was believed to be affecting the soil structure and the crop output. The second problem was the rise in the level of indebtedness, inflation, and daily devaluations. Deregulation of the banking sector contributed to the peasants’ economic instability. Loans carried exorbitantly high interest rates, such as 25.5% from the bank, or among NGOs using debtfor-nature, for example, 20% through FUNDACA and between 27% and 33% from ANDAR, charges in practice amounting to indentured servitude through loan sharking. Fincas or farms could be self-sufficient but they are not. Since their main production is intended for the international market, campesinos/ as also became dependent on the market for their own consumption. Their basic foodstuffs (rice, beans, tomatoes, and cabbage), eaten daily, are bought in the market. Costa Rica imports its food grain mainly from the United States (see Chapter 6). Policies to import grain are justified because of the lower cost compared to domestically produced grain. Food production lands are diverted to produce cash crops for export. In this way government policies, under the IMF and the World Bank advice, reduced support for domestic consumption, transferring Abanico’s food security to international markets. Miramar City Like the other towns, Miramar City (Miramar de Montes de Oro) was once agricultural land occupied by peasants and Indigenous people. But now the Miramar area is referred to as “Costa Rica’s gold belt,” owing to the fairly large deposits of buried alluvial gold found there. The gold belt includes the towns of Montes del Aguacate and Cordillera de Tilaran, in the mining district of Abangares. The towns of Libano, Miramar, and Montes del Aguacate also belong to this district. The gold prospectors in this area are Canadian mining companies. When conducting research in Z-Trece, the author was contacted by Sonia Torres, a forestry engineer, who was the president of the Frente Nacional en Oposicion a la Mineria (National Front Against Gold Mining) between 1999 and 2000. She informed me that clean water had

82

The “Greening” of Costa Rica

become the focus of a struggle for survival and health in the three provinces: Puntarenas, Guanacaste, and Alajuela. She disclosed that in addition to her group, other opposition groups had been created, including the Pacific Regional Front of Opposition to Gold Mining, the Miramar Front in Opposition to Mining (Miramar Front), and the Northern Front in Opposition to Open Pit Mining. In August 2001, the author interviewed sixteen members of the Miramar Front in Miramar City. Among them were Alexander Flores Aguero, who won the National Award of Traditional Music in 1999; Sonia Torres, president of the National Front Against Mining and also a member of the Miramar Front; Juan Venegas, from San Isidro; Julian Morales, from Delicias; Alván Herrera, from San Isidro, Marta Ligia Blanco Rodrígues and Luis Alberto Arguedas, municipal council members from Montes de Oca; and Alice Matamoro and Arnoldo Torres, from Miramar. Community members were and continue to be united in fighting Wheaton River Minerals, a Canadian mining company, which opened for business in Miramar city. Sonia Torres stated: We welcome investments, if they respect our identity as agricultural people and our wish to live in peace and harmony with nature. But we won’t accept projects we have not asked for. If foreign investors want to invest here, they must accept people’s participatory processes because we won’t accept projects that conspire against our well-being, even if they were accepted by the central government. We already have our own development based on land, clean water and air, community, and solidarity. (S. Torres, personal communication, August 2001)

The Miramar Front uses two examples to illustrate the disaster brought on by Canadian mining companies: Ariel Resources Ltd. in Abangares and Mina Macacona in Esparza, Puntarenas. From 1978 to 1990, Ariel Resources Ltd. and its subsidiaries extracted gold in La Junta de Abangares. One Ariel Resources subsidiary was located on a hillside, where gravity helped to draw the mining contaminants towards the rivers and the area’s modest homes. In this case, the gold mining was conducted underground and the material was extracted mechanically through tunnels dug along the quartz vein. The gold and silver were extracted by a process called cyanide lixiviation, or leaching, which consists of dissolving the metals using sodium cyanide for later precipitation. The process is not only a health risk for

The Arenal-Tilaran Conservation Area

83

the workers in many ways but is also deadly for the environment and local communities. Even though the mining has finished, the legacy of the company remains, as cyanide continues to leach into the river, streams, and soil. Sonia Torres stated that, “in addition to the destruction created while the company was in operation; neither the government nor the company was held responsible once the contract ended” (S. Torres, personal communication, August 2001). In 1997, at the urging of local communities, a socio-environmental impact study was done by AQYLASA Laboratory. Torres indicated that AQYLASA discovered cyanide into Lagunas de Lamas, in Matapalo (S. Torres, personal communication, July 2001). Torres stated: The destruction of the natural resources of local communities has impoverished community members at every level. Once they extracted all the ore, the mines were abandoned. Their abandonment is an example of colonialist practices because if these mines had been located in a powerful country they would have been cleaned up. Instead, farming families have lost fertile land to erosion and their water is contaminated. They have been forced to abandon their fincas (farms) and emigrate to shantytowns or to the capital city of San José. (S. Torres, personal communication, July 2001)

Mina Macacona in Esparza, Puntarenas (Fundacion, 1997), also known as Mina Mondongo, is another example of strip mining devastation. Mina Mondongo was the first instance of open-pit mining in Costa Rica. This mine was owned by the Canadian company Barranca Mining, a subsidiary of Hearne Ltd. It operated for seven years until the community took it upon itself to close it down at the end of 1989. The corporation controlled two hundred hectares but exploited only twenty. In those twenty hectares, the forest and its wildlife had been cleared so the company could make a vertical cut 150 metres deep, breaking the aquifer stratum for 925 metres (Fundacion, 1997). In addition, the cyanide and other toxins used in the process of mining the gold killed the forest and contaminated the mountain streams of Turbina, Rio Paires, Rio Jesus Maria, and the mangrove swamps of Tivives, including Nicoya’s Gulf. The pollution killed fish, wildlife, cattle, and even people. Franklin Casares Villalobos (a community member) drank water in Turbina and died instantly (Fundacion, 1997). Land sedimentation still contains cyanide that continues its destruction when rain carries the poison down the mountain and the wind disseminates it

84

The “Greening” of Costa Rica

throughout the surrounding areas. No one has been held responsible for this destruction. Sonia Torres explains: People have never received compensation for the destruction of their health, loss of life or for the degradation of nature. No amount of money could recompense the losses to these communities. The lies are the same, that we should sacrifice our quality of life for job creation. That was never the case because mining produces few jobs for the locals. One characteristic of mining is that the operation is short-lived (a period of 10 years on average) but its environmental and social implications are permanent. Local communities are contaminated during the operation, and long after a mining company leaves the abandoned infrastructure continues the contamination because of tanks and deposits of acid left behind. (S. Torres, personal communication, July 2001)

These catastrophic experiences have increased the resistance against mining in Miramar. After our interview, Torres and I went to Abangares to see the destruction left by Ariel Resource Ltd. While we walked through the devastated area surrounding the mine, Torres pointed out many dried-up mountain streams. Water pollution from mining activity treated with cyanide has also been deadly for fauna, flora, and mangrove swamps essential to maintaining biological diversity. The worst effects can be seen in the water of Rio Agua Caliente, which is now yellow and fetid with the odours of the chemicals used by the Ariel subsidiary. Rio Agua Caliente is a warm river, because of its geothermal activity, which in the past was used for recreation, therapeutic treatments, and as a source of food. It is now badly polluted. Until recently, local community members used the waters because knowledge about the discharge was not widespread. As a result of the poison, aquatic life has been exterminated and community health has been undermined. Despite the evidence collected, the National Health Minister declared there was no contamination. In opposition to this declaration, Elizabeth Pizarro (1998) from the Ministry of Health of Abangares has shown that the population has experienced an increase in illnesses such as asthma, allergies, skin irritation, gastritis, and neurological disorders, and in particular women have had high rates of miscarriages. Furthermore, three out of four children are born with birth defects and many children die. The rate of child mortality in Abangares is higher than in other parts of the country, and the number of children with Down syndrome

The Arenal-Tilaran Conservation Area

85

is double. It is widely believed that mining contamination has been a cause of children’s illnesses and high mortality rates; however the government has never responded to this study. Conclusion As has been shown in this chapter, the Land Plan in ACA-Tilaran was considered an instrument for opening new areas for managing nature, following the hope expressed in the Brundtland Report for a future conditioned on decisive political action for indefinite economic growth within a finite ecosystem. Also discussed were the local actors whose nature and human nature have been codified as capital. From an ecosocialist perspective this process of the capitalization of nature signifies a deepening of political control over all aspects of social life. From an ecofeminist perspective this process of the capitalization of nature and human nature creates a new logic of domination, one that I call greening.

4 Biological Diversity and the Dispossession of Peasants’ Knowledge

In Chapter 4, I show how the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) of the 1992 Earth Summit opened Costa Rica’s gene resources to NGOs and corporations, turning nature and community knowledge into areas of secrecy and paranoia. Different levels of dispossession and expropriation from the land are necessary to establish a wide terrain for corporate scientific research. The collection of highly selective genes from plants and animals was initiated in the conservation areas by parataxonomists working for international NGOs, and further developed through experiments by the pharmaceutical, medical, and agricultural industries of the developed world. Currently some scientists act as intermediaries between local and global laboratories and foreign government agencies, associated with some large local and foreign environmental NGOs. In 2004, intellectual property rights were expanded by the implementation of a free trade agreement between the United States and Costa Rica, in which bioprospecting permits are defined as “investment accords,” in order to make the case that investment ought to be protected by intellectual property rights, that is, the privatization and monopolization of the results (Rodriguez, 1995). This chapter also discusses the resistance from Indigenous peoples and peasants. The Convention on Biological Diversity gave countries sovereignty over their genetic resources, and left questions of ownership to national legislation. In Costa Rica, the Biodiversity Law is the judicial instrument for the application of the Biological Diversity Covenant signed in 1992 and ratified by Costa Rica in 1994. In 1998, Costa Rica created Biodiversity Law No. 7788, in which Article 6 determines that biochemical and genetic properties of wildlife and domestic biodiversity

Convention on Biological Diversity 87

Figure 4.1 Cerro Chato Genetic Reserve in Z-Trece (Courtesy the author)

88

The “Greening” of Costa Rica

are in the public domain; therefore, the State authorizes exploration, investigation, bioprospecting, use, and exploitation of biodiversity elements. Since then, access to wildlife species has been regulated by licences, permits, and auctions. The government created Comisión Nacional para la Gestión de la Biodiversidad (CONAGEBIO) (the National Commission for the Management of Biodiversity), to develop and coordinate policies on biodiversity. It established four types of permits, one of which was for bioprospecting, which CONAGEBIO placed at the centre of its activities. Bioprospecting, genetic engineering, and other genetic systems that classify and research biodiversity for commercial ends involve the search for new and potentially profitable biological samples by corporations, NGOs, and aid organizations. These organizations look for new uses for biodiversity and their products, monopolize the information gathered, and create barriers that limit the use of biodiversity by local communities. Bioprospecting often becomes biopiracy. Biopiracy amounts to the appropriation of the traditional knowledge and biogenetic resources of Indigenous peoples and peasants to feed the knowledge systems of colonialist corporations. For instance, the success of contemporary agriculture in the industrial world is due to biopiracy of the gene diversity of the Global South, as Foster (1999) notes: The old system of botanical gardens … has now been replaced by a system of International Agricultural Resource Centers (IARCs), which are part of the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR) system headquartered at the World Bank. The IARCs serve as mechanisms that transfer the plant genetic resources of the third world to the gene banks of the advanced capitalist states. (pp. 94–95)

The World Bank, since its inception, has taken action to save genetic resources for industry. For instance, the International Center for Maize and Wheat Improvement in Mexico provides hybrid seeds for corn breeding to Pioneer Hi-bred (owned by DuPont), the largest cornbreeding corporation (Foster, 1999). The International Potato Center, based in Peru, serves as a bank of germ plasm for the varieties of domesticated and wild potatoes from the Andes (Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, and Bolivia). Another agricultural experiment on cassava and beans was based in Colombia (Weatherford, 1988).

Convention on Biological Diversity 89

WWF-C and Corporate Science Research In 1991, WWF-C, CIDA, and MINAE, as a first step of the ACA-Tilaran management plan, released the General Land Use Plan (El Plan General de Uso de la Tierra) (hereafter referred to as the Land Plan). As was noted earlier, at ACA-Tilaran there are two directors, one Canadian and one Costa Rican. According to the Canadian director (C. Trembley, personal communication, July 1998), the Land Plan in ACA-Tilaran was based on the characteristics of the territory and its biophysical potentialities. He argued that it also provided some knowledge and identified the limits of acceptable human intervention for the sustainability and the qualitative improvement of its natural resources. In fact, the Land Plan has had several unintended results. It reduced and changed the community land availability. Some 100,000 inhabitants, grouped into 108 communities, were reduced to living in little more than half of the area they had been living in, that is, from 204,000 to 133,871 hectares. Table 4.1 shows that nearly 77,000 hectares, almost 40% of this enclosure, are nucleus areas reserved for the research of genetic material on behalf of multinational and environmental corporations. ACA-Tilaran’s territory is considered one of the richest biodiversity areas in Costa Rica. Eight of twelve life zones existing in Costa Rica are found in ACA-Tilaran. Table 4.2 shows that ACA-Tilaran is one of the most biologically diverse areas in Costa Rica, containing 4,283 plant and animal species, representing 36% of the natural flora and fauna of Costa Rica (MINAE, 1993). The Land Plan allowed managers, such as WWF-C and MINAE, to strategically move the right to land from small- and mediumsized farms, and placed the farmland into the hands of NGOs and MINAE. This action was taken in order to promote competition for inventory and prospecting of the local folkloric knowledge of plants and animals. Like other enclosed nucleus areas, these lands are governed by interinstitutional agreements (Tremblay, 1999; Tremblay & Malenfant, 1996). Since 1994, for example, ACA-Tilaran and MINAE, in partnership with INBio, conducted research under the Biodiversity Resources of the ACA-Tilaran Development Project. This research was jointly financed by the World Bank and INBio. ACA-Tilaran and MINAE also collaborated on the Development Knowledge and Sustainable Use of Costa

90

The “Greening” of Costa Rica

Table 4.1 ACA-Tilaran Nucleus Areas Miravalles (Protected Zone)

11,670 ha

Volcan Tenorio (National Park)

12,819 ha

Volcan Tenorio (Protected Zone)

3,852 ha

Volcan Arenal (National Park)

12,10 ha

Volcan Arenal (Forestry Reserve)

231 ha

Arenal Monteverde (Protected zone): Bosque Nuboso Monteverde and Bosque Eterno de los Ninos Alberto Manuel Brenes (Biologic Reserve)

28,261 ha 7,800 ha

Source: MINAE, Proyecto de Conservacion y Desarrollo Arenal, 1997. Table 4.2 ACA-Tilaran’s Flora and Fauna Compared to Costa Rica’s Flora

Fauna

Total 4,283

Total in ACA

3,451

832

Endemics

25

45

69

% of total endemism

2.2

73 (no insects)

5.98

% of total species

33.33

57.61

36

Total in Costa Rica

10,353

1,583

11,936 (no amphibians, birds, or reptiles)

Source: Plan General de Uso de la Tierra, Resumen Ejecutivo-ACA, MINAE, 1993.

Rica’s Biodiversity Project (ECOMAPAS), financed by the Netherlands in partnership with INBio and SINAC (Sistema Nacional de Areas de Conservacion de Costa Rica) (Kappelle, 1999; M. E. Mora, 1998). It recolonized the country by appropriating community genetic material. WWF-C, in partnership with the Monteverde Conservation Association (Asociación Conservacionista Monteverde, ACM), collects material and researches flora and fauna in national parks, biologic reserves, protected zones, the National Sanctuary of Wildlife, and forestry reserves (Asociación Conservacionista Monteverde & WWF-C, 1996). The WWF-C and ACM Project, called PROACA, consisted of two research components, each of them limited to five years. It aimed to “help regenerate the tropical forest” and to carry out an inventory of flora. In the first phase, the

Convention on Biological Diversity 91

project was limited to ACA-Tilaran’s boundaries: San Gerardo (Tilaran), La Tigra (San Carlos), Arenal Volcano (National Park), Alberto Manuel Brenes (Biologic Reserve), and Tenorio Volcano (National Park). In the second phase, after a detailed inventory of flora and monitoring of soil regeneration, the production of commodities, such as perfume, from products originating in the areas of biodiversity was to be attempted. In the third phase, an additional five of ACA-Tilaran’s nucleus areas – San Bosco de San Carlos, Miravalles (a protected zone), Cano Negro (a national wildlife sanctuary), Juan Castro Blanco (a national park), and Cureña Cureñita (a forestry reserve) – were mapped. An example of huge transformation under the Land Plan was the altered state of the Arenal Volcano, declared a research area for science and technology. MINAE Decree No. 23774 changed the Arenal Volcano’s category from “Forestry Reserve,” with five protected hectares in 1969 (Law No. 4380), to “Arenal Volcano National Park” in 1994, with a protected area of 12,010 hectares, which subsequently became the centre for bioprospecting or biopiracy. Today, the Arenal Volcano National Park markets biological diversity. Parataxonomists are taking an inventory of the park’s species at a biology station in Cerro Chato, located in the park. Once research centres were organized, these areas became off-limits to rural communities. Local community members’ intimate knowledge of and connections with the land were broken, unless they agreed to become part of the taxonomist research program. It made criminals of community members. The Land Plan regulated access to and use of the area. The newly declared nucleus area became private land patrolled by seven park rangers organized into a Police Control Unit, trained and designated to counter land invasions. When park rangers find community members in designated research areas without permission or without having paid the necessary fee, they confiscate any fish or game these individuals might have obtained and whatever tools they used to do so. They then report the offence to the Office of the Public Prosecutor. In July 1998, one park ranger stated that “a year ago, three of us were patrolling Quebradon Patusi, where many people used to hunt. We heard barking dogs and saw a chavalo (young man) walking behind the dogs. We walked in silence to corner him, but one of us tripped. The chavalo, scared to death, started to run, then swam, and then ran again, this time on a wall of rocks. To try to stop him, we shot at the air, but he never stopped, because he knew that he was breaking the law” (park ranger, personal communication, August 1998).

92

The “Greening” of Costa Rica

The Land Plan continues to undermine the rights of local communities to use their surrounding environment because conservation areas are used as collection centres of single samples for potential profits by interested industries. INBio: Establishing Hegemony Biotechnology is the use of biological processes in industrial production. The Convention on Biological Diversity in 1992 established rules and regulations to benefit all of humanity, which became a justification for technologically advanced countries to be able to expropriate the biochemical components from diversity through biotechnology. Since 1992, international multinational industrial corporations have started to use rainforests around the world to expropriate genetic material from natural resources, medicinal plant systems, indigenous food systems, and indigenous bio-agricultural systems, claiming that biodiversity is for everyone. By that they mean who can first register patents for this material. As a result of the patent system, the laboratories of large multinational seed companies and genetic banks are allowed to accumulate and preserve biodiversity, and to enjoy a monopoly over its commercial exploitation. Consequently, the Convention devalues peasants’ and Indigenous peoples’ knowledge because official economic measures of production only count production for the market. Bioprospecting for biotechnology ignores Indigenous peoples’ collective property and knowledge, and the fact that they have been enjoying and using biological diversity for millennia. It also ignores peasants’ contributions in the creation of biodiversity. Similar to WWF-C and MINAE, INBio uses the Convention’s framework in ways that have harmed local residents. Establishment of monopoly on local knowledge. In Costa Rica, in 1994, INBio was granted rights with respect to conservation areas or stateowned land in order to sell biodiversity to global industry. INBio established a partnership with MINAE to collect samples from the conservation areas for interested industrial concerns. In the partnership agreement, INBio and MINAE assume that the areas are common goods in the hands of the state and bioprospecting is promoted as a model, as an alternative to biopiracy. In exchange, INBio looked for customers to purchase conservation area resources, proposed the use of scientific knowledge to manage wild lands, generated financial opportunities,

Convention on Biological Diversity 93

and promoted corporate ecology in territory planning. The tenth clause of the partnership agreement stipulated that in cases of bioprospecting research, INBio must contribute at least 10% of the original budget to support the management and protection of the conservation area. Part of this clause stated that any royalties awarded to INBio from successful discoveries were to be shared fifty-fifty with MINAE for management and conservation of the land. INBio’s bioprospecting began with the appropriation of some of the attributes of the non-human life forms that thrived in the conservation areas. It hired daughters and sons from rural communities as parataxonomists who initiated the collection using common local rural knowledge. An official from the Ministry of Environment and Energy (MINAE) who wished to remain anonymous made the following observation: A parataxonomist is a person (woman or man) with a deep love for nature. Nature is part of her/his life and she or he feels emotion for it. She/he knows that her/his work represents not just a salary, but important work for the country in its intellectual growth. This person must necessarily be from the rural area because there are many adverse factors, such as walking at night under heavy downpours to visit the hatch, with the added risk of falling branches and snakebites. As a rural person, the parataxonomist brings intimate knowledge of the ecosystem. In the work process, she/he acquires information of the protected area and becomes an information generator. (MINAE official, personal communication, August 1998)

Parataxonomist workers are necessarily from the local rural area because they know how to avoid the many risks in prospecting. Most importantly, as a rural person, the parataxonomist brings intimate knowledge of the ecosystem. Parataxonomists are considered nonspecialists because they have no formal degree, although INBio uses the parataxonomist’s knowledge to initiate every process. At INBio, parataxonomists only receive a six-month intensive training course, during which they acquire the philosophy and technology necessary for participating in the project experience. They work at the biological stations in the conservation area and bring their collections to INBio on a monthly basis. Technicians then assign each specimen a barcode and a label containing geographic data – family name, altitude, type of weather, the collector’s name, and the date – and process and prepare the material for taxonomic identification by the curator. Parataxonomists

94

The “Greening” of Costa Rica

and technicians receive feedback, planning, and guidance from INBio’s curators. They work within a larger network of national and international taxonomy experts. INBio has a complex organizational structure to perform a variety of functions, including cataloguing natural history data, producing field guides and software, researching and disseminating information on commercial possibilities to be extracted from the wild, and organizing workshops. However, the only sector that is considered by biotechnology to add value to biodiversity is the Biodiversity Prospecting Division, where corporate scientists appropriate nature’s power and potential. Corporations are interested in identifying genes or cells that can be reproduced to make drugs that could be worth a fortune in the global economy. The manipulation of ecosystems for the exploitation of their genes initiated in INBio’s laboratory is then further developed through experiments in the laboratories of pharmaceutical, medical, and agricultural companies of the industrial world (Mateo, 1997). Privatization and facilitation of the property rights of multinational corporations for value added. INBio is a private institution that enjoys jurisdiction over the prospecting, sampling, inventory, and commercialization of the whole of Costa Rican biodiversity (Gudynas, 1997). It receives donations from industry and participating core countries. Both the donors and INBio seek to commercially exploit biodiversity, especially from the rich rainforest, yet they do so under the guise of conservation. For instance, Canada-Costa Rica debt-for-nature funds were used to set up a microbiology laboratory and associated labs that fragment and extract essences of major interest to industry (INBio, 1995). These labs extract a desired ingredient from other components of the organism. The process is repeated many times until an active component is identified and isolated from the myriad of other components present in the natural product. To cite another example, for decades scientists in the industrial world have been attempting to isolate the active ingredients of the cannabis plant, which can provide medicinal relief for glaucoma, multiple sclerosis, AIDS-related conditions, chronic pain, nausea accompanying cancer chemotherapy, as well as other maladies. Despite a large measure of success in the lab, many patients reject the manufactured pharmaceutical product in favour of the original plant material. Isolated active or mimetic products function poorly in comparison with the same ingredient ingested with substances coexisting in the natural plant. Nevertheless, millions of dollars continue to be poured into this line of research.

Convention on Biological Diversity 95

Although a prolific plunderer of nature, INBio appears to be less efficient in the identification of nature’s secrets. INBio’s inventory division houses tons of inert plants, leaves, dead butterflies, pieces of wood, and microorganisms, which lie all over the floors, walls, and shelves of various rooms, waiting to be catalogued. Only a very small proportion of these species have been identified under their biological families, and only a minority of those classified has been identified by genus or species (Mateo, 1997). By the time INBio comes to discover the biotechnological benefits and impacts, the institution may find that development has destroyed the ecological niches in which species in its collections had originally thrived. Though INBio has a legislated monopoly on nature, Indigenous and local knowledge, and profits, it has not shared these profits with those whose knowledge and labour it has exploited. INBio has had agreements with Bristol Myers Squibb, Recombinant Biocatalysts, Analyticom AG, Merck, INDENA (a phyto-pharmaceutical company in Milan, Italy), Givaudan-Roure Fragrances of New Jersey (to identify and collect interesting odours from forest organisms), British Technology Group, Strathclyde Institute for Drug Research, and many others (Gudynas, 1998; Mateo, 1997). With INBio’s first agreement in 1991, Merck awarded INBio a $1.1 billion research budget to carry out a twoyear, non-exclusive collaboration. Intellectual property law assures Merck exclusive rights over the industrial use of plants, insects, and microorganisms. Under the terms of the 1991 agreement with Merck, INBio used 90% of the funds for research, certain start-up costs, and training four Costa Rican scientists at Merck, while conservation areas received 10% of the original budget to support their conservation efforts. INBio is subject neither to public control and information disclosure, nor to parliamentary control. Its negotiations with respect to Costa Rican biodiversity are secret (E. Vargas, 1992). Under this kind of dealmaking, financial details of the contracts are hidden from the public. INBio’s director has explicitly stated that under Costa Rican legislation, the agreement with Merck is not a public document, and therefore there is no reason for it to be approved by the Congress (Gamez, as cited in Gudynas, 1997). Guha and Martinez-Alier (1997) identified two problems in the Merck-INBio agreement: the “poor sell cheap,” and biodiversity belongs to a larger ecosystem. These authors assert that “what INBio is selling is a service, the collection and preparation of a large number of samples of biological diversity, samples of the plants,

96

The “Greening” of Costa Rica

insects and micro-organisms … and only pays the cost of collection by ‘parataxonomists’ (who possess their own knowledge, which they sell cheap), and the cost of preparing the samples. … INBio does not pay the direct cost of establishing and guarding the natural parks, nor the costs of maintaining these wildlife reserves” (p. 119). These authors conclude that as a result, the ecological market cannot be an effective instrument of environmental policy (Guha & Martinez-Alier, 1997). Resisting Sustainable Development Within the Canada-Costa Rica debt-for-nature agreement, INBio organized a conference in 1998 between some business-oriented Indigenous people from Canada and some subsistence-oriented Indigenous people from Costa Rica. The Indigenous people from Canada told the Costa Ricans that they could help them defend themselves, and at the same time, reap the benefits from biodiversity negotiations. The Talamanca Indigenous People, who saw biodiversity as priceless and therefore as non-negotiable, answered: “We do not want to know about making business with biodiversity, we are happy living like we are. What we want is just to keep and use the land, with the knowledge our ancestors handed down to us” (INBio worker, personal communication, July 1999). Similar to Indigenous peoples’ knowledge, the knowledge produced by peasants’ traditional selection and improvement of plants has become invisible. Because this knowledge is not monetized, it is not included in the United Nations System of National Accounts (UNSNA). But biodiversity is not an exclusive product of nature; peasants have actively bred and improved traditional plants and medicines, and they continue to identify and produce genetic material of great value, by developing local varieties. These materials reflect the creativity, inventiveness, and value of peasants’ production knowledge. In the Arenal Conservation Area, some peasants and Indigenous people still manage to live a traditional lifestyle and work in groups because of the risks of bites from poisonous snakes, broken legs, and rolling boulders ejected from the Arenal Volcano. But the separation of people from nature has created a sense of disorder, alienation, fragmentation, and uncertainty. According to some women in La Fortuna interviewed in 1999, their husbands were seen as enemies of the state because they did not have the money to pay the fees required by recently enacted laws. Because they could not afford to pay for licences to hunt, animal protein was

Convention on Biological Diversity 97

missing from family diets, resulting in malnourishment. In 1995, hunted food accounted for almost half of their families’ daily needs (Male hunter, personal communication, August 1999). By 1999, when they hunted and fished for survival, self-sufficient local people were labelled as criminals, even though, they argued, their hunting methods were less harmful than those used by outsiders who could afford the required fees. Traditional hunters are skilled ecological managers of their own local resources; they know, for example, about the tepezcuintle (paca), a forest rodent and valuable game species weighing from six to ten kilogrammes, which bears offspring twice a year. In his interview, the same hunter pointed out that while locals hunt male pacas, they leave the females for reproduction. Community members resisted bans on the hunting of tepezcuintle and other animals because by paying a fee the rich can hunt while poor local residents are prohibited from doing so. A male hunter reported: If ACA-MINAE stops selling licenses for hunting to the rich who can pay, I will stop hunting, because I will see that it is not just the poor who have to conserve wildlife. I can live happy if this inequality stops. If they permit hunting to the rich but bother the poor, I cannot be happy. I can see rich hunters drinking in bars, while in their station wagon dogs bark and dead tepezcuintles hang in baskets. They are openly showing off the proceeds of their hunting. But if I have a tepezcuintle in a bag, MINAE confiscates it from me, and if I do not confront them I also risk losing my dogs, because I do not have a car and I am walking. That is the reason why we do not stop hunting. Why is it that those who have money can hunt and those who are poor must become “conservationists”? (Male hunter, personal communication, August 1999)

Fishing was also outlawed: “We fish with arbaleta [spear] in Embalse Arenal. We believe that this is the only legal fishing because I choose the fish I want. I won’t fish a small fish; I will fish a big one. MINAE disagrees with our methods. MINAE prefers the use of fishing poles. With that instrument I cannot differentiate which fish is adult or young. Because we do not pay fees, fishing is also prohibited for us; thus, we must hide from the control unit” (Male hunter, personal communication, August 1999). Hunters and fishermen strongly defended their rights to the land and water resources on the grounds that they have been doing so forever without harm to the land. These restrictions have stimulated a great deal of resistance in ACA-Tilaran and the Guanacaste Conservation

98

The “Greening” of Costa Rica

Area (GCA), which borders it. GCA is the consolidation of three national parks and several reserves into one large (153,000 hectares) management unit within the park’s boundaries. The 1,430-squarekilometre park is managed by MINAE and BioGuanacaste, a private NGO, using debt-for-nature swaps. Within GCA, Daniel Janzen (Conservation International, 2008), a US citizen and professor of biology at the University of Pennsylvania, manages the Santa Rosa National Park. Janzen argues that only biologists have the competence to decide how the tropical landscape should be used. He was also an INBio adviser. In Guanacaste, hunters who have lost their means of survival have initiated a campaign against national symbols. On 9 May 2001, at 1:25 a.m., “illegal hunters,” as the Costa Rican government calls them, allegedly burned La Casona de Santa Rosa in Guanacaste in retaliation for their loss of livelihood. La Casona represented slavery built by William Walker, a US citizen slave-owner, and a 1955 historical power struggle between President José Figueres Ferrer and ex-President Dr. Rafael Angel Calderón Guardia’s partisans. This symbolic act revealed the existence of these traditional local hunters and their status as a marginal segment within society. Then Minister of the Environment, Elizabeth Odio, acknowledged that the hunters were acting in retaliation to being harassed by park guards when hunting deer and other species (Loaiza & Zeledon, 2001). But the Costa Rican government refused to accept the survival claims of subsistence hunters and instead criminalized their response. Two hunters were convicted and sent to prison, Geovanny Mora Cruz, forty-one years old, and Roy Calvo Barquero, twenty-two years old (Arguedas, 2001). According to the police Judicial Investigation Organization (Organismo de Investigacion Judicial, or OIJ), Mora had violated the Wildlife Conservation Law in May 1993, February 1995, and May 2000. He had been declared a criminal for hunting in the conservation area. Calvo saw his family’s livelihood disappear and witnessed MINAE harassing his father every time he hunted. He was also accused of participating in an attack on a park guard in May 2000 (Loaiza & Zeledon, 2001). I was unable to obtain information on what fate had befallen the jailed men. Conclusion The Convention on Biological Diversity of 1992 has consummated the plunder of biodiversity. It changed the meaning of biodiversity and assured the flow of genes from the undeveloped South to the technologically advanced industrial North, with little or no compensation.

Convention on Biological Diversity 99

The WWF-C formulation of the Land Plan transformed wildlife into a mere resource for genes. The science of the Land Plan, in fact, reprivatized part of the land for the exclusive purpose of carrying out research on genetic material. The commercial interests of industry and corporate NGOs put conservation areas that enclose reserves of genetic material under pressure, creating the conditions for the misappropriation of nature and the local folkloric knowledge of plants and animals. As land rights were removed from small farms and placed into the hands of government, competition for inventory and prospecting began in the conservation areas. Bioprospecting for bioproducts has transformed Costa Rica. With the advent of biotechnology, the biophysical world of genetics can be owned. Molecular biologists have described genes as keys to the blueprints of the organism. The potential for gene separation and manipulation reduces an organism to its genetic components, but molecular biologists for the most part seem unable to understand or explain environmental and social crises. Instead, this reductionism to the lower levels – the genes – has granted power to atomized fragments that are patented. INBio’s laboratory initiates the manipulation of Costa Rican ecosystems to optimize a single component of gene exploitation, which is then further developed through INBio’s technology partners; for example, INBio and Merck are shareholders in the research of new pharmaceutical products. Supposedly, if Merck patents mimetic products, INBio will receive an equal share and MINAE will receive royalties. If INBio and Merck are shareholders there is no trespass upon the ownership of biodiversity. This relocated power and value is transferred from periphery to core. These acts of sustainable development expropriate public knowledge without compensation. In carrying them out, WWF-C and INBio became firmly established as participants in biopiracy. This transformation of nature into a commodity has robbed communities of their means of livelihood. Living organisms became raw material and living knowledge linked to first-hand sensuous experience of these organisms is eliminated. Local communities are impoverished. Their work of centuries as the keepers of nature has no value, while scientific labour is perceived to add value. While biotechnology dispossessed peasants and Indigenous communities from their oral traditional knowledge, Chapter 5 shows how the selling of forest as carbon credits dispossessed them from their land and their forest.

5 Forests and Peasants’ Loss of Access

The aim of this chapter is to establish who pays the price of carbon credits, and to make the argument that by introducing carbon credits, the Kyoto Protocol launched a reconceptualization of the world’s rainforests. It also looks at the crisis of nature in the context of global warming as well as the crisis and resistance from the peasant communities. Since Kyoto, rainforests have been valued economically in terms of the amount of carbon they sequester. As carbon emissions became subject to trading on the open market, the rainforests in Costa Rica became valued as carbon sinks. Costa Rica was the first country to package the UN Joint Implementation Program (United Nations, Framework Convention on Climate Change, 2005). After the ECODES Conference in 1988, it voluntarily collaborated to achieve emission reductions by selling carbon credits. In February 1995, Costa Rica approved three projects – Carfix, Ecoland, and Amisconde – and in the second round of negotiations under the Climate Change Convention, it presented ten additional projects. Governments first agreed to tackle climate change at the Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro in 1992. Scientific theories have asserted that forest vegetation absorbs and stores carbon that might otherwise trap heat in the atmosphere, thereby driving up temperatures and accelerating the pace of climate change (Lohmann, 2005). Selling forests to act as carbon sinks to reduce any greenhouse effects, by absorbing carbon dioxide from the overflowing waste of industrial countries, has become part of the sustainable development agenda. At the Climate Change Convention held in Kyoto in 1997, industrial countries proposed creating mechanisms to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. The Kyoto Protocol was the follow-up to the United Nations Framework Convention on

Access to Forests

101

Figure 5.1 Teak Monoculture Plantations as Carbon Sinks (Courtesy of Sonia Torres)

Climate Change (UNFCCC), which set a non-binding goal of stabilizing emissions at 1990 levels by the year 2000. Among the six kinds of gases targeted for reduction is carbon dioxide (CO2), which is discharged more by the industrial world than by the so-called underdeveloped world. However, reducing gas emissions would entail high costs for industries. The major emitting corporations, with the backing of their governments, proposed a self-interested solution: create a global market in carbon dioxide and oxygen, focused on the forests of indebted countries. It was easier to create a global air market in indebted countries, because they need to generate revenue to pay their foreign debt. According to the scheme of the Climate Change Convention, countries or industries that manage to reduce carbon emissions to levels below their designated limits would be able to sell their credits to other countries or industries that exceed their emission levels (The United Nations, 1994). Following the protocol, a clean development fund evolved into the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) (United Nations, n.d.). The

102

The “Greening” of Costa Rica

mechanism has two objectives: to assist developing countries in achieving sustainable development to prevent dangerous climate change; and to assist the industrial world to meet part of their caps using carbon credits from CDM emission reduction projects in developing countries, wherever a carbon sink is cheaper to produce. Most Kyoto signatories failed to meet their greenhouse-gas reduction targets. Replacing the Kyoto Protocol were the Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Degradation (REDD) programs, officially launched in 2008 as a UN initiative in coordination with the United Nations Development Program (UNDP), the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), and the United Nations Environment Program (UNEP). In maldeveloped countries, REDD has the same goals as the Kyoto Protocol, which is to generate an economic value from forests, cast in a role as carbon sinks. Since the industrial world is not held responsible for mitigating its emissions, this type of solution allows the industrial world to continue polluting as long as it can purchase carbon credits from indebted rainforest-dense countries. Meanwhile, energy-related emissions produced by the increase in the amounts of coal and oil burned, mainly in the industrial world, proceed unimpeded. Costs of the Kyoto Protocol Costa Rica was the first country to enter the carbon sinks business because its ecological policy was organized and implemented by USAID and foreign NGOs during the 1988 ECODES Conference (see Chapter 2). In 1991, Costa Rica initiated a bilateral debt-for-nature transaction with the United States under the Enterprise for the Americas Initiative. This project had a $12,600 budget cost; $2,500 of private funds leverage, with an unknown face-value reduction of debt; $26,000 in conservation funds generated; and sixteen years’ duration (Sheikh, 2007, p. 12). In 1994, Costa Rican president Jose Maria Figueres Olsen and U.S vice president Al Gore signed a Letter of Intent for Sustainable Development, Cooperation, and Joint Implementation (PEN, 1996). In 1995, the Joint Implementation opened an office in the Ministry of Environment and Energy (MINAE), with the support of three NGOs: Fundación para el Desarrollo de la Cordillera Volcanica Central (FUNDECOR) (the Foundation for the Development of the Cordillera Central); Coalición Costarricense de Iniciativas para el Desarrollo (CINDE) (the Costa Rica Investment Promotion

Access to Forests

103

Agency); and Asociación Costarricense de Productores de Energía (ACOPE) (the Costa Rican Association of Producers of Energy). During the Figueres administration (1994–8), forestry law no. 7575 and the decree daj-d-039-98 were signed to regulate payments for environmental services. Certification for forest conservation is currently legislated by Articles 46 and 69 of the forestry law, which are under the jurisdiction of MINAE. In 1995, the government of Costa Rica signed agreements for forest conservation, management, reforestation, and the sale of environmental services to Norway, Germany, the Netherlands, and Mexico, and initiated contacts with Canada and Japan (PEN, 1996, p. 129). In February 1997 and in May of that same year Costa Rica’s first chief technology officers sold carbon credits on Wall Street (Alpizar, 1997). The Kyoto Protocol included a sustainable development discourse for reducing climate change by altering the use of the soil through reforestation, in order to capture atmospheric CO2. Consequently, it created a framework for “certified tradable offsets,” in which the environmental benefits that forests and forestry plantations produce should be paid for by the beneficiaries (i.e., the industrial countries), thus increasing the income of those who own the reforested land (World Resources Institute, 1998). In the sustainable development framework, forests have become natural capital for sale on Wall Street and other financial markets, but in reality they are much more. In the forest, trees and other plant life are an essential mechanism for flood control. Trees are connected directly to each other through the multitude of creatures that depend on them for food, shelter, or nesting places; through their shared access to water, air and sunlight; and through an underground system of fungi that links all the trees as a superorganism. Rainforest peoples are also members of this superorganism. Vandana Shiva, in referring to the Chipko Movement, an Indian antideforestation movement, has argued that there are two paradigms of forestry, one life-enhancing, the other life-destroying (1989, p. 76). The first emerges from the forest and the feminine principle and creates a sustainable, renewable forest system, supporting and replenishing food and water sources; the other emerges from the factory and the market, with its primary objective the maintenance of conditions for renewability and maximized profits. From this perspective, the carbon credit project in Costa Rica is clearly life-destroying, for it has created a crisis of nature and a crisis for peasants.

104

The “Greening” of Costa Rica

Crises of Nature Both Costa Ricans and the international aid community are subsidizing a new arboreal monoculture of introduced species for commercial export in the name of sustainability, while drastically reducing the diversity of pre-existing ecosystems. Costa Rica’s forests are home to hundreds of species, but the scheme to sell oxygen or carbon credits is transforming the rainforest biomass. Through MINAE, the Costa Rican government sets a value for commercial wood. It also appraises the ability of private forest farms to sell carbon credits, particularly promoted by large-scale agricultural entrepreneurs in association with international corporations. This commercially produced wood has encouraged monocultural tree planting. Lands categorized as forest reserves, which receive environmental service payments, are exempted from property tax. This tax relief, under a scheme called Fiscal Forestry Incentives (FFI), is used to subsidize international business-owned plantations to promote foreign forest species of high yield and great market acceptance, such as gmelina (gmelina arborea, used by Ston Forestall, a US corporation) and teak (tectona grand, used by Bosques Puerto Carrillo, a US corporation, and by Maderas de Costa Rica S.A., or MACORI, now Precious Woods Ltd., a Swiss corporation). These trees are native to south and southeastern Asia. Arboreal monoculture has been defined in this system as reforestation, even though these plantations constitute artificial ecosystems, and corporations are allowed to cut the trees down after fifteen years of growth and transform them into wood for floors or paper, boxes for fruit export, or furniture. With credit provided by the World Bank, the Costa Rican government enthusiastically promoted the conversion of forest ecosystems into sterile monocultures by planting homogeneous forests (Baltodano, 2004; Figuerola, 2005). Between 1996 and 2001, 121,000 to 147,000 hectares of foreign tree species were planted in Costa Rica. Fifty per cent of the species were gmelina and teak (De Camino et al., 2000; PEN, 1996; MINAE, 2001; Moya, 2004; Sage & Quirós, 2001); the rest were eucalyptus. By 2005, the area of this monoculture had expanded to 380,000 hectares (Arias & Murillo, 2005). From the beginning, several controversies surged around environmental services. Between 1990 and 1994, according to the official annual rate of deforestation, the average annual rate of deforestation was reduced to 15,600 hectares; in 1995 it was further reduced to 8,000 hectares and, in 1996, to 7,000 hectares (PEN, 1996). However, the official statistics were disputed by Rodriguez and Segura (ibid., p. 126),

Access to Forests

105

who argued that the estimation of the forested area is controversial, owing to different methodologies and definitions used. They maintain that the real annual rate of deforestation is double that claimed by state institutions. Ecologists from Costa Rica are opposed to paying environmental services to arboreal monoculture, because a monoculture is not a forest; a monoculture does not reproduce itself but rather needs external inputs such as agrochemicals to grow to maturity (Shiva, 1989). Many biologists and forestry engineers were not against selling environmental services; instead, they promoted reforestation through the natural and simple regeneration of secondary forests, which conserve biodiversity and regulate hydrology (Figuerola, 2003; Franceschi, 2006). They argued that conservation of forests with native wood species and associated plants and fauna should be a priority, that restoration and natural regeneration, with its own ecological complexity, is a legitimate goal, and that local peasants must be taken into consideration to avoid irreconciliable conflicts. Jorge Lobo (2003), a professor at the University of Costa Rica, says the practice of cutting trees and vegetation on plantations in the service of monoculture can be highly damaging to soil carbon, which is important to the carbon mass existing in the ecosystem. He argues that “it is ridiculous to promote carbon fixation as an environmental service separated from the other ecosystem services and properties” (p. 7). Large-scale commercial arboreal monocultures applied chemical fertilizers on a massive scale, with negative effects on soil fertility, water retention, and biological diversity. Javier Baltodano (2003), an environmentalist, notes that “a large part of tree monocultures are set in forested grounds, some with a variety of primary tree species that remain biologically active (they provide food for wildlife, they exchange genetic material with surrounding populations, etc.). If the plantation facilitates the felling of these primary trees, then it would be damaging one of the environmental services (biodiversity conservation) for which they are paid” (p. 4). Most monoculture plantations have been established in primary forest areas that were biologically active and providing food to animals, plants, and people. These monoculture tree farms first required the removal of all native trees and vegetation, which augments the extraction of nutrients and devastates the soil’s productive capacity. It also damages the genomes, which are the entirety of an organism’s hereditary information. Juan Figuerola (2003), a forestry engineer, makes the following point about arboreal monoculture: “At the time of the harvest

106

The “Greening” of Costa Rica

the land is devastated by the initial uprooting, which also destroys underbrush, epiphytes, nests, dens, fauna, and soils. The incipient biodiversity is exterminated before it can begin. The soils remain exposed to erosion by the sun, rain and wind” (p. 11). This means that under the forest management model, thousands of old trees and slow growth native trees have been reduced to fragments. Therefore, the diversity of forests has been compromised and reduced (Figuerola 2003). The monoculture of tree species has become a time bomb for biodiversity in Costa Rica. The natural forest of the humid tropics is a highly productive ecosystem. A hectare of tropical forest has more than three hundred species of trees. Biodiversity means that a forest will have a great number of leguminosae (trees, shrubs, plants) with leaves of different sizes, which lessen the impact of rainfall and prevent erosion. Sonia Torres, a forestry engineer, explains how teak plantations have resulted in the erosion of flatlands: Since the planting of these foreign species, I have observed that teak has a root system that grows deep into the soil, but in the rainforest the systems of nutrient and water absorption are at the surface. In general, nutrients and water are concentrated at a depth of between 70 and 100 centimetres. As a result, teak trees are encircled by flaked soil. In addition, when it rains, the large-sized leaf accumulates great amounts of water that then pours violently onto the soil. A drop of water, at a microscopic level, forms a crater; when water falls from 15 metres or more it forms holes. Water descending on soft soil destroys the soil. The far-reaching spread of the roots and the shade produced by the leaves obstruct the vegetative growth on the lower forest layer, which could prevent the soil damage from the violent cascades. (S. Torres, personal interview, August 2000)

Torres advocates the planting and protection of domestic tree species that can also feed the Indigenous population, animals, and bacteria. With monoculture, plants that used to feed the rural population have turned into unwanted trees, and agrochemicals are destroying the fish culture as lakes and rivers are contaminated. From a biological point of view, the sustainable development of carbon credits has facilitated a model in which the forest, rich in biodiversity and a source of goods and services, has been reduced to wood for paper and floors. In commercial forestry, the only useful part is the biomass that produces the profitable species. The issue for Costa Ricans

Access to Forests

107

is to plant ecologically appropriate trees. Thus, the argument against monocultural plantation is that it has produced degradation, deforestation, water contamination, and soil erosion. There is even the possibility of native species contamination with illness or an invasion of nonnative plants that could damage the ecosystem irreparably. Further, this kind of reforestation has been unable to be self-sustaining financially and has deepened Costa Rica’s colonization and dependence on funding from the World Bank and creditor countries. Thus, monoculture tree plantations are not meant to protect the environment but to make profits from the sale of carbon credits. And making profits from carbon credits in Wall Street necessarily has meant simplifying the structure of the forest and accelerating the natural cycle of its growth, with the aim of producing more quickly inexpensive lumber and pulp for paper. Expropriation of Peasants’ Land In 1996, to comply with a letter of intent for establishing a sustainable development, cooperation and joint implementation of a debtfor-nature system, President Jose Maria Figueres signed a decree, Forestry Law No. 7575. He also put into effect Article No. 2, on land expropriation: Article No. 2 – Expropriation to Empower the Executive Branch, through the Ministry of Environment and Energy (MINAE), to establish protected wildlife areas on private land, irrespective of their current management category (land use). … These lands may be voluntarily integrated into wilderness areas protected or purchased directly when there is agreement between parties. Otherwise, they will be expropriated in accordance with the procedure under the Expropriations Act, no. 7495 of 3 May 1995 and its Reforms. When, on scientific and technical evidence in the public interest, it is determined by law that the land is essential for preserving biodiversity or water resources, this shall be constituted a limitation to the property that will prevent cutting down trees and change of land use. The property owner must register this restriction in the Public Registry. The State will give priority to the expropriation of the land. (Ley Forestal, 1996)

Since then, acts of dispossession and plunder are reframed as initiatives to advance conservation. The state’s project of selling carbon credits has meant expropriating land from small- and medium-sized landholders, in most cases without compensation to the owners. By August 1999, according to

108

The “Greening” of Costa Rica

La Nación, the government owed $100 million to evicted small farmers. Around that time, it offered to pay them $6,703.45 per hectare (Vizcaíno, 1999). In 2001, the Costa Rican Minister of the Environment, Elizabeth Odio, openly admitted not paying for land expropriation: “A symbol of pride of Costa Ricans, the national parks constitute a unique model in the world, which offer innumerable benefits to society in particular and the planet in general, but they are in a critical situation due to the lack of resources to give them sustainability and cancel the debt to the former property owners whose lands were expropriated or frozen for the sake of conservation” (Odio, 2001). Costa Rican experts recommended that instead of paying for arboreal monoculture, Fondo Nacional de Financiamiento Forestal (FONAFITO) (the National Forestry Financing Fund), a MINAE office, should financially compensate peasants who have been protecting or recuperating degraded areas, in order to augment their livelihood and facilitate their productivity. They believed that peasants’ knowledge could help recuperate thousands of hectares that had been eroded, stop the destruction of water sources, and reconnect fragmented forests (Baltodano, 2004; Figuerola, 2005). The Kyoto Protocol has become an instrument to expand poverty. Under the Forestry Incentive Programs (FIP), ACA-Tilaran receives, evaluates, and approves the terms of the program and promotes and compensates forest plantation owners. FIP recognizes small farmers (finca owners) as providers, who are eligible to receive payments for the environmental services they provide. In this system, MINAE gives peasant landowners $50 dollars per hectare, in recognition of the environmental services generated from privately owned lands. These payments are short-term, usually contracted for five years. These shortterm contracts give rise to insecurity among farm owners. In addition, tree plantations require ten to fifteen years to grow before any income can be obtained. Peasants, however, are annual cash croppers, and cash crops are their only source of income and livelihood. But the law on land expropriation prevents or dissuades peasants from changing the land use. If they have a contract to produce carbon credits, peasants cannot use their land for short-term income or subsistence production because their land can be expropriated with or without compensation. Expropriation in Costa Rica is not new. For instance, in the Arenal Volcano area peasants’ land was expropriated in 1977 and declared a forestry reserve, with five hectares used by the Costa Rican Hydro Institute (ICE) to build the Arenal Hydroelectric Project. It transformed the lives of the local people. Countless numbers of peasants who had

Access to Forests

109

organized their lives by clearing land for agricultural production and pasture around the Arenal Basin were thrown off the land. In 1990, at the Costa Rica’s Supreme Court (Division IV of the judicial system), an injunction (recurso de amparo) reports heavy losses suffered by peasants who lived around the Arenal Volcano. They lost land, pasture, houses, dairies, and roads. Their personal effects, such as cars and small electrical appliances, were taken by the commercial banks when they could not afford to repay their agricultural loans (Monestel Arce, 1999). Former property owners became hut renters (ranchos) or slum inhabitants (tugurios) in the capital city. But in 1994, MINAE changed the Arenal Volcano category from Forestry Reserve to National Park, by Decree No. 23774, extending its area from five hectares to more than twelve thousand hectares. This expansion completed the expulsion of peasants. Monestel argues some of the expelled families returned to the land to plant yucca, beans, corn, and other subsistence foods. It was declared that they had broken the law, and they were thrown in jail in Tilaran (Monestel Arce, 1999). According to ICE, in 1991, the government, through ICE, created a trust fund to pay for the land of those evicted, at prices determined by the government. ICE, which was officially in charge of the Arenal Basin, in an effort to disassociate itself from the trouble created by MINAE, made public that it granted 200 million colones (US$1 million) in bonds to pay for the 1977 expropriated land (Obregon, 1999). FIP also recognizes conservation areas as sellers of carbon credits. For example, the ACA-Tilaran national parks, such as the Arenal Volcano National Park, and forestry reserves, such as Cerro Chato, sell oxygen. One can imagine why the Arenal Volcano extension was changed. Resisting Dispossession From the 1981 external debt crisis, and the 1990s implementation of the neoliberal political ecology, peasants became cannon fodder in the face of sustainable development policies that consider them and their concrete needs to be obstacles to reducing carbon emissions, a process that will supposedly “benefit all mankind.” For rural women, peasants, and Indigenous peoples, the living forest provides the means for sustainable food production, basic necessities, nutrition, overall good health, and dignity. The redefinition of the rainforest as an oxygen generator, by expropriating or diminishing the capacities of the forest to sustain its dwellers – whether people, animal, plant, or bacteria – destroys the

110

The “Greening” of Costa Rica

rainforest and its accompanying traditional sustainable ways of living, thus creating in its wake real material poverty and misery. The 1996 expropriation law left thousands of peasants without land and without money, because they were not paid for their expropriated land. Communities that used to live off the forest were declared enemies of the rainforest. In 1996, La Cuenca de Aguas Claras in Guanacaste, now part of Arenal-Tempisque Conservation Area, was declared a forestry reserve and the land was expropriated. In July 2001, at a public town hall meeting there, more than two hundred farmers, men and women, were present and ready to be interviewed. The attendees chose two men, Abel Fuentes and Luis Guimo, to speak on their behalf. According to Mr. Fuentes, MINAE had said that their “survival way of life is producing deforestation and pollution, and reducing the water level of La Cuenca de Aguas Claras. MINAE exaggerated the level of deforestation to oust almost all the inhabitants because it is reforesting our land in order to sell the oxygen to other countries and get donations” (A. Fuentes, personal communication, July 2001). Peasants throughout Costa Rica understand that land has been expropriated by the government in exchange for crumbs of money from international markets, while they have been abandoned. In Aguas Claras, MINAE’s argument for expropriating farmers’ land was based on the claim of water scarcity in the area and the resulting need for reforestation. Mr. Fuentes had seen the forced eviction of the rainforest dwellers and the breaking of the regenerative cycle of life. The forced eviction of peasants for carbon credits was destroying sustainable ways of living of entire communities, he said: Until 1996, in La Cuenca de Aguas Calientes, three hundred families lived there and the land was organized as follows: 70% was pastureland, holding around two thousand cows; 10% primary forest; and 20% combined secondary forest with farmland, which was used for beans and pig production. By 2001, we were only three families; the majority was forced into exile. And the land has been reorganized as follows: 90% is primary and secondary forest; 10% is pastureland with less than two hundred cows; and land to produce beans has been eliminated. (A. Fuentes, personal communication, July 2001)

Moreover, Mr. Fuentes said that the 1996 expropriation law had violated his rights and his community’s rights, and that as soon as the law was made public, some farmers and landowners went to MINAE’s

Access to Forests

111

office to get more detailed information about it: “The government denied our right to know the law. When we requested a copy of it, a representative of MINAE showed us a giant book, saying that he couldn’t give us a copy, because the decree was so large. However, later, one of our members found the legislation on the Internet and printed it on just a few pages” (A. Fuentes, personal communication, July 2001). In the forest, contacting a neighbour takes peasants several days and finding a phone takes weeks; so searching for a document on the Internet is a very difficult task. Mr. Luis Guimo added: When we ask MINAE officials for information, they decide when and where we can get it. When we propose a meeting, they decide when and where we can meet, then they change the hour, the date, or they cancel the meeting without telling us. Many of us live far from the meeting place and sometimes we have to ride a horse for three hours to go to a meeting and it is disappointing to arrive and learn that the meeting has been cancelled. (L. Guimo, personal communication, July 2001)

The eviction of rainforest dwellers was also justified by claims that displaced people would find employment in the cities. Rural Costa Rican women know that the ideology where cities purportedly offer rich opportunities for well-paid jobs and upward mobility is a myth. Table 5.1 presents female unemployment as a percentage of the female labour force among 15- to 24-year-olds. It shows that in 2011, the rate was at 21.60, its highest level of unemployment over the past twentyone years. The lowest level was 9.50, in 1992 and 1993, at the beginning of the greening process. Female labour in rural areas is not counted as work, therefore their employment or unemployment is not included in the nation statistics. As they leave rural areas and join the unemployed in the cities, they are counted as “problems” for the government. Since 1994, young female unemployment has been rising systematically. For more background on young women’s economic status, see Chapter 6. The theft of the forest from local communities who have used it to sustain themselves for centuries has become a death sentence for small- and medium-sized landholders. Peasants know that their human rights have been violated, both by MINAE and by organizations that call themselves environmentalists. As Mr. Guimo stated: “They used to come to us for information, and we provided it. I personally boarded people and allowed them to use my horses to move about comfortably. Things are changing, we cannot collaborate any more. MINAE told me

112

The “Greening” of Costa Rica Table 5.1 Youth Unemployment among Females, Ages 15–24 (in %) Year

Percentage

1990

10.00

1991

13.20

1992

9.50

1993

9.50

1994

11.10

1995

13.00

1996

16.30

1997

16.00

1998

17.10

1999

16.00

2000

14.50

2001

16.40

2002

17.20

2003

18.00

2004

18.50

2005

21.50

2006

19.50

2007

14.80

2008

13.40

2010

20.90

2011

21.60

Source: IndexMundi, (n.d)

that I have to sell my finca to the state at the price the state decides. We are not leaving. They have to kill us if they want our land” (L.Guimo, personal communication, July 2001). Conclusion According to the Kyoto Protocol, tropical forest ecosystems naturally provide benefits in the form of environmental services, meaning that forest vegetation absorbs and stores carbon. This non-material world has become an important area for capital accumulation. As a result, Costa Rica has emerged as one of the pioneer countries selling the

Access to Forests

113

environmental properties of the rainforest. Through international covenants, it organized conservation, management of forests, and reforestation with the goal of exporting the resultant commodities. In 1996, the Figueres administration signed a forestry law to regulate the government payments for environmental services. Environmental services are particularly promoted among large-scale arboreal monoculture entrepreneurs, who also benefit from tax relief under Fiscal Forestry Incentives (FFI). FFI reforestation involves international corporations using foreign forest species of high yield and great market acceptance, such as melina, eucalyptus, and teca. Under FIP, MINAE receives, evaluates, and approves the terms of the program and promotes and compensates owners of forestry plantations. When the trees reach the age of ten to fifteen years, the corporations, or the finca owners selling the environmental services, can apply for authorization to fell the trees and subsequently sell the wood products and by-products. Several controversies surged around environmental services, particularly regarding large-scale arboreal monoculture. Rapid reforestation designed for international markets does not produce a forest. There was discussion around whether a tree area should remain under wooded coverage for a longer period in order to be considered as a reforested area. Also the methods of reforestation using high levels of agrochemicals were contentious. Article No. 2 of the forestry law, on expropriation, ignores the material reality that peasants are annual cash croppers, their only source of income and livelihood. As a result of expropriation, thousands of peasants were dispossessed from their land and left without money. The individual peasant, a responsible entrepreneur in a neoliberal age, as a provider of environmental services, is seen as personally responsible for his or her life. Costa Rica’s state participation in selling carbon credits is pushing peasants into a situation of desperate survival, compelling to them to participate in transferring control of their self-sufficient lifestyle. As is shown in Chapter 6, the same push for so-called sustainable development that set a portion of the land for carbon credits also manages the landscapes and scenery for ecotourism and recreational potential.

6 Ecotourism and Social Development

Chapter 6 discusses the profound economic, social, and political transformations visited upon Costa Rica and its inhabitants, particularly Costa Rican women and children, since the 1992 Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro. Mainstream environmentalism, organized by white males in Costa Rica, has been dominated by a patriarchal male hierarchy that aims to enclose “wild areas” (nature and women) for recreation. Critics see ecotourism as an extension of the commodification of modern life and an integral part of modern consumer culture. Ecotourism sells the whole country, including its biodiversity, culture, and identity, and involves the high-volume movement of people over long distances, which can have a violent impact on vulnerable people or communities, or on species and their habitats (Pleumaron, 1999). Ecotourism also results in the sale of women and children, offering Costa Rica to tourists as a paradise destination. This chapter presents the crisis of nature and the crises of women and children in this context. Following the new connections made between development and the environment, new areas of global intervention opened up, and nature entered the domain of politics. Among these new areas of intervention was the connection between tourism and nature, or ecotourism. Ecotourism is promoted as an activity that contributes to economic growth and generates income for local communities while purportedly protecting the environment. It is endorsed as an environmentally friendly, sustainable, and nature-based activity that promotes visits to relatively undisturbed natural areas to study, admire, and appreciate the scenery, wild plants and animals, and other cultural aspects such as medicinal plants (Ulloa, 1996a). It offers rainforests, parks, sun, beaches,

Ecotourism and Social Development  115

Figure 6.1  Arenal Volcano National Park (Photo courtesy the author)

mountains, and Indigenous knowledge. Ecotourism promoters promise aesthetic and recreational benefits that will restore visitors’ physical, emotional, and spiritual health, in a world of leisure, freedom, and good taste, risk free for those with money to spend, while simultaneously politically empowering and economically advancing some of the most disadvantaged groups in society: peasants, rural women, and Indigenous peoples. Although there are various destinations for tourism, ecotourism becomes even more serious issue since it is explicitly linked with conservation. For national governments and international lenders, ecotourism means a generally positive reputation in the nature conservation industry, as well as foreign exchange to pay debts. Ecotourism is classified as an export industry, since international markets are typically tapped to generate foreign exchange and investments. By the early 1990s, under pressure from the IMF, the World Bank, and ECODES (see Chapter 2), indebted Costa Rica had become the most important ecotourism destination in Latin America. Since then, Costa Rica has become the first country to adopt travel and ecotourism as a strategic economic

116

The “Greening” of Costa Rica

development and employment priority in the hope that it would bring foreign exchange and investment to repay its foreign debt. In 1992, this hope evolved into exemptions and tax incentives to the tourism industry. By 1996, the government announced plans to increase private sector participation in road construction and the management of ports and airports. By 1999, San José’s Tobias Bolaños International Airport was rebuilt to welcome ecotourists from around the globe. By 2004, tourism was the leading sector of the Costa Rican economy, worth US$1.4 billion (Solano, 2006). In reality, what matters for the IMF and the World Bank vis-à-vis sustainable development is how natural capital is managed and whether the profits from the natural capital endowment are invested in paying down debt. Ecotourism in ACA-Tilaran In Costa Rica, ecotourism has converted nature into expensive resorts where only tourists are welcome. La Fortuna is the principal tourist destination in ACA-Tilaran. Since 1994, using a debtfor-nature fund, WWF-C has provided the expertise and investment required to turn the La Fortuna rainforest into an ecotourism business venture. MINAE, in turn, passed the legislation necessary to allow the formation of public-private partnerships essential to ecotourism as a form of sustainable development. The enclosure of common lands in Costa Rica for the purpose of ecotourism has remade rainforest ecosystems and converted rainforest inhabitants into service providers. Internal boundaries have been built, separating local people from volcanoes, waterfalls, rivers, hot springs, howler monkeys, and turtle spawning havens, but the country is open to eco-adventurers with money to spend. Local people have access to rainforest areas only as workers supporting ecotourism; otherwise, they have to pay for access. Villagers have acknowledged that there were some improvements in the ACA-Tilaran conservation area. More villagers have planted flowers surrounding their properties. More streetlights were installed, along with improved water reservoirs and more efficient garbage collection. The most important accomplishment was better and more frequent transportation between towns. Until 1998, a daily bus connected La Fortuna with the capital of San José. Since then, several alternative roads have been built, many buses travel the routes, and the taxi business has boomed.

Ecotourism and Social Development  117

Before Ecotourism Villagers remembered that before the establishment of the conservation area, recreational activities in natural settings were free for everyone to enjoy. Families would spend leisure hours walking in the countryside, climbing hills, swimming, and fishing. Close to nature, families and neighbours were brought together. Ines Rios, who was born in Z-Trece, said that before ecotourism, “Families built the community and this community permeated every aspect of our lives. In this community living, the forest was used in a shared way, which provided material and cultural wealth.” She described Z-Trece in this way: When I was growing up, my town cultivated everything and we had plenty of food. The trees produced more than enough mangoes, sour sop (Annona muricata), rambutan (Nephelium lappaceum), and other varieties of fruits. We used trees to build our houses. The forest was our supermarket where we had corn and beans, meat and fish. Because we had plenty of food, we lived happily. Every morning my father used to say, “Put the kettle on the fire. I will go get a paca (tepezcuintle, a small animal of the tropical rainforest). In ten minutes he was back with the meat he had promised. My mother was always feeding the trees with ashes. The forest was our pharmacy. My mother took care of our health with medicinal plants and we never had anemia (an illness common in other parts of the country). I believe that my good health is the result of the healthy fruits and vegetables that the forest used to produce. Every part of our lives seemed healthy. In my house and the neighbours’, the aroma of the flowers attracted butterflies that surrounded the field. What a pleasure it was to live in trust with our neighbours. As the forest disappeared, the food and the confidence have gone. Z-Trece was a cattle-raising place, without electricity and highways, but with plenty of harvests, deer, pacas, coati, monkeys, parrots. (I. Rios, personal communication, August 2001)

According to Ines, the forest provided subsistence livelihoods for the majority of Costa Ricans. Subsistence hunting and fishing were integral elements in their relationship with nature. These communities used their ecosystem (i.e., biological diversity) as part of their daily lives. They did not understand life outside of nature. This situation started to change in the 1970s, with the introduction of the Green Revolution in Costa Rica. The Green Revolution subverted the system of the commons in Z-Trece and La Fortuna, and it began to eliminate common access to

118

The “Greening” of Costa Rica

the land for such rural activities as hunting, fishing, and gathering as well as sustainable farming. Ines explains how she could no longer survive on her subsistence activities and was forced into the market to earn money: As the poison (veneno) – as agrochemicals are called – poured into the land, the trees stopped producing, the rivers became contaminated, our wildlife and fishing grounds disappeared. When we were living from nature we were considered poor people (pobrecitos) because we didn’t know about money, we didn’t have walking paths or highways, radio or TV. But we had never seen ourselves as poor because we had plenty of food for every member of the town. I believe that the poorest in those years lived better than today’s wealthy in terms of money, because in Costa Rica now we all eat veneno. Our food system requires veneno, which then destroys our health and ways of life. I work in ecotourism now and earn some money, which vanishes on a few things, and my money in the market only buys veneno in the shape of fruits and vegetables. I wish we had the opportunity to return to our past when we still had an abundance of food, when fruits and vegetables had flavour, and when neighbours were trusted (I. Rios, personal communication, August 2001).

Vandana Shiva (1989) uncovered an important Western cultural bias in the myth of subsistence provision as poverty: “Subsistence economies which satisfy basic needs through self-provisioning are not poor in the sense of being deprived” (p. 10). Recognition of this other kind of wealth and support for the work and knowledge required to ensure subsistence and survival could transform the nature of society and the economy, including the existing sexual division of labour. One consequence of such recognition would be to give women autonomy over their bodies and lives. ACA-Tilaran developed an enclave tourist model for the Arenal Volcano. By 2009, I counted more than fifty hotels or tourist enterprises in the La Fortuna and Z-Trece areas, selling ecotourist packages to individuals or groups. The Arenal Volcano In ACA-Tilaran, ecotourism is concentrated around the Arenal Volcano, which is an active cone with an elevation of 1,633 metres, close to the city of La Fortuna and the town of Z-Trece. The volcano is a spectacular

Ecotourism and Social Development  119

natural show that erupts twenty-four hours a day. The Arenal Volcano has become the central attraction for ecotourism but, as is briefly presented in Chapter 5, to make that happen, ACA-Tilaran changed its category from a five-hectare protected forestry reserve in 1969 (governed by Law No. 4380) to Arenal Volcano National Park in 1994, with an area of 12,010 hectares (through Decree No. 23774-MINAE). In 1996, the daily number of tourists in La Fortuna was five hundred during the low season, and fifteen hundred to two thousand during the high season (Ulloa, 1996a). By 2007, the Arenal Volcano National Park received a total of 83,532 visitors (Barquero, 2008), approximately 229 visitors per day. The marketing of the Arenal National Park as an ecotourist centre was a joint project between MINAE and WWF-C, hotel chains, and restaurant owners. The park has been featured in tourist promotion programs, as well as hotel and Internet advertisements, to exploit the image of the Arenal Volcano. Private tourism agencies organized birdwatching excursions and other tours to the hot springs around the volcano. Nature in and around the city of La Fortuna has been redefined as a recreational product, e.g., canoe trips to see chameleons and river birds are organized in the nearby wild areas of Caño Negro, for which there are charges and fees. In 1998, the director of Arenal Volcano National Park, Rogelio Jimenez, described the rationalization of the fees at ACA-Tilaran: In February 1995, the Park began to charge fees. In the beginning, nobody wanted to pay fees. To make them pay fees, we closed the volcano’s four entrances, leaving open and controlling one entrance. The entrance fees provided washrooms, garbage collection and walking paths for tourists. When the area was not controlled, people used to take advantage of the area’s resources, resources they did not pay for. ACA-Tilaran made the people wake up to see that they have a resource that belongs to them and that these resources need conservation. ACA-Tilaran told the people that they should press for payment for the use of its resources (R. Jimenez, personal communication, July 1998).

Later, to justify increases in park fees, a lookout point was built, new walking paths were opened up, and better water and electrical services were provided. A visitors’ centre and administrator’s house have also been built. The director regretted that the park’s success might be at risk because the fumes and lava released daily from the active volcano, around

120

The “Greening” of Costa Rica

which ecotourism is organized, have been progressively decreasing. As a result, there was a proposal to expand ecotourism to Arenal Lake. Park management, therefore, dug a ditch to stop community recreational use of the lake and developed a camping trail, fishing programs, and birdwatching tours. Fees were extended to the lake and to the Rio Fortuna Waterfall. Over time, the building of hotels, cabins, bed and breakfasts, and ecotourist lodges has meant that volcanoes, mountains, rivers, forests, and woodlands have taken on new value. Nature has been packaged, branded, marketed, and ultimately sold as recreation products. The resident community has simultaneously also been turned into a branded product for sale to tourist as customers in a variety of forms. Some community members have become ecotourism specialists in bird-watching and guided adventure tourism; others have become employed in restaurants, hotels, and resorts that serve tourists, as servants making beds. Commodification of Nature and Wildlife The area is completely economically dependent on tourism. The volcano’s ball of flame, ecotourism advertisements, scientific publications on taxonomy, ecology, plants, and animal behaviour help to orient tourists and attract wealthy Costa Rican and foreign businesspeople, who develop tourist resorts. These high-end hotels employ foreign managers who speak several languages, for their tourist guests from around the world. Visitors have access to amenities such as bars, discos, swimming pools, whirlpool baths, golf courses, health spas, and entertainment. For example, in Z-Trece the most expensive resort is La Catarata, owned by a French Canadian, which was built in 2000 and has a minigolf course and several bars. During the high season, this hotel is an overcrowded destination. The volcano’s hot springs (39º Celsius), previously accessible to the public without cost, have been privatized since 1992. This area used to be visited by locals, who believe that water from the volcano’s hot springs improves the health of those suffering from arthritis, stress, and other illnesses. From the hot springs they used to watch the volcano’s activities. However, with the advent of ecotourism, the hot springs have been completely walled off by hotel construction. One of the first hotels built in the area was Tabacon Resort, owned by a Costa Rican politician. The resort used to have several hot spring pools on both sides of the highway where it is situated. On one side of

Ecotourism and Social Development  121

the highway, the fee to use the shallow pools was US$1, while on the other side the fee was US$20. The first pool was built for the use of the locals to avoid criticism for enclosing the common hot spring. By 2004 it had disappeared. The resort on the side of the volcano now boasts eleven hot spring pools and restaurants facing the volcano, so that guests can watch the volcano erupt. By 2009, there was only one price: US$90 for access to the hot spring, plus dinner in the hotel restaurant. From the restaurant, on clear nights, one can watch a cascade of red lava from the volcano. Hundreds of tourists each day observe fireballs flying from the volcano to within five hundred metres of the hotel. It is a very impressive and possibly risky spectacle. For instance, on 29 July 1968, the Arenal volcano erupted, devastating twelve square kilometres on its west side, and killing eighty-seven people, along with hundreds of cows and wildlife. The eruption buried the villages of San Luis, Tabacon, and Pueblo Nuevo, and it formed three new active craters. Since 1995, the forests surrounding the volcano have been converted into resorts, endangering wildlife habitats, and contributing to biotic impoverishment and the forced migration of species. As nesting sites have been invaded by ecotourists, species reduction has become a significant problem. A Tabacon Resort worker who wished to remain anonymous said: “Before building the swimming pools, we carried hundreds of frogs out of the area. After five years of activity, the frogs disappeared and the toucans do not stand in the trees any longer. Massive use of chemicals to clean hot spring swimming pools, washrooms, etc. left chemical residues that forced the animals to leave the surrounding areas” (Tabacon Resort worker, personal communication, July 1999). Once-abundant golden toads have disappeared from the area. Costa Rican scientists and experts from the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN) believe: “that habitat reduction and climate change are the principal factors responsible for the species’ extinction. Most specifically, a chytrid fungus has been attacking Central America’s frog species, which essentially suffocates frogs with its growth. Frog populations have dwindled dangerously, and many species have all but disappeared from Costa Rica’s rain forests. Among them, the harlequin toad and the golden toad, two species now believed to be extinct” (Raub, 2008). They do not mention the poisoning resulting from the Green Revolution or ecotourism infrastructure in frog disappearance. Ecotourists want to experience solitude, so ecotourist packages are manufactured to take them to distant, unspoiled areas. However,

122

The “Greening” of Costa Rica

according to villagers, the plastic and paper garbage generated by tourist resorts in isolated areas increases levels of water contamination in rivers and lakes. Ecotourism in La Fortuna is a form of consumption: ecotourists consume beautiful scenery, bathe in hot springs, or watch bird species and other wildlife. Ecotourism has opened opportunities for an entire range of investors and businesspeople to gain access to local land, culture, forests, and ecosystems. The ecosystem surrounding the Arenal Volcano has become overcrowded with hotels and resorts that have negatively altered the local environment. Ecotourism harms rural and local people because it exacerbates the same economic inequalities, social injustices, and ecological problems associated with conventional tourism. Consequently, ecotourism as a form of sustainable development suppresses the human rights of local communities in favour of the rights of those with money to spend. Rural Tourism in Albergue La Catarata The development and expansion of the Arenal Volcano as a National Park was influential in the transformation of people’s livelihoods. Until 1990, the majority of rural communities in the area worked in agriculture, although a few cattle ranchers controlled more land than the thousands of small-scale peasants who worked the land. Soil is very rich due to the Arenal Volcano, which produces lava covered land rich in minerals and nutrients, making La Fortuna and its surrounding area, such as Z-Trece, one of the most fertile areas in Costa Rica (Van Der Laat, 2008). However, the deregulation of the traditional instruments that protected agriculture caused a decline in agricultural production in the area, as it did in the rest of Costa Rica. Rural tourism, as an instrument of local development and conservation, was thought of as a way to help build a constituency and political support for the protected areas (Guereña, 2006). Community rural tourism was developed as a way of involving rural people in ecotourism projects in zones surrounding national parks, so-called buffer zones, and biological corridors1 designed to control animal behaviour, where animals are able to walk, fly, run, and so forth. To organize rural tourism, in 1994 ACA-Tilaran carried out an economic management study of tourism possibilities and identified some commodities and communities with commercial value (Ulloa, 1996a). The study recommended the establishment of microenterprise albergues or ecotourist lodges around sites of particular beauty in the rainforest. Albergues were defined as

Ecotourism and Social Development  123

rural tourism installations because they were located in rural spaces surrounded by natural, cultural, or agricultural attractions. They would supposedly expand internal development by creating and strengthening small community microenterprises, while tourists would have a place for a satisfying, relaxing, and enriching vacation. In 1996, in ACA-Tilaran, three albergues in rural areas were set up: Albergue Eco-turistico Las Heliconias, in Bijagua, surrounding the Volcan Tenorio National Park; Albergue Eco-turistico Montes de los Olivos, in Río Aranjuez, around the Monteverde rainforest; and Albergue Ecoturistico La Catarata, in Z-Trece, bordering the Arenal Volcano National Park. By 2000, the first two albergues had vanished, owing to fierce competition between foreign companies who had opened large hotels to accommodate growing numbers of tourists demanding world-class amenities. Albergue La Catarata (hereafter the Albergue) survived for a few more years. To develop the Albergue, ACA-Tilaran initially made contact with some of the members of the Z-Trece community by hosting workshops to discuss the objectives of the microenterprise model. It informed community members that FUNDACA would provide the loan for any project the community might wish to pursue (Ulloa, 1996b). Since all of the participants were agricultural producers, the Z-Trece group’s first project, in 1995, was an organic agricultural microenterprise. In 1996, it evolved into an ecotourism project that resulted in the creation of the Albergue. The Albergue appeared to be beneficial to some of the peasants. For example, Rosita maintained that it offered eco-friendly, economic opportunities: “ACA-Tilaran made two revolutions in the life of the participants of this project: First, the project persuaded us and our neighbours to learn new ways for using our lands, such as working with organic agriculture; second, we educated ourselves in gender terms. Learning to work organically and to work in a common project, as a group, in an individualist society is revolutionary. In addition, changing the role of women and men in our project was another revolution” (R. Rios, personal communication, August 1998). However, her views were disputed by Miguel Zamora, who owns a tourist resort in Z-Trece: ACA-Tilaran selected only a few families to receive a loan. These individuals or families are removed from the community, because they become the focal point of help from different sources such as NGOs and government. This separation divides community members. ACA-Tilaran then does

124

The “Greening” of Costa Rica

not benefit the community, but only individuals who decide to go along with the vision of the project. Community problems such as water treatment, the flooding of roads during rainy season, labour rights of Nicaragua migrants in packing factories, etc., are invisible. (M. Zamora, personal communication, August 1998)

Zamora added that the Albergue was the only project that had full support from ACA-Tilaran and from the government. Therefore, the benefits of loans and donations from different sources at different stages of the project were concentrated on this one group. The rest of the community members were forgotten. Albergue La Catarata was a microenterprise project originally managed by five Z-Trece families. Built on less than two hectares, it had eight bungalows with thirty-two beds, a butterfly house, a variety of orchids, a small zoo, an organic vegetable garden to be used by its restaurant, and an area cultivated for the production of medicinal plants. It was also used as a centre for community activities and as an artisan shopping area. Its medicinal plant project was publicized as the gender component of the sustainable development agenda of the Arenal-Tilaran Conservation Area, as women were incorporated into the market. At first, the Albergue benefited from government incentive measures. It received microcredit loans from FUNDACA, the ACA-Tilaran organization that provides loans with reduced interest rates (14% instead of the 23% from the banking system), and in-kind donations from the government were made available. From 1996 to 1998, while the Albergue appeared to be successful, it nonetheless ran into many obstacles. First, tourist activities in Z-Trece are seasonal; high season (the dry season) is from December to April and low season (the rainy season) is from May to November. During the rainy season, the Albergue is unable to attract tourists because Z-Trece has three inadequate bridges that are prone to flooding and deter agencies that want to take tourists to the Albergue. Small vans or buses with fifty seats are barely able to go across the badly constructed bridges. Some agencies stopped dealing with the Albergue because of this concern. In a 1999 interview, Julio, the administrator of the Albergue, stated that since the government was not fixing the roads and the Albergue did not have the means to fix the public bridges and roads itself, it was impossible to make a business profitable (Julio, personal communication, July 1999). Second, given how local needs for income and employment are defined at international gatherings, it is clear that low wages are an

Ecotourism and Social Development  125

important determinant in the microenterprise model. From the beginning, the Albergue counted on a common practice wherein women’s labour was poorly paid or not paid at all. The microenterprise is defined as a small family business alternative within a globalization framework that will foster community economic welfare and gender equality in a sustainable environment (Ulloa, 1996a). This project was considered dependent on the entire family’s work, but in the main this meant women and their children. In conducting 1998 fieldwork, my perception was that no worker on this project was benefiting as a proprietor; each merely had a job. Three out of every four members received a salary for five working days. The only worker at the restaurant, who was the chef during the day and the security guard at night, worked seven days a week but received a salary for only two days. The argument not to pay for her labour was that she was the wife of the administrator, that is, she was not entitled to a wage because her husband was considered the main earner. The couple’s day started at 5:30 a.m. and sometimes ended at midnight. In 1998, at the Albergue, the monthly salary was equivalent to US$250.00. It did not provide the means of survival for an average campesino family of 4.5 persons. Therefore, one by one, members of the project started looking outside for ways to supplement their wages. By 2000, some of the Albergue members had left the project to return to agricultural production in order to survive. The first member to depart was a woman who was presented as the women’s voice in the sustainable development model of ACA-Tilaran, to the extent that pictures of her work with medicinal plants illustrated many documents produced by the conservation authority. In 2001, I observed that just two women were the last working members running the Albergue and that they were being supported by their own children. By 2002, the Albergue microenterprise reverted to the creditor, FUNDACA, and in 2005 it was sold and became a private hotel. Employment and Food Crises Ecotourism in the Arenal Volcano National Park and its hot springs changed the area’s economic and employment structure. Table 6.1, gathered from La Fortuna office of Presupuesto y Programación Operativa (Financial and Operational Programming) of Caja Costarricense de Seguro Social, Dirección Regional Sucursales Huetar Norte, shows that by 1999, the tourism sector, which includes hotels, rental cabins,

126

The “Greening” of Costa Rica

Table 6.1 The Economic Production Structure in La Fortuna, December 1999 Activity

Owners

Workers

Salaries (in colones)

Average Salary

Cattle Ranching

78

218

10,134,271

46,487

Hotel/cabins

11

57

2,672,070

45,801

Comm/rest/tourism

40

183

9,237,418

49,384

Agriculture

13

42

1,602,651

38,158

Industry Packing/factory Construction Other/services Domestic/service Total

6

36

1,538,511

42,736

11

126

4,096,909

32,515

7

23

1,835,947

53,737

24

49

2,171,860

44,329

2

2

36,144

18,072

192

736

3,636,197

41,245

Source: Presupuesto y Programacion Operativa. Ano 1999. Sucursal Fortuna. Caja Costarricense de Seguro Social, Direccion Regional Sucursales Huetar Norte

commerce, restaurants, and tourist attractions, had become the chief activity in La Fortuna. The average salary was higher, and the number of workers totalled 240, more than in any other sector, including cattle ranching. Agricultural production had been reduced, and agricultural workers who used to produce for their own subsistence had become ecotourist service workers. As the agriculture production structure changed, small farmers’ production was devalued. The main government office in La Fortuna, occupied by the Ministry of Agriculture and Livestock (Conservation), was replaced by Consejo Nacional de Producción (CNP) (the National Production Council) and given authority over the promotion of nontraditional products, such as medicinal plants (see Chapter 7), considered the icing on the cake of ecotourism. Government policies undermined the food security of rural peasant communities. Beans and rice are staple food for Costa Ricans, and the national dish is gallo pinto – rice and beans. As agricultural production for local consumption at the national level decreased, the export of food products (bananas, pineapples, melons, oranges) and services (ecotourism, carbon credits, biopiracy) with high environmental and social impact increased. According to CNP, 21,450 peasants produced beans in 1994, compared to only 9,475 in 2000. In 1990, Costa Rica

Ecotourism and Social Development  127

produced 34,265 metric tons of beans, while in 2000 it produced only 19,674 tons (CNP, 2000). Between January and April 1998, Costa Rica imported 3,962 metric tons of beans (Ministerio de Economia, 1998). In 2008 and 2009, Costa Rica produced 9,582 metric tons of beans. It imported 34,677 metric tons of beans out of 45,600 of the total national consumption, which represents almost 75% of the total consumption (CNP, 2009). In 2010, Costa Rica imported 42,897 metric tons of beans (FAO, n.d.). Even though more than thirty-five varieties of beans have been identified under cultivation in the frijol tapado system in the southern part of Costa Rica, the varieties of beans under cultivation have been greatly reduced (Jimenez et al., 1998). In this way, biodiversity and soil fertility have also been reduced, with a direct effect on food production and consumption. Journalism students Natalie Cheng and Marie French (2013) talked to Eric Villalobos, head of production at the Arroz Sabanero plant outside Liberia, who said that “the lower cost of importing rice from the United States has already caused five of twelve Costa Rican rice companies to collapse” (p. 2). Cheng and French argue that the government of Costa Rica has traditionally supported domestic rice producers. However, in 2001, as a signatory of a WTO agreement on agriculture, “Costa Rica agreed to limit its support of the domestic rice industry to $15.95 million” (p. 3). Moreover, ”in 2010, the price in US dollars paid to rice producers per ton was 629 in Costa Rica, compared with 273 in the United States” (p. 2); in other words, Costa Ricans paid three times more for rice than their US counterparts. “Imports of rice increased from 43,451 tons in 2000 to 66,055 in 2010” (p. 2); imported rice is largely sourced from the United States (FEWS NET, 2013). Costa Rica now imports most of its main staple crops, rice and beans, which it used to produce on its own. Since rice is imported mainly from the United States, peasants are compelled to purchase their foodstuffs at prices set according to the vagaries of the international market. Food prices have increased, and families not associated with tourism can no longer afford to buy the basics. This leaves people increasingly dependent on the monetary relations of the market economy for their survival. Yet the money they receive cannot compensate for loss of domestic production and the commons for hunting, fishing, and gathering grounds they formerly relied upon to secure their livelihood. In La Fortuna City, where ecotourism has been concentrated, local people are confronted by a new reality. Miguel Cifuentes explained that “we pay for the products of this country with dollars,

128

The “Greening” of Costa Rica

like tourists, but we do not earn dollars” (M. Cifuentes, personal communication, August, 1999). The ecotourism boom has produced land concentration. Many of the original owners who received land from the Instituto de Desarrollo Agrario (IDA) sold their properties to the companies constructing hotels and cabins because they were desperate for money. Peasant land was sold at bargain prices. Paradise disappeared, though some peasants continue to live there on smaller plots, sometimes with ownership of only their small house. Many tourist centres and resorts have been and continue to be built in the area, and the price of land has risen many times. Ecotourism creates waged employment, often at the expense of subsistence activity. Local populations become increasingly dependent on the monetary relations of a service economy for their survival, with no guarantee of access to an adequate income. When nature was redefined as a recreational product, then volcanoes, mountains, rivers, forests, and woodlands suddenly took on non-traditional values as these landmarks were packaged, branded, marketed, and ultimately sold for profit. Moreover, people themselves were turned into branded products for paying customers. Crises of Women and Children As Costa Rica becomes increasingly impoverished by foreign debt, and the enclosure of the commons expands, the mark of international power relations is stamped on their bodies. For rural women, the expropriation of forests is a survival issue, forcing them to migrate to San José, the capital of Costa Rica, and to ecotourist areas in the hope of earning an income for themselves and their dispossessed families. As an ecosystem disintegrates, it has a powerful effect on the degree of oppression that women and children endure. As they are introduced into the cash economy, some impoverished women have little option but to earn all or part of their living as prostitutes. They are women at work, supporting children and other loved ones. Costa Rica is the main destination in Central America for sex tourism, which is recognized as an industry. It entertains large numbers of tourists from Canada, the United States, and Europe. Men in their forties, fifties, sixties, and older from industrial countries, from all classes, cross borders for ethnicized sex tourism. Prostitution is a social issue that asserts the domination and objectification of women and children. The sex trade in Costa Rica entangles the domination of creditors over debtors (the indebted periphery) with a psychology of patriarchy, in which men develop their masculation

Ecotourism and Social Development  129

(G. Vaughan, 2007). Masculation is the exploitive masculine identity created by the alienated world of patriarchal capitalism through compliant bodies (p. 16). By complying with the desires of men, children and women contribute to the global tourism industry, to the wealth of businesses, and to state coffers. In Costa Rica, sexual exploitation is arranged in several different ways (O’Connell & Sanchez, 1996). At a certain age prostitution is legal, but the act of pimping is not. Likewise, most of the men who profit from organized sex tourism are from patriarchal, industrial countries – the United States, Canada, and Spain, among others. O’Connell and Sanchez argue that sex tourists and expatriates come mainly from societies with strong internalized prohibitions against adult-child sex. Jacobo Schifter (2007), in writing about Costa Rica’s tourism industry, asserts that women are being consumed as entertainment for men. He estimates that there were twenty thousand sex workers in the country, and fifty thousand sex tourists who visit each year (T. Rogers, 2009). Sadly, Schifter concludes: “Obviously, globalization has linked us to an international economy in which each country finds their specialization … In the case of Costa Rica, whether we like it or not, sex tourism is a strong component of our Gross National Product” (p. 265). As Costa Rica slid into a subordinated position internationally, the country developed an established child pornography industry. Although child prostitution is illegal in Costa Rica, there is minimal enforcement of the law. Law enforcement mechanisms offer an impunity and anonymity that sex tourists seek. Further, a CTV documentary by journalist Victor Malarek for the program W-5 reported that when young girls are arrested, the victims are sometimes punished by police, who also have made demands for sex (Malarek, 2004). Since 2001, international human rights groups have put the Costa Rican government under intense scrutiny for lack of action against the sexual abusers of children, most of them tourists. The official attitude is one of government indifference. In 2001, the ex-president of Costa Rica, Miguel Angel Rodriguez, said on ABC’s 20/20 news program that there were only “20 or 30” children being sexually exploited in Costa Rica, even though the US Department of State had estimated three thousand children to be victims of commercial sexual exploitation in Costa Rica (Casa Alianza, 2001). In 2010, the US State Department offered chilling statistics on the extent of child sexual abuse in Costa Rica: “For 2008 the judicial branch’s statistics office reported 692 cases of sexual abuse of minors, with 337 perpetrators convicted. Additionally, 10 cases involved sex with minors, seven involved cases of sex with minors with

130

The “Greening” of Costa Rica

payment involved, and seven involved the sexual corruption of minors. From January 1 to June 30, the autonomous National Institute for Children (PANI) assisted 2,145 children and adolescents, including 1,410 cases of physical abuse and 409 cases of intrafamily sexual abuse” (US Department of State, 2010, Children section). These problems affecting women and children in Costa Rica are also the concern of foreign NGOs. Since 2004, World Vision, an NGO, has been launching campaigns in Costa Rica to deter potential child-sex tourists (World Vision, 2006). In 2006, the NGO AYUDA, of the InterAmerican Development Bank (IADB), and the Ricky Martin Foundation, established an antitrafficking campaign, entitled “Llama y Vive” (Call and Be Alive). (Martin, 2008). Costa Rica’s government also has been taking steps to address problems of trafficking in women and children. In 2008, officials from Costa Rica and the Dominican Republic met to resolve some of these problems (Costa Rica y República Dominicana, 2008). Conclusion We have seen how two Costa Rican agricultural communities, La Fortuna City and Z-Trece, were moved inexorably towards revised roles as ecotourism service areas. The major marketing achievement in La Fortuna was the linking of tourism with the Arenal Volcano and wildlife areas. With the volcano as the main attraction, WWF-C provided debt-for-nature money to build infrastructure needed for tourism in La Fortuna. Ecotourism has been promoted as a service activity that will contribute to economic growth and generate income for local communities while protecting the environment. As a result, ecotourism is classified as an export industry (since international markets are typically tapped to generate foreign exchange and investment) that politically empowers and economically advances some of the most disadvantaged groups of society, such as peasants, rural women, and Indigenous people. However, profound social and political contradictions and criticisms challenge the ethics of the concept. In the neoliberal era, private property is sacrosanct. However, in tourism areas, land violations take place as hotel or cabin owners construct without permits that destroy the country’s natural scenic splendour. Parallel to the construction of large hotels are the ecotourist lodges or rural tourism development activities at sites of particular beauty in the rainforest, which endanger wildlife

Ecotourism and Social Development  131

habitat by provoking mudslides, biotic impoverishment, and the forced migration of species. The development and expansion of the Arenal Volcano as a national park was also influential in transforming people’s livelihoods. Communities have lost their recreation areas, and agriculture workers have become ecotourism service workers engaged in low-wage employment at the expense of agriculture and subsistence activities. When forest dwellers are evicted from their lands and move to urban areas, dispossessed women and children are usually the most vulnerable, becoming victims of predatory industries and individuals. In this neoliberal era, government’s social responsibility to its citizens has been eliminated. Individuals are solely responsible for themselves and prostitution is considered to be the same as any other work. This frame ignores the violence and domination in which women and children are immersed and allows the leaders to blame the dispossessed for predatory practices that abuse them. Once again, women are alienated from their bodies and their sexualities. As a result of these changes, creditors’ power relations that encourage ecotourism are written on the bodies of the life forms of volcanos, and on the bodies of women and children in an indebted Costa Rica.

7 Women’s Microenterprises and Social Development

This chapter demonstrates how NGOs use the microenterprise model of sustainable development to incorporate rural women’s knowledge and labour into international markets. Under neoliberalism, microenterprises first strengthen NGOs with access to international donors, in order to achieve the dismantling of the state’s responsibility to uphold the rights of citizens; and second, the preference of northern consumers for organically produced medicinal plants and vegetables was considered a growing market expected to benefit rural areas economically. Medicinal plants production has been promoted as a sustainable development activity as well as a source of income for many women, who have been encouraged to develop microenterprises to grow and market them. The concept of sustainable development promoted the production of organic medicinal plants and agriculture, a system that uses regional components and avoids the use of agrochemicals and growth regulators, as socially and ecologically sound. However, Anja Nygren (1995) has questioned this assumption: “Organic agriculture is not a policy that should be associated with correcting structural and environmental problems produced by the Green Revolution: land degradation and growing inequality in the distribution of productive resources. Land degradation was achieved by the massive use of agrochemicals for monoculture production. Inequality was increased because small landowners [such as peasants and Indigenous peoples] did not receive the support they needed from the state” (p. 124). Further, the microenterprise model ignores the reality that, in a primarily agricultural economy, the familybased household is a site of production as well as of reproduction. Within this context, the sexual division of labour conventionally allocates

The Medicinal Plants Industry

133

different roles to men and women in terms of productive activities as well as parenting. Moreover, the greater share of responsibilities falls on women rather than on men. These inequalities are further reflected in women’s exclusion from land ownership. Men hold the power for decision-making, and they control assets, resources, and leadership. The lives of women become terribly constrained by hierarchical and authoritarian social forms arising from the authoritarian structure of society. Since the 1992 Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro, in Costa Rica every project of international cooperation has included both sustainable development and Women in Development (WID) components. The concept of WID, promoted by the World Bank, sees women as active agents of development (see Chapter 2). The stated objective of the World Bank in this regard is the reduction of disparities for women and the enhancement of women’s participation in their countries’ economic development. But in Costa Rica women’s programs have no government support, and NGOs have used debt-for-nature swaps as a credit source to initiate incomegenerating activities in the women’s sector of the economy. Proponents of sustainable development recognized gender relations as a central issue if women were to be incorporated into business and financial markets successfully. In the process of income generation, medicinal plants become commodities, and the women who grow them become commodity producers. Medicinal plants, as commodities, belong to the marketplace. There, medicinal plants lose their cultural, and even their biological power, because the removal from their natural surroundings and different exposure to sunlight changes their chemical properties. According to the biologist Celso Alvarado, the best biodiversity management is done by nature, in situ: Regarding medicinal plants, the Indigenous populations do not domesticate many plants. When plants are domesticated and planted in monoculture crops, they are deprived of species association and the destruction of their inherent properties starts. A plant in its natural ecosystem is interacting with other plants and its abiotic resource (soil, water, light); therefore, the plant conserves its properties as a natural defence. Its genetic strength is more active and dynamic against its predators. Furthermore, when medicinal plants are sown in prepared beds land pests proliferate. These are the reasons why Indigenous populations obtain the species and its properties directly from the ecosystem for healing purposes. (C. Alvarado, personal communication, August 1999)

134

The “Greening” of Costa Rica

Figure 7.1 Owner of a medicinal plant organic farm in Abanico (Courtesy the author)

The Medicinal Plants Industry

135

Thus, producing medicinal plants as monoculture crops fosters genetic erosion and decreases plants’ fertility. Further, when medicinal plants are used in organic agriculture for the market, they shift from being a source of women’s power, as healers, to being a source of women’s exploitation, as surplus producers. Until the end of the 1980s, medicinal plants had no market value, but they were used by rural populations whose health depended on the ecosystems where they lived. Through centuries of growing medicinal plants, women in Costa Rica’s rural areas acquired the necessary skills and the knowledge of seeds, soil preparation, and optimum growing seasons. For example, these women are able to identify several dozen wild medicinal plants and herbs.1 They also have the know-how to make cocimientos, or combinations of plants used in healing practices. Now that medicinal plants and organic agriculture have been mainstreamed as ecologically sound, women have returned to their ancestral knowledge. Initially, with the help of Centro Nacional de Acción Pastoral (CENAP) (the National Centre for Pastoral Action), rural women began to grow medicinal plants organically, as commodities. They learned the techniques of organic production through workshops and plant exchanges organized by CENAP. This knowledge was central in developing organic medicinal plant microenterprises. As a result, exploitation and surplus value are located in the bioproductive aspect of this knowledge, that is, in the privatization and monopolization of the results. Microenterprise in Abanico A major Women in Development (WID) initiative was the Abanico Project, a medicinal plant and organic agriculture program that was one of the thirty cooperation agreements signed by FUNDACA, the debtfor-nature loan provider of ACA-Tilaran and ANDAR of Costa Rica. ANDAR became responsible for developing and managing microenterprises as WID projects. In the microenterprise model, credit is given to a group, which manages the money and within which individuals can borrow and repay small amounts that they use to set up a small business or microenterprise. Liddiette Madden, ANDAR’s director, explained her understanding of sustainable development:

136

The “Greening” of Costa Rica

Sustainable development is a definition that originated in the international cooperation community, where Costa Rica’s governments are not clear in what the sustainable development strategy will achieve. We, as an NGO, don’t know either, because there are so many actors involved. Whatever it is, it is a long-term process that implies the change of structures of the country, the change of culture patterns, and access to technology. As a country we need to work harder because we do not have the technology needed to change from raw material producers to industrial producers. The state has no resources and no guidelines to embark on a sustainable development direction. Right now we have the program of productive reconversion [moving from subsistence production to exportoriented production] but that is not enough. (L. Madden, August 1999)

Clearly, the director’s concept of sustainable development actually sounds like old-fashioned modernization development. However, ANDAR’s gender analysis in two communities in the area, in Z-Trece, an agriculture and tourism program, and a livestock and cheese production program in El Castillo, was more to the point: • Household work was mainly assumed by women, despite the work they do in agriculture or livestock. The household activity done by men was occasional and they were assumed to be merely helpers. • Women’s community work was quiet and hidden. Women, like the men in the household, presumed themselves to be merely helpers because they were not included at the decision-making level. • The income obtained by the family, earned by women, children, and men through agriculture and livestock, was perceived as men’s income. Therefore, neither women nor children took part in the decision-making process on what to produce. • Only when women worked outside of the house, particularly in the service sector such as restaurants and hotels, were they considered to be wage earners. (Asociación ANDAR, 1996) Following this assessment of the situation of rural women, ANDAR recommended setting up microenterprises as a means of income generation. The main barrier to women’s equality was seen as a lack of financial access. Because of women’s difficulty in accessing loans, ANDAR would also provide small amounts of capital from debt-for-nature swaps with the Netherlands.

The Medicinal Plants Industry

137

A microenterprise, named Abanico Project, was set up in Abanico. ANDAR (1996) defined the Abanico Project as a peasant family business to foster community economic welfare and gender equality in a sustainable development environment. In other words, the women’s project had to be supported by the work of the whole family. The foundation of this microenterprise design was the nuclear family and its patriarchal structure. When the town of Abanico was organized in 1961 (see Chapter 3), each family, headed by a man or a woman, obtained ten hectares of land. Single men over eighteen years of age also received seven hectares, but no single women received land. ANDAR organized the project in conjunction with Grupo Ecologico de Mujeres de Abanico (GEMA) (the Women’s Ecological Group of Abanico), a group of nine local women organized specifically for this activity. The women were between twenty-eight and fifty years old; seven were married, and two were single. Each set up an individual microenterprise project for the cultivation of organic medicinal plants on her parents’ or husband’s land. The women planted what ANDAR was interested in buying. Each of these women set up to grow lemongrass, oregano, juanilama, linden tea, mint, spearmint, basil, aloe vera, and saragundi. The landholdings of the women’s families varied from two to ten hectares. In 2000, Consejo Nacional de Producción (CNP) (the National Production Council), a government agency in charge of nontraditional production and Women in Development programs, measured the amount of land used by women for their projects, which varied from five hundred to fifteen hundred square metres. GEMA members grew organic crops on these small plots situated in the middle of the agrochemical-based farms of their fathers, husbands, and in-laws. Previously, the women had used these small plots to produce the food needed for themselves and their children. Participatory Action Research In 1998, the GEMA group and the author participated in a Feminist Participatory Action Research (FPAR) project. The results showed that although they had experienced some increased status and sense of agency in the community, the Abanico Project members had suffered serious negative consequences from their involvement with the project. To protect their identities, the women who agreed to speak on the record to the author were given pseudonyms like “Oregano,” or “Basil,” that

138

The “Greening” of Costa Rica

were the names of the medicinal plants they were growing. Six key issues were identified. First, as already noted, the women recognized that the Abanico Project allowed them to renegotiate their situation in the community. Here are two comments from the members: ANDAR gave us opportunities for education and training (capacitación) in organizations, marketing, organic identification, organic fertilizers, credit, exchange of experience (Oregano, personal communication, August 1998). People in the community started to value our work. One day I heard a comment: “These ladies are working hard and making money.” This comment was made by people outside our families because our families know that we work hard, but we do not make money. However, that comment made me proud. (Basil, personal communication, August 1998)

Second, each stage of the Abanico Project was built on loans from NGOs acting as banks. A microcredit from FUNDACA for ACA-Tilaran, using the Canada–Costa Rica debt-for-nature swap, provided a loan of Can$4,480 (colones 700,000) at an annual interest rate of 20%. Each member received Can$497. In addition, ANDAR, using a Netherlands–Costa Rica debt-for-nature swap, lent the group Can$6,400 (colones 1 million) at an annual interest rate of 33% to buy an old house, which was expected to be turned into a processing plant, as well as a site to sell the products. According to the NGOs, since the 1990s, neoliberal policies dictate that credits must be sustainable, that is, credits to microenterprises must cover operation costs. Third, to develop a microenterprise, families had to convert a substantial part of their land from food production to the production of medicinal plants. Yet the financial return to the women proved to be so small that it was not sufficient to buy food for the family’s subsistence needs, because they no longer owned plots of land for their personal use. The research showed that women involved in the project earned on average eleven cents an hour in 1998, well below the Costa Rican minimum agricultural wage of US$2.00 an hour (1999 prices) (Gindling & Terrell, 2007). Fourth, ANDAR monopolizes the marketing of their products. This agency controlled the collection, transportation, and market deliveries of the group’s products. It collected and weighed the dry leaves once a month at the women’s plot of land. ANDAR typically paid these women a month after they collected the dry leaves. It was always possible

The Medicinal Plants Industry

139

for ANDAR to claim that they had experienced a loss and to pay the women less than they had promised, because after the drying process leaves weigh less. This marketing activity led to a high degree of pressure and social control over the women’s groups because ANDAR was the only buyer. Fifth, the women’s working time expanded, decreasing the time they could spend on activities important to the community and their families. On average, they spent nine hours a day weeding, seeding, or harvesting. Their work was time-intensive and labour-intensive. The most time-consuming task was weeding, which was done with machetes rather than with the use of herbicides. A typical day on the plot started around 5:30 a.m., with cutting, selecting, and cleaning the leaves. From 8:30 to 9:00 a.m., before it became too hot to work, they spread the leaves in a solar drier inside the drying house. When they were not cutting plants or weeds, the women were preparing natural pesticides from gavilana (Neurolaena lobata), garlic, and onions; or applying fruit fertilizers with guava, papaya, sweet potato; or preparing seed beds. Despite working nine hours in the medicinal plant plots, the women also worked many more hours at home, engaged in cleaning, cooking, washing, ironing, caring for their elders and rearing children, and doing community work. The women were active members of the Abanico Development Association’s board of directors, and of their churches, schools, and ANDAR’s credit committee. In 1999, on Friday afternoons, these women spent additional working time preparing food to sell in la feria (the local market) in order to pay their debts to the NGOs. Every week, two members of the group were in charge of preparing cold food such as tamales (rice and yucca with slices of meat) the night before and collecting supplies among the members for a vegetable soup that was prepared in the local market. This activity was short-lived, because of difficulties getting to the market location. Women’s working time also increased after the health centre closed and one elementary school eliminated a teaching position as a result of structural adjustment policies and programs imposed by the IMF and the World Bank. The women’s increased workload was destined to lead to an intergenerational transference of poverty, as household duties were passed to daughters, which limited their educational opportunities. Sixth, in the face of daily inflation and devaluation imposed by the IMF and the World Bank, wages were inadequate. Working for less than the minimum wage led these women to eventual physical collapse, exhausted by a never-ending competitive spiral of reduced real wages.

140

The “Greening” of Costa Rica

In sum, the Abanico women’s participation in microenterprises had several results: • Women enhanced their status as community participants, giving them slightly more influence and decision-making involvement, but with disproportionate increases in responsibility and commitments of time and energy. The process did more to advance the commodification of women’s work and the availability of local produce, local biomass, and free labour to the market than to enhance women’s status and independence. • Women became indebted to FUNDACA and indebted and controlled within the dependency structure of ANDAR, while paying interest rates so excessive that, in effect, they became indentured labourers preyed on by loan sharks. Women’s work was being used as the most effective source of capital accumulation, because women brought into the accumulation process their own and their family’s free labour. • Women’s autonomous subsistence work was eliminated in favour of poorly paid work that exploited their labour. This process is part of what Mies (1986) and Bennholdt-Thomsen and Mies (1999) have called the “housewifization of labour” (see Introduction). This transformation of labour is promoted by the view that women engaged in microenterprises are not really workers. Their work in microenterprises is seen as a continuation of their work at home and therefore it is poorly paid, as was the case in the Abanico Project. Economic Pressures The group’s research captured the attention of the Consejo Nacional de Produccion (CNP). Aware of their worsening conditions, the GEMA group of women growers appealed to the agency. As a result, in 1999, the CNP held a meeting with all the women’s groups around the country working with ANDAR in medicinal plants and organic agriculture. The groups included Las Malinches de Pocosi; Mujeres Unidas de Sarapiqui (MUSA); Grupo Asmuca; Grupo de Giras “Alfonso Quiroz de Acosta”; GEMA; and Asociación Regional de Agricultores Orgánicos (ARAO). The space provided by CNP permitted the women to reflect on their situation. The Abanico group used the results of their research to speak about their low earnings, high interest rates, long working hours for the microenterprise, at home, and for the community, and

The Medicinal Plants Industry

141

to refute the notion that women’s work is complementary to men’s. In the name of gender equality, NGOs had ensured women’s compliance with working for meagre wages in microenterprises, earning less than the minimum peasant wage. Women resisted the high interest rates the NGOs charged and the consequent downgrading of their labour within the government’s structures. During this meeting, the agency tried to prevent Costa Rica’s medicinal plant producers from being forced out of international competition by NGOs in other Latin American countries that were also engaging women in organic medicinal-plant production. In 2000, CNP measured the land used by the Abanico women in their microenterprises and made a direct appeal to Manzate, a tea-producing company. They secured a contract in which Manzate promised to buy the total production of tilo tea the group produced. With an assured buyer, the group pulled out all the other medicinal plants they had been growing and focused on tilo. In 2000, an area of 52,317 square metres produced medicinal plants; tilo was grown on 80% of the land, while other varieties represented the other 20%. The group sold tilo to Manzate according to the contract arranged by CNP. But in April 2001, the group received a letter from Manzate invalidating the initial agreement and reducing its purchase to eight hundred kilograms every two months instead of the two thousand kilograms it was supposed to purchase. With the reduction in sales of tilo, a new crisis was introduced. Members complained that the new arrangement imposed by Manzate forced them to take care of the plants longer, extending their poorly paid work, or expropriating other people’s work to reduce production costs. For example, one of the growers, Juanilama, employed two Nicaraguan men to help her maintain the tilo production. She explained that the only reason she could afford salaried workers was because she barely paid them and they brought their families to work to help weed the fields. To cope with the new arrangements, the group assigned an amount of tilo that each member was allowed to sell every two months, based on members’ level of indebtedness. This arrangement created difficulties, however, because one beneficiary, Juanilama, who had more land and more debts, was allowed to grow more tilo. Consequently, disputes arose. The difficulties created by the reduced sales also produced disagreements, distance, and antagonism among the members. Members who were sisters, mothers, or friends were not speaking to each other when I

142

The “Greening” of Costa Rica

returned in 2001. A dispute, which included violence, broke out among members of a family involved in the group. Two were accused of cheating. According to the association, one of them stated in May 2001 that she had no tilo to sell, so the members were allowed to produce an additional fifty kilograms. But when Manzate’s agents collected the herbs, she added her extra kilograms without informing the others; consequently, members who had increased their production in that particular month were left with their additional parcel unsold. In July 2001, I had several conversations with the group. One conversation about the exchange value, or price, of the medicinal plants was tense. Most members were not talking to the two members accused of cheating. To break the tension, one of them brought up the dispute and asked for forgiveness. She explained the discouragement the group was experiencing because of the reduction in sales: “Deciding how many kilos each member could sell has produced a crisis in the group. Many of us are not talking to each other, although we are sharing the same misfortune. Because we have in common the need to improve the economic situation of our families, we needed to find support. We accepted the CNP initiative to discuss our problems with a psychologist. Our betterment will help our children and our community” (Yerbabuena, personal communication, August 2001). The group was scheduled to participate in group counseling. CNPSan José proposed a psychologist to mediate the crisis because, in the words of one official, “The group was not tough enough to survive the globalization project” (Yerbabuena, personal communication, August 2001). Instead of seeing the structure of society as a problem, CNP’s message was that the women needed to alter their psyches to be able to participate in and profit from the globalized market. Pushing women to discuss their personal problems with a psychologist displayed the tendency to see women as pathologized. CNP did not recognize that the women’s lagging economic performance resulted not from their feminine nature but rather from the reality of their working conditions (performing triple work shifts and having no land of their own) and market mechanisms (the liberalization of interest rates and the dismantling of the agricultural and the food systems). The economics of the medicinal plants project had produced grievances among the members. As Juanilama said: “At the beginning, Manzate told us to sow more and more. We removed whatever plants we had in order to sow tilo. But when we all had been reduced to planting tilo, the enterprise told us, ‘I will buy only 800 kg every two months’”

The Medicinal Plants Industry

143

(Juanilama, personal communication, August 2001). Yerbabuena added: “I believe that Manzate has new sources of supply. When there were just a few of us in the market, we had a good arrangement, and then we were promoted on TV and radio as great medicinal plant sellers. Now there are many women organized around medicinal plants. We were crushed by our promotion” (Yerbabuena, personal communication, August 2001). The expansion of the medicinal plants microenterprises as a poverty alleviation program has had the effect of organizing women’s groups all over the world to produce for the international market, and they are producing the same products for the same customers in North America and the European Union. NGOs and industry profit from this arrangement; the former receive high interest rates for their loans while the latter, almost for free, acquire products that will sell in the international market. The WID program, supposedly designed to contribute to women’s empowerment, ends up complementing the stabilization and structural adjustment programs that creditors forcibly imposed on indebted countries, to reduce labour costs and commodity prices. In the 2001 conversation, the group talked about their incomes. During July and August 2001, Juanilama sold 160 kg (the most in the group) and received US$393, while other members sold less than 50 kg and received US$98. The minimum wage in San José in 2001 was US$240 per month. With the exception of one member, these women were not earning even half the minimum wage. Comparing their incomes with the time spent on the production and maintenance of the medicinal plants (nine hours daily), it can readily be seen that a microenterprise that was supposed to alleviate poverty was, on the contrary, making subsistence producers destitute. Moreover, because they were producing for an international market, their land could not be used for their family’s needs. Therefore, the production of medicinal plants produced deprivation and hunger. Juanilama declared that she wished to plant food for her family but could not afford to do so because of her indebtedness to the NGOs. She stated, “I want to plant what I can eat. If I do not sell the product, at least I can eat. I cannot eat medicinal plants” (Juanilama, personal communication, August 2001). Menta remarked, “I am discouraged from producing tilo. Right now I am thinking about leaving the medicinal plant production to produce what I use in my daily life, because this job does not pay even my own labour” (Menta, personal communication, August 2001). They observed that when they used to work the

144

The “Greening” of Costa Rica

farms of their fathers and husbands, the land fed their families and built relationships throughout their communities. With the microenterprise, their families were hungry because the market did not return their labour investments; in addition, relationships with friends and families were damaged. When the conversation turned to the use value of medicinal plants, it became clear that the plants embodied their relationships. Naming the benefits the medicinal plants brought to their lives connected the women, generating a lively exchange and great communication. Members of the group who had not spoken previously entered the conversation. It brought memories of family members, grandmothers and mothers, times of sickness and happiness, scents and pleasures. The women recognized how their individual lives had been enriched because of their regular use of the plants and their ever-increasing knowledge. As Yerbabuena said: “Menta has been turned into the medicine plant doctor in the town. She has medicinal plants not only to sell them, but to alleviate and cure the ailments of the members of this community” (Yerbabuena, personal communication, August 2001). Menta recounted her experience: I turned the medicinal plant into a health issue because I was always sick. I had daily headaches. To cure myself, I began experimenting with my own health following the knowledge of the ancestors – and it worked. Since then, people call to ask for my advice when they or their children are sick. I get satisfaction when people feel well. For my wisdom sometimes I get paid. I would like to know more about natural medicine. [Laughing] My husband believes that the medicinal plants are making me crazy because now I want to be a nurse; he says that soon I may want to become a doctor.” (Menta, personal communication, August 2001)

The women laughed and, one by one, started to relate their accomplishments with medicinal plants. Most of them were using medicinal plants again, because they revaluated their knowledge system on a daily basis in their households, with their children and ill family members. These women knew that every plant was infused with unique properties that they used for healing. Speaking about the medicinal plant knowledge of their mothers and elders, they realized they possessed an entire knowledge system that had been made invisible and undesirable by a worldview that sees as backward rural women work’s to protect and conserve nature, work that sustains human life and ensures self-provision.

The Medicinal Plants Industry

145

When asked about their hopes for the group, Yerbabuena allowed that they might be living on illusions. But they had just learned about an offer from CNP that sparked their hopes for success with sustainable development: “Finally, we are going to use the old house, bought with ANDAR’s loan, paying 33% annual interest, as a processing plant to make tea, soap and shampoo. CNP has negotiated a donation from Fonde-Cooperación [funds from the Netherlands] to help the group build a feedback centre, and learn marketing techniques” (Yerbabuena, personal communication, August 2001). They were once again hanging their dreams on the idea that the wealth they were helping to produce would trickle down to them, in what Mies (Mies & Shiva, 1993) called “catching-up development” (p. 55). Development is upheld by the promise that women and all the colonized people at the bottom of the social pyramid will eventually reach the level of those on the top. The pressure for Costa Rica to increase its foreign-currency reserves in order to pay its external debt implies augmenting productivity or enlarging exports. Only by destroying nature and intensifying the exploitation of workers, however, are both of these goals achieved. Thus, the Abanico Project connected vulnerable local nature and local women to the international markets. But instead of improving their lives by helping them to develop true income-generating enterprises, these women were made even poorer. The project transferred their food production to the production of medicinal plants, greatly extended their hours of work, and paid them about one-tenth of the minimum wage. Lacking enough money to buy the food for their family’s subsistence, they became impoverished and indebted. Conclusion The Abanico Project case study indicates that sustainable development and Women in Development (WID) programs that purportedly promote equality by including women in the international market system have mixed results. When women integrated into the so-called sustainable development system, they became indebted and overworked, transferred their biomass and food production to the production of inedible export crops, and worked for less than the minimum wage. In sum, the exploitation of rural women’s working capacity increases exponentially, because competitiveness in poorly developed and indebted countries has become increasingly dependent on low-cost production. Moreover,

146

The “Greening” of Costa Rica

the Abanico Project also shows that women’s botanical knowledge has been valued through this “green” WID project, but in highly selective and commodified ways. As their knowledge and labour are translated from the social to the commodified sphere, women’s work is being accorded a very low monetary value, which neither compensates for the loss of subsistence production nor leads to unmitigated improvement of women’s position in society and the economy, since they must rely so heavily on their families for support, thus returning to patriarchal relations. The evidence therefore shows that women-oriented micro-credit projects fall short of goals for gender empowerment and instead they have become another instrument for the “greening” of Costa Rica.

8 Mining and the Dispossession of Resources and Livelihoods

Over time the concept of globalization was established as a kind of level playing field whereby corporations were allowed to operate beyond various legal, social, ecological, cultural, or national barriers. The focus of the discussion here is people’s resistance to mining in that context. Rural women, peasants, and Indigenous communities in Costa Rica have had little success in their efforts to get Canadian mining corporations to address basic concerns about the potential impact of mining projects and to recognize the right of such citizens to reject such projects. Therefore, these communities believe that civil unrest is the only option left to those who do not want mining in their areas. The consequent costs for local communities are high; they have to contend with national governments and international supporters, such as the World Bank, NGOs, federal laws, tribunals, and political parties. Since the 1992 Earth Summit, mining corporations have been unwaveringly supported by the United Nations, the UN Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean, the World Bank, the Global Mining Initiative, the Toronto Declaration (ICMM, 2005), and the IUCN and ICMM (IUCN & ICMM, 2003). But it was during the 2002 Johannesburg Earth Summit (Rio + Ten) that mining was officially deemed sustainable development, despite its fossil fuel-centred industrial model, which greatly contributes to global warming. Since colonial times, the natural concentration of mineral resources throughout the world has diminished in both quantity and quality. What remains are dispersed particles of low concentration, in areas that are rocky, icy, forested, and mountainous, making it difficult to extract using traditional mining methods and technologies. Open-pit mining is an inexpensive method for collecting what remains. Open-pit mining may

148

The “Greening” of Costa Rica

kill surface matter (e.g., forests, mountains, glacier covers) through the use of dynamite to remove surface soil, which increases soil erosion. This results in desertification, while the rivers and streams suffer increased sedimentation, which multiplies the possibility of floods. Open-pit mining also eliminates biological diversity (e.g., in flora, fauna, and microorganisms) and scars the landscape with giant craters. In fact, mining is a fundamentally unsustainable activity. It is based on the extraction of non-renewable concentrations of minerals formed over millions of years. Once extracted, the destruction is permanent. Use of the cyanide lixiviation technique in gold mining, in which the shattered rocks are combined with cyanide, poisons water resources, contaminates ecosystems, and pollutes the atmosphere, thereby affecting all life. This central part of the mining process has a shattering impact on communities close to mining operations; contaminated runoff continues to seep into the water, land, and air long after a mine closure. The devastation brought by the chemical cocktail is never the concern of governments and mining corporations. Environmental justice groups note that with the use of cyanide, open-pit gold mines have become the near equivalent of nuclear waste dumps that must be monitored and tended in perpetuity. Costa Rica’s Gold Belt Costa Rica has been portrayed by NGOs and governments in northern countries as a “poster child” for economic growth and environmentalism, in promotions for sustainable development presented to the indebted and maldeveloped world. However, inside the country this image is considered deceptive. Mining has pitted municipalities and communities against a national government that allows mining the industry to operate in its territory, despite its rhetoric of rejection. ACA-Tilaran, where WWF-C has headquarters, is called Costa Rica’s “gold belt,” owing to fairly large deposits of gold found there. The gold belt includes the towns of Montes de Aguacate, Cordillera de Tilaran, Libano, and Miramar in the district of Abangares. According to a former Canadian director of the WWF, Claude Tremblay, the ACATilaran Land Plan was based on the characteristics of the territory and its biophysical potential. The land plan provided some information about the area’s geological material and identified the limits of acceptable human intervention for the sustainability and the qualitative improvement of its natural resources (C. Tremblay, personal communication,

Earth Summit

149

July 1998). Thus, mining potential was part of the plan but agriculture was not. However, for generations, the livelihoods of women and men in the Miramar community have been based on agriculture. Forest and mountains provided rural communities with access to water, agriculture, and wildlife. Since WWF-C established its conservation project in ACA-Tilaran, several legal reforms opened the mining market under the direction of MINAE. By August 1996, MINAE had issued sixty-six mining permits that encroached on thirteen protected areas within ACA-Tilaran, including fourteen exploration permits expedited in two national parks (Arenal Volcano and Tenorio Volcano); fourteen exploration permits and one mining permit in four protected zones (ArenalMonteverde, Montes de Oro, Miravalles, and Las Tablas); twenty-four mining explorations in two Wildlife Refuges (Laguna de las Camelias and Corredor Fronterizo); three mines reopened in the wildlife refuges of Gandoca-Manzanillo; eight mining exploration permits in two Forestry Reserves (La Curena-Curenita and Cerro El Jardin); and two mining permits subsequently canceled in the Indigenous reserve of Guatuso (Torres, 2000). Since 1998, Canadian mining companies have been operating on the Pacific coast of Costa Rica: • Las Lilas Mining Project in Quebrada Grande de Liberia, the owner of Tierra Colorada S.A., a subsidiary of Barrick Gold • Mina Rio Chiquito de Tilaran, owned by Corporation Minerals Mallon S.A, a subsidiary of Canadian Mallon Minerals. Newmont Mining was also involved in exploring the property • Mina La Union, in La Union de Montes de Oro, owned by Minerales La Union S.A, a Canadian subsidiary • Mina Beta Vargas in La Pita de Chomes, Puntarenas and San Juan de Abangares-Guanacaste, owned by the subsidary Novontar S.A. of Lyon Lake Mines of Canada • Ariel Resources Ltd., in La Junta de Abangares. Ariel has a long history in Costa Rica and extracts gold through three subsidiaries: Mina Tres Hermanos, operated by el Valiente Ascari; Mina San Martin, operated by Mining of Sierra Alta S.A.; and Mina El Recio, operated by Minera Silencio S.A. • Crucitas Project Mining, located in Alajuela Province, Canton San Carlos, District of Cutris, 95 km north of Ciudad Quesada, owned by Vanessa Ventures Ltd., and operated by Industrias Infinito S.A.

150

The “Greening” of Costa Rica

As mining expanded to new areas in Puntarenas, Guanacaste, and Alajuela, women and men became alarmed and organized as a civil society on three fronts to defend themselves and their life support systems: the Pacific Regional Front of Opposition to Gold Mining, the Northern Front in Opposition to Open Pit Mining, and Miramar Front in Opposition to Mining. They identified mining as responsible for significant damage to the environment and health of local communities. Mining demands the deforestation of thousands of hectares and the removal of small farmers living off the land. In 1999, for instance, women and men in ACATilaran wrote a position paper in which they highlighted their concern with the inadequacies of MINAE and their distress with mining and the problems it had created. Their grievances included displacement from traditional ways of life and livelihood to give space to mining: “We were expelled from Rio Chiquito in Tilaran to make room for mining because they claimed that we were causing damage to flora and fauna, water and soil.” Also noted was the suffering of women, men, and children when water contamination forces them to migrate; grief and hardship from the opening of hollows in the soil where cattle fall and die; and disruption to their relationship with nature by the eliminationof recreation spaces, and the consequent growth in drug addiction, alcoholism, and prostitution. The position paper concluded by expressing incredulity about the promise of job creation and doubts that MINAE and its partner (WWFC) would be able to confront the ecological crisis while simultaneously supporting the mining industries. Their experiences had shown that the only outcomes were destruction and illusory benefits that disappeared immediately once the mine closed, they said. Further, Freddy Vargas (1995, pp. 7–8), a Costa Rican environmentalist, identified the following negative consequences of open-pit mining: • high levels of deforestation, as open-pit mining destroys the forest cover and removes surface soil; • loss of biological diversity (flora, fauna, and microorganisms); • elimination of the forest cover, which increases soil erosion and results in desertification, while sedimentation increases in the rivers and streams. This all contributes to the risk of flooding; • devastation of the scenery with the creation of giant craters; • contamination of ecosystems due to the use of cyanide and mercury, and poisoning of the water, thus of all life; and • atmospheric contamination due to the discharge of poisonous substances

Earth Summit

151

Opposition to Mining In August 2001, I interviewed sixteen members of Miramar Front in Opposition to Mining (Miramar Front) in Miramar City (see Chapter 3). Among them was Alexander Flores Aguero, a Costa Rican songwriter, who won the country’s traditional popular culture National award, by denouncing Wheaton River Minerals, and the government, in a widely popular song, El Gran Remate (The Big Auction). He asked me to “tell Canadians that here there is a town [Miramar] that struggles against the big powers.” Women and men from Miramar Front, a local organization, were at the forefront of efforts to secure clean water and maintain economic livelihoods. Sonia Torres, Marta Blanco, and Nuria Corrales were among the organizers of the Miramar Front to oppose Rayrock Inc., the first Canadian company to operate Bellavista Mining. Bellavista Mining is located two kilometres north of Miramar de Montes de Oro (or Miramar City), in Canton 4 in the province of Puntarenas. Miramar City is located beneath a mountain where the corporation had extensive logging operations. The community was understandably frightened about these activities and their impact. The project began with the cutting of more than five hundred trees, with the authorization of MINAE. Miramar Front, supported by other anti-mining groups, academics, and NGOs, evaluated the use of cyanide in lixiviation tanks. The group made public its concern on T-shirts produced by the Pacific Regional Front of Opposition to Gold Mining and was able to demonstrate the technical weaknesses of the project, that is, the technology and machinery in use could,

• pollute with cyanide twelve springs used for drinking water; • destroy 117 hectares of secondary forest (charral and tacotal) due to gas and heavy metal toxins; • spoil La Plata and Agua Buena mountain streams due to millions of tons of soil removal; • cause landslides that could deposit more than 35 million tons of material; • contaminate fish with heavy metals, causing cerebral damage and malformation in humans; and • cause an overflow of 1.2 million cubic litres of water contaminated with cyanide. (Miramar Front, 1999)

152

The “Greening” of Costa Rica

The evaluation also revealed that this project would destroy mangrove swamps around Gulf of Nicoya, which sustain more than fifty thousand people working in small artisan fisheries. The Gulf of Nicoya was the main source of sustenance and work for thousands of Costa Ricans, supplying fish and seafood, the main source of protein (Torres, 1999b). Further, because every resource would be polluted, these workers would be unable to engage in other activities, such as agriculture, cattle ranching, or tourism. Miramar Front reached far beyond the immediately affected communities when it was realized that groundwater contamination might destroy the Puntarenas Estuary and the Gulf of Nicoya. Following public concern expressed about these problems, the Rayrock Corporation sold the project in 1999 to another Canadian corporation, Wheaton River Minerals Limited (Torres, 1999, p. 2). This Toronto-based corporation was represented locally by two subsidiaries, Costa Rican Mining/Rio Minerales S.A. and Metales Procesados S.A. The Toronto company was granted a contract for exploration by MINAE and also received the approval of Secretaria Tecnica Nacional Ambiental (SETENA),1 a government body in charge of approving mining projects, which provides environmental impact assessments and establishes monetary guarantees. In addition, the corporation received special free zone status and was thus exempt from taxes for imports and exports, including profit remittance. According to Miramar Front, the government granted an even bigger area to the new owner of Bellavista Mining and made this information public: “The project covers an area of 172 hectares; 473 hectares are directly affected, while an area of 6,172 hectares, which includes the (Basin) Cuenca of Rio Ciruelas, is indirectly affected” (Torres, 1999, p. 2). The Wheaton River water authority requested 4.2 million litres of the community’s water monthly for the leaching operation; 30 cubic metres each hour for the mill; 50,000 cubic metres of treated water during construction and 30,000 cubic metres daily for eleven estimated years of operation (Torres, 1999). As Wheaton River Minerals initiated its operations in Bellavista Gold Mining, a full-fledged water war was waged because the mining operation forcibly disconnected local residents from the Montezuma I and Montezuma II freshwater springs. Defending the water and livelihood also united local communities and municipal governments for the first time. Historically, national and municipal governments had been committed to economic growth and capital accumulation and had worked together against villages or towns protecting their land and their livelihoods. Now a new kind of struggle was taking place, one in which municipalities and local communities were lined up together.

Earth Summit

153

For example, in October 1998, the Abangares municipality made an historical decision to oppose open-pit mining in defiance of the national government’s decision to expand mining (Resumenes de Actas, 1999). In a press release, the Abangares Council stated that it • opposed all mining – open-pit, tunnel, or gallery – in Abangares and in the entire country; • encouraged similar statements by other municipalities in Costa Rica; • authorized communities and members of the National Front in Opposition to Open-Pit Mining to release media communiqués; • approved the initiative to stop mining operations and to distribute it nationally and internationally; and • promoted an action plan to transform Abangares. (Resumenes de Actas, 1999) The decision of the Abangares municipality to listen to and support community initiatives for the protection of natural resources was extremely significant in that other local towns soon followed suit. One by one, municipalities that had experienced devastating mining activities gained courage and rejected mining in their territories. Since 1995, sixteen municipalities have fought fiercely against the destruction of the communities and the ecology of Costa Rica’s gold belt. Legal Intimidation and Court Struggles Canadian corporations responsible for mining in the region resorted to legal intimidation to stop the protests. In 1997, Sonia Torres was taken to court by Galaxie S.A., a subsidiary of Rayrock, then owner of Bellavista. Two of the corporation’s public relation workers accused Torres of defamation, for calling the individuals working for the corporation “bugs and microbes.” The case was deliberated in a Puntarenas courtroom. As the accusers were unable to prove any wrongdoing, the court gave Sonia Torres the benefit of the doubt (in dubio pro reo). In 2001, Wheaton River, through its subsidiary Rio Minerales, accused Marta Blanco, a teacher and municipal councillor, of defamation. In July 2001, she was brought to trial. Wheaton River, in alliance with three MINAE officials who assisted the mining corporation as witnesses, accused Marta Blanco of falsely claiming that thousands of trees had been cut down for the Wheaton River project. They accused her of making the claim publicly at an extraordinary municipal session on

154

The “Greening” of Costa Rica

18 September 2000. Blanco denied the accusations. Blanco stated that for years, “The mining company has been sending contracted individuals with tape recorders to every municipal meeting to intimidate the members. They pressure the municipality to keep silent about the problems they are creating. On the day of our meeting where garbage collection was discussed, an individual from the company was there.” She added: On one occasion, I said that huge open garbage collections are synonymous with the total destruction of nature because they cut down thousands of trees. For these words I was taken to court, despite the fact that I did not refer to the Wheaton River Minerals project. The company claims that I lied that it had cut down thousands of trees and, furthermore, that it operates with MINAE and SETENA permits; therefore, I was making false statements, since the project is operating legally. We went to an arbitration meeting at the Puntarenas Court. At the court the lawyer for the company told me that reconciliation consisted in my resignation from the municipal post. I made it explicit that my position was not going to change and that I was not going to resign. Such a reconciliation would be seen as a warning to the municipal office to stop speaking about their project. (M. Blanco, personal communication, August 2001)

Failing at court arbitration, the corporation took Marta Blanco to court. In October 2001, the Puntarenas court, under Judge Antonio Rodriguez Rescia, declared Marta responsible for defamation of the juridical person of Rios Minerales S.A. and ordered the following sentence: payment of 50,000 colones (Can$240) (a fine of 1,000 colones a day for fifty days) and publication of her sentence on a half-page of a daily newspaper (Can$250). The president and general manager of the corporation requested 500,000 colones (Can$2,402) as payment for defamation and 75,000 colones for legal and procedural fees (Can$360). The total request was Can$3,250. Marta Blanco, with the support of the Miramar municipality, the Miramar Front, and the Miramar Natural Resources Defence Group, appealed to the Tribunal of Casacion Penal,2 Segundo Circuito Judicial, in San José. On 1 March 2002, Judges Javier Llobet Rodríguez, Fernando Cruz Castro, and Rafael Sanabria Rojas overturned the previous verdict. The court found no evidence for the mining company’s accusation of animus injuriandi. Instead, the judge stated: This project of mining exploitation has aroused tensions in the Miramar community, where some groups and civil organizations supported Rio Minerales S.A. in Bellavista, while other important sectors of the

Earth Summit

155

population opposed it. This confrontation has transcended Miramar and has become public knowledge in Costa Rica through public discussions in diverse newspapers and radio shows, such as Radioperiódicos Colombia, [and the] newspapers El Heraldo, Al Día, Eco-Catolico, La Republica, the University, Radio Monumental, Radio Reloj, Telenoticias de Canal Siete, Radio Santa Clara. (Marta Blanco v. Rios Minerales S.A., 2002)

The court determined there was a lack of grounds for the corporation to accuse Marta Blanco who, as a municipal councillor, was only carrying out her responsibilities and exercising her right to defend the environment. Consequently, the court quashed the sentence. Between 2004 and 2005, despite the intense participation of community members in protests to preserve the commons, the commoners’ rights were violated. In 2005, Wheaton River Minerals, ignoring solid opposition, initiated operations. But this action fuelled continued struggle, and Wheaton sold Bellavista Mining to Glencairn Gold Corporation, another Canadian mining company. This corporation operated Bellavista Mining for two years without interruption. In October 2006, Glencairn Gold Corporation realized that the metal structure of the processing plant was showing damage in an area of three square kilometres. In July 2007, the corporation suspended its operations, and on 22 October 2007, at five in the morning, the processing plant collapsed into the lixiviation lagoon (Figure 8.1) (E. Ramirez, 2009; Torres, 2007).

Figure 8.1 Bellavista Mining processing plant collapsed over the lixiviation lagoon in Miramar.

156

The “Greening” of Costa Rica

Miramar women and their supporters were outraged because the water system, the source of their livelihood, had become contaminated. They were even more furious when Glencairn Gold Corporation avoided paying for the urgent actions needed to control the sliding of the mining infrastructure into the mountain by changing its name to Central Sun Mining Inc. (Glencairn Gold Corporation, 2007). The current owner is B2Gold Corporation, a Vancouver gold producer. In May 2009, the author visited the collapsed mining area with Sonia Torres, Nuria Corrales, and Marta Blanco, members of Miramar Front in Opposition to Mining. Torres said that “the corner where the [landslide] occurred shut down the gold recuperation plant area, a lab and storage areas. But several other slides threaten the infrastructure. … [The] mountain is moving downhill and we can observe holes and cracks along the public street surrounding the west side of the slag heap (escombrera)” (S. Torres, personal communication, August 2009). The collapse at the mine site, with the building falling into the mountain, was exactly what horrified communities had foreseen. Nuria Corrales, a municipal councillor in Miramar, said, “The disaster demonstrated the state’s inability to attend to an environmental crisis predicted by the community. Further, the catastrophe shows how unprepared the state is to confront impending health problems” (N. Corrales, personal communication, August 2009). Marta Blanco, the ex-municipal councillor, said, “If I have to go back to the courts in order to confront these criminals, I will be happy to do so” (M. Blanco, personal communication, August 2009). In 2009, the Miramar community was struggling to get an independent water analysis. The struggle for clean water and livelihood continued to rage until mid-2009, and it has gained national and international attention and sympathy. The anti-mining campaign reached across borders, involving democratic forces around the world in a truly globalized campaign against the worst aspects of the transnational forces of globalization. Mining and the Environment Open-pit mining demolishes mountains, contaminates water systems, reconfigures local subsistence economies, destroys local farming and related activities, expropriates water, energy, and air, and intimidates and harasses women. Resistance by communities affected by mining evolved on the streets and in the courtroom. Mining companies operate in Costa Rica with the support of the Canadian and Costa Rican governments, and of the international community. Since mining projects are harmful

Earth Summit

157

to nature and people, mining project approvals have been kept secret from the local communities as well as from the international public. Given the centralized decision-making that prevails in Costa Rica, the mining companies and their supporters use the law and the public sector to expedite administrative processes and to intimidate or threaten local community activists. This approach has angered the local communities and local municipalities that have been burdened with ill health and degraded environments. Local women and men have shown that sustainable development politics are not separate from subsistence and everyday life. By confronting corporate harassment and court actions, women and men opposed to mining have empowered and united citizens and local municipalities against mining corporations. The number of local anti-mining groups that emerged within the context of this conflict demonstrates the popularity of community opposition and resistance. As a result of community activism, several mining projects have been stalled and local opposition to mining won a case on the courts and stopped Crucitas Mining. On 24 November, 2010, the Alajuela court cancelled the contract of Industrias Infinito S.A. in Crucitas, and the decision was upheld by the Supreme Court in 2011. Confirmation of bringing the dispute to the International Centre for Settlement and Investment Disputes was issued by Vanessa Ventures Ltd. (Fornaguera, 2014). Conclusion This chapter has shown Canadian open-pit mining operations to be some of the most violent neoliberal political ecology projects taking place in Costa Rica. Supported by the “green” economics of sustainable development, the Canadian mining industry expropriated nature and destroyed the subsistence livelihoods in Miramar. In a neoliberal deregulated framework, there is no community right to reject mining investments. When rural communities refuse to become stakeholders in what they perceive as the plunder of their Indigenous lands and resources, mining establishments have used different strategies to harass local community members opposed to mining. In Miramar, one of these instruments has been the use of legal intimidation through the courts. It also shows how resisters have successfully engendered a core nucleus of opposition. Since 1996, several opposition fronts have emerged and, as one example, initiated a campaign against Bellavista Mining when rural women and men realized that the water and energy used by mining corporations was the same water and energy expropriated from their subsistence production, resulting in destroyed economies.

9 The “Greening” of Capitalism

The three linked UN Conferences on Environment and Development proposed the sustainable development model of “green capitalism” as a means to defuse the ecological (climate change) and social (poverty) crises currently experienced throughout the world. This book has examined the societal and economic consequences of this economic development approach. Touted as a means to confront climate change and eliminate poverty, policies based on this model have actually destroyed the livelihoods of peasants and Indigenous peoples as well as formulated a new kind of domination. This section, first, reflects the broadening of the greening through the implementation of sustainable development as conceived at the Earth Summit in 1992 that developed Plan Puebla Panama (PPP) in Central America and the Earth Summit in 2002 that prepared Iniciativa para la Integración de la Infraestructura Regional Sudamericana (IIRSA) (The South American Regional Infrastructure Integration Initiative). Second, it integrates the Arenal Conservation Area-Tilaran (ACA-Tilaran), developed in Costa Rica, when governments assumed responsibility for organizing sustainable development into the large agenda of Plan Puebla Panama (PPP), also called the Mesoamerican Biological Corridor, regarded as the principal initiative of sustainable development (World Bank, 2003). In documenting the practices of non-governmental organizations (NGOs), such as the World Wild Life Fund–Canada (WWF-C), Instituto Nacional de Biodiversidad (INBio) (the Costa Rican National Biodiversity Institute), and the ANDAR Association, this research challenges claims that debt-for-nature exchanges and sustainable development reduce poverty, create equality, confront ecological destruction, and combat climate change. Instead, market-based solutions for these kinds of problems have been inadequate.

The “Greening” of Capitalism

159

Sustainable Development At the 1992 Rio Summit, development and environment were first linked together in Agenda 21, a plan of action negotiated by governments. Sustainable development was equated with economic growth. This growth was to be ensured by a globalization of the economy that purportedly would rescue poor countries from their poverty, even in the most remote areas of the world (Pearce & Warford, 1993). In Central America, arising from Agenda 21, the PPP was regarded as the principal initiative of sustainable development (World Bank, 2003). It was proposed and accepted by the eight governments of Central America (Mexico, Guatemala, Belize, El Salvador, Honduras, Nicaragua, Costa Rica, and Panama). PPP involves an area of 1,026,117 square kilometres and 62,830,000 inhabitants, and it is supposedly aimed at poverty reduction and environmental reparation. The World Bank presents the PPP as an environmental project aimed at identifying and quantifying the biodiversity of the area and organizing biological corridors. These corridors are paths within countries where wildlife are expected to remain confined. As a form of poverty reduction, Kristalina Georgieva, Director of Environment, at the World Bank, declared that the PPP was necessary as “there are over 45 million people in the region, of which 60% live on less than $2 a day” (World Bank, 2003). Poverty, defined as the absence of western consumption patterns, cash incomes, and industrialization (Mies & Shiva, 1993), was thus the excuse for the new assault on Central Americans. Since most of the resources that represent power and wealth for industry are located in the rainforest of the South, the Earth Summits promoted full corporate capture of them. PPP has had several policy initiatives: road and highway integration, human development, hydroelectric production, promotion of ecotourism, partnerships for sustainable development, prevention and mitigation of disasters, building of functional customs houses, and development of a telecommunications network. As presented, the PPP complemented neoliberal programs for privatizing public resources, such as water, energy, scenery, and public services, coupled with the expansion of commercial markets, highways and transport infrastructures, dams, direct investments in maquiladoras (sweatshops), and transnational businesses (Ornelas, 2003). Corporations found backers in indebted national governments to guarantee free access to the local nature. For women and men who depend on

160

The “Greening” of Costa Rica

the local commons, this full bore assault on their surroundings means the loss of dignity and independence, security, livelihood, health, and, sometimes loss of life. The Earth Summit Rio + Ten, held in Johannesburg in 2002, marked the ten-year anniversary of the original Earth Summit in Rio. In Johannesburg, responsibility for sustainable development was transferred from governments to corporations and their shareholders (UN Department of Economic and Social Affairs Division for Sustainable Development, 2006). A preference for voluntary approaches instead of government regulation was an outcome of this Summit. This voluntary approach actually furthers privatization under the umbrella of sustainable development. The justification for this approach was that government actions during the preceding ten years had been so inadequate that by encouraging voluntary partnership initiatives that promote the inclusion of private and civil actors in the management of sustainable development, Type II outcomes1 might bring new impetus to the implementation of the various commitments (Hale & Mauzerall, 2003). During the Johannesburg gathering, mining qualified as sustainable development (World Conservation Union, 2003), despite its fossil fuel-centred industrial model that greatly contributes to global warming. When responsibility for sustainable development was transferred to corporations and their shareholders in South America, another set of infrastructures for sustainable development was established before and shortly after the Johannesburg Summit. Iniciativa para la Integración de la Infraestructura Regional Sudamericana (IIRSA) (The South American Regional Infrastructure Integration Initiative) is the sustainable development program for South America. With the help of the Inter-American Development Bank (IADB) and the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development (IBRD), the IIRSA was created in 2000. The IIRSA project trapped Amazonia in the middle of multiple capitalist appetites. It is an area of nearly 8.2 million square kilometres of natural resources, distributed among eight countries: Bolivia, Brazil, Colombia, Ecuador, Guyana, Peru, Suriname, and Venezuela. Twelve South American presidents met in Brasilia under the auspices of Brazil and the protection of the IADB, the Cooperación Andina de Fomento (CAF), the European Investment Bank (EIB), the Banco Nacional de Desarrollo Económico y Social de Brazil (BNDS), the Financial Fund for the Development of the Plate Basin (FONPLATA), and other international financial institutions (IFIs) to discuss credits for governments interested in the construction of large sustainable development projects, such as infrastructure for ports,

The “Greening” of Capitalism

161

airports, highways, hydroelectrical systems, railways, and gas pipelines (Isla, 2013). Moreover, Rio+20, held over three days in June 2012, saw full implementation of corporate capture of the Summit meeting. By replacing nature’s commons with a privatized expansion of natural capital, socalled green capitalism provides nothing more than support for continued economic growth at the expense of the ecology and peoples around the world. In Rio 2012, the fictitious market, which has been organized for a long time to issue commercial papers for speculation, was uncovered. Green business proposed to save capitalism from its economic crisis by pricing on the stock exchange the services that nature offers such as the capacity of the forest to absorb CO2. These practices have already been transforming the water we drink, the biodiversity we eat, and the air we breathe, into paper money. The term green capitalism includes all the present intensification of capitalism. Green capitalism prioritizes a model of multinational corporations engaged in enormous projects, which are beneficiaries of governments’ cheap credit, but with costs for the environment and people that are almost beyond calculation. As governments and corporations seek to expand the economic growth of globalized capitalist accumulation by appropriating the everyday commons of women, households, Indigenous peoples and peasants in Central and South America, new levels of poverty and environmental crises are building in those regions. Nevertheless, a new movement based on ecology, gender, class and ethnicity focused on the use of ecological resources for livelihood, has been emerging. PPP in Mexico and IIRSA in Peru The future of the planet’s ecology is dependent on a change in how humanity interacts with the natural systems that sustain us, but change cannot occur when the same factors that have caused the crises in the first place are repeatedly reproduced. As a result, resistance is building among local communities, Indigenous people, peasants, and women who wish to continue with the time-tested ways of life that depend on keeping their land in coexistence with non-human life. In Mexico, for example, an intensive militarization of southern Mexico started with the Zapatista uprising. On January 1, 1994, the Ejercito Zapatista de Liberacion Nacional (EZLN), declared war on the Mexican federal government by occupying seven municipalities/cities in Chiapas. Indigenous peoples know that they have no other recourse to

162

The “Greening” of Costa Rica

resist state and international development except through direct action. For the Zapatistas, therefore, this declaration of war was a last resort against misery, exploitation and racism. To break their courage, Indigenous communities that resist are confronted with paramilitary organizations in alliance with the regular army, rich landowners, and drug lords (narcotraficos) (Perez, 2003). Further, Salazar Perez (2003) argues that the Central America PPP is connected first, to Plan Colombia, established in 2000 ostensibly to curb drug smuggling and guerrilla insurgency, which has displaced more than 500,000 rural people, mostly Afro-Colombians and Indigenous populations; and second, Plan Dignity in Chapare, Bolivia, initiated in 1998, apparently to eradicate coca production. Plan Dignity involves the building of three new military bases with US assistance. Local residents and many human rights groups are bitterly opposed to it. The three plans (Plan Puebla Panama, Plan Colombia, and Plan Dignity) declare the same objectives: strengthening democracy, poverty reduction, anti-drug efforts, elimination of drug trafficking, sustainable development, and assistance to the US anti-terrorism struggle. In support of PPP, some politicians and corporations have engaged in counterinsurgency practices, stirring up paramilitaries to attack civilians. The impact on the lives of rural women is significant. Women in the south of Mexico, for example, because of the threat of rape by soldiers, are unable to work and are forced to remain in their homes. In the northern part of Mexico, women’s transition from farm women to independent maquila workers continues to exact a high price. In Ciudad Juarez, on the Mexico-US border, thousands of women working in maquiladoras have been kidnapped, raped, and murdered, with seeming impunity (Morfin Otero, 2009). Mexico’s Indigenous communities are forging an international campaign of hermanamiento (sisterhood and brotherhood). The goal is to establish a permanent physical presence of individuals, organizations, and universities in the areas threatened by sustainable development. They believe that an international presence will force the democratization of their societies and will support their collective rights to land integrity. On the other hand, Brazil’s IIRSA plans see Peru as a transit country and a distribution centre for oil, biofuel monoculture, biotechnology and ecotourism for multinational corporations. The Peruvian government and elites are interested in developing monoculture and cattle ranching projects along the railway lines promoted by the ideology of

The “Greening” of Capitalism

163

sustainable development. Peru has seventy-eight projects in the package of infrastructure investments, which have increased its external debt. By reshaping the country to serve the demands of the world market, IIRSA will threaten the subsistence economies, societies, and environment of Peru and the rest of South America. As forest land is seized, unknown impacts are experienced and social conflicts increase. In Peru’s Defensoría del Pueblo (a federal public defender agency), the office of Prevention of Conflicts and Governability argued that economic growth linked to resource exploitation near or within community common land has been producing struggles. It indicated that in 2009 the absolute majority of conflicts (128 cases) were socioenvironmentally related to activities, such as mining, hydroelectric generation, gas pipeline, oil production, and forest concessions (Peru, Defensoría del Pueblo, 2010). Each month had seen between 10 and 15 new conflicts. In June 2009, there were 273 registered social conflicts, 226 active, 14 new cases, and only 2 were resolved (Mendoza, 2009). In Bagua, in 2009, Indigenous people rose in defence of their territories as common land and as eco-sufficient. Their subsistence perspective, based on millennia-old simple and practical knowledge, has conserved healthy forests, wildlife, biodiversity, and their society. Their Indigenous subsistence perspective has led to abundance, sufficiency, security, a good life, preservation of the economic and ecological base, and cultural and biological diversity. Resistance has come at great cost. The Garcia administration shot them from helicopters and persecuted their leaders (Isla, 2009). In sum, to promote the global commons and global integration, the Earth Summits have globalized the right of those in power to exploit local communities, ecologies, bodies, and cultures. Plan Puebla Panama (PPP) in Central America, and IIRSA in South America, further revealed the neocolonial relations of sustainable development. In both cases, PPP and IIRSA made clear connection between global capitalism, global patriarchy, and global nature and the fact that green capitalism cannot be expanded without the direct intervention of the nation state. This approach does nothing to stop poverty or climate change due to the destruction of nature. Fortunately, local struggles in Central and South America have reached across borders, involving activists around the world in a truly globalized campaign against the worst aspects of sustainable development and green capitalism. What follows are the results of my findings, where I have shown that the political ecology

164

The “Greening” of Costa Rica

of sustainable development has revived and reinforced colonization, dispossession, and patriarchy. Debt and the Plan Puebla Panama In the aftermath of the 1980s debt crisis, the Costa Rican state became accountable to an ascending neoliberal political economy through the international financial system, and legally bound to the World Bank and the IMF through respective Stabilization and Structural Adjustment Programmes (SSAPs). The debt crisis also made Costa Rica accountable to the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) and the WWF. These essentially political institutions have sold the ideology that debt-for-nature exchange is a conservation instrument that can be applied to all indebted ecologies in the world. To expand the price system and control indebted countries resources, several of them were included in debt-for-nature during the 1990s. Table 9.1 tells the story of debt-for-nature exchanges in the indebted Latin America countries. Pervaze Sheikh (2007) wrote a report for members and committees of the US Congress on debt-for-nature swaps: In the early 1990s, the United States restructured, and in one case sold, debt equivalent to a face value of nearly $1 billion owed by Latin American countries; these transactions were authorized by Congress as part of the Enterprise for the Americas Initiative (EAI), which broadened the scope of debt swaps to include a number of social goals. … The model for debt-for-nature initiatives, outlined in the EAI, was expanded in the Tropical Forest Conservation Act (TFCA) to include countries around the world with tropical forests. Under this program, debt can be restructured in eligible countries, and funds generated from the transactions are used to support programs to conserve tropical forests within the debtor country. Since 1998, $95.2 million has been used under the TFCA to restructure loan agreements in 12 countries, and nearly $162.5 million in local currency will be generated in the next 12-26 years for tropical forest conservation projects. (Sheikh, 2007, p. 2)

The political ecology of sustainable development model prioritizes NGOs engaged in debt-for-nature swaps. With backing from creditor governments, the IMF and the World Bank enforced debt-fornature swaps, which were put into practice by environmental nongovernmental organizations (ENGOs).

The “Greening” of Capitalism

165

Table 9.1 US-Bilateral Debt-for-Nature Transactions under the Enterprise for the Americas Initiative (US$, in 000s) Face Value Reduction

Face Value of Debt

Funds Generated

Duration in Years

Country

Year

Bolivia

1991

30,700

38,400

21,800

El Salvador

1992

463,300

613,000

41,200

20

Uruguay

1992

3,700

34,400

7,030

15

Colombia

1992

31,000

310,000

41,600

10

Chile

1991&92

31,000

186,000

18,700

10

Jamaica

1991&93

311,000

406,000

21,500

19

Argentina

1993

3,800

38,100

3,100

14

Peru

1998

120,000

177,000

22,840

n/a

993,998

1,803,300

177,770

Total

15

Source: U.S. Department of Treasury, “The Operation of the Enterprise for the Americas Facility and the Tropical Forest Conservation Act, Report to Congress,” March 2001, in Sheikh, 2007, p. 11.

The Costa Rican example has been shown as a model to other countries in Central and South America. As noted in Chapter 2, the WWF-C director said that ACA-Tilaran intended to establish a model of environmental management that could be reproduced in other conservation areas and around the world (C. Tremblay, personal interview, July 1998). As a result, for example, Costa Rica’s ecology has been fully coordinated with its economy, in the form of so-called green capitalism. In indebted countries, expansion of natural and human capital through the financial market economy was offered as the highest organizing principle for dealing with the economic (debt) and environmental (nature) crises. Instead, the example of Costa Rica shows that the debt-for-nature exchanges have created enormous capital accumulation not only for the creditor countries but also for their NGOs and agencies. Political Ecology: The Greening of Costa Rica Costa Rica, as an indebted state, has been touted as the model for other countries in Central and South America. Since 1992, it has been held up worldwide as an example of conservation efforts, forcing Costa

166

The “Greening” of Costa Rica

Rica’s governments, under presidents Calderon Fournier (1990–1994), Figueres Olsen (1994–1998), Rodriguez Echevarría (1998–2002), Abel Pacheco (2002–2006), Oscar Arias (2006–2010), and Laura Chinchilla (2010–2014), to create manifold discourses that attempted to override and hide the negative consequences for many Costa Ricans. Internationally, these governments have been promoting Costa Rica as • a wild area: “More than 28 per cent of national territory is protected as wild areas” (“Mas del 28 por ciento del territorio nacional son areas silvestres protegidas”); they did not say protected for biopiracy to expropriate peasants and Indigenous people’s knowledge; • a “green country” (pais verde); they did not say that land was confiscated without payment to the peasants and is green with monoculture plantations, so as to make forests into carbon sinks, that is, absorbers of carbon dioxide and other hazardous gases; • “without artificial ingredients” (sin ingredientes artificiales); they did not say that women and children are sold for ecotourism; • a country “at peace with nature” (paz con la naturaleza); they did not mention environmental damage from open-pit mining Costa Rica followed the “greening” of the political ecology designed by its creditors to provide access to its resources by corporations, who still depend on nation states and ruling elites. They cannot expand their operations without the direct intervention of the nation state over local inhabitants and their nature. The role of the Costa Rican state has been to establish in the Third World the concept of conservation areas as a way to connect nature and labour to the international power relations of creditors. The country’s ruling elites placed nature and labour on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE): the heritage of Costa Rica’s commons, biomass, and labour now depend on the rise and fall of prices in the international market, in other words, on speculation. The 1992 Earth Summit gave the World Bank the power to advance a set of prescriptions designed to manage corporate globalization in which, among other things, ENGOs and corporations work in partnership in indebted countries. In response, the Costa Rican state has: • licensed the NGOs’ managerialism, which empowered international functionaries to broker the indebted country’s resources with large

The “Greening” of Capitalism

167

corporations involved in economic restructuring and globalization. NGOs went from occupying one office with one officer to employing hundreds, and were able to mobilize a significant arsenal of institutional resources and economic clout in the political sphere to make their countries of origin the godfathers (see Introduction) of captured conservation areas; • created MINAE to expand the parameters for economic growth and impose a technically more intense mode of ecological dispossession on its citizens. MINAE allowed land enclosure, and dismemberment of its territory through conservation areas via the enclosure and preservation of 28% of the national territory for profit. This resulted in Costa Rica’s loss of territorial control over biomass and productive land; • acceded to requests demands to enclose the people’s commons for the sake of “conservation,” producing the following effects: the loss of knowledge systems; the opening of recreation areas to those who can pay; the surrendering of skills for agricultural production and food security; the disengagement of livelihoods, biodiversity, and women’s dignity; the theft of farmland and pollution of clean drinking water; and a disregard for women’s work in subsistence and community activities; and, • created conditions to benefit business and the banking system, as Costa Rica’s external debt increased. As a result, Costa Rica’s territory and biomass have biologically simplified and fragmented. The “greening” meant the transfer of resources from the new nature, the opening of new markets in common areas for the so-called service-oriented economy, the dispossession of labour, and the loss of livelihood through resource destruction. Further, A. Carstens maintains that in 2004, Costa Rica’s exports represented around 50% of GDP, compared to 30% in 1980; the service sector’s share of GDP increased by 50%; tourism accounted for one-sixth of total exports, while agricultural production accounted for just over 8% of GDP (Carstens, 2004). According to the World Bank, employment in agriculture decreased from 15.2% in 2005 to 13.2% in 2007 (World Bank, 2012), and Costa Rica’s external debt grew from $2,744 billion in 1980 to nearly $10.3 billion in 2011 (World Bank, 2013). The growing foreign debt is the best way to trap forested countries with debt-for-nature transactions under Tropical Forest Conservation Act (TFCA) (Sheikh, 2010, p. 14).

168

The “Greening” of Costa Rica

The Greening of Debt Debt-for-nature as sustainable development was also a massive experiment in revenue generation management that served to transfer wealth from indebted Costa Rican land, biomass, and labour to NGOs. Neoliberal politics encourages large NGOs to think of themselves as shareholders of globalized capital. This scheme assigns a particular role to corporate ENGOs, the adoption of a political stance beyond class struggle, gender oppression, colonialism, and imperialism. The political ecology of the sustainable development model prioritizes big ENGOs with sponsored megaprojects that are the beneficiaries of agreements with governments. These projects, though, have high costs for the environment and society. The role of ENGOs is to establish the monetary values of genes, scenery, forests, mountains, and medicinal plants, and to export these values to the stock market. When environmentalism is embedded into a neoliberal framework, it is directed towards the process of linking nature with international markets. My research has shown that the Canada-Costa Rica debt-for-nature program has financially benefited three ENGOs. First, the World Wildlife Fund-Canada, acting as co-manager of the Arenal-Tilaran Conservation Area (ACA-Tilaran) with MINAE, designed a Land Plan to restructure the socio-economic-nature relations to allow the transfer of territories, biomass, and labour to big capital, by splitting territories and communities, enclosing peasants’and Indigenous people’s subsistence ecologies and knowledge, which have the capacity to produce and reproduce outside the market. They also offered a rationalization to big capital by presenting biotechnology as a science aimed at identifying and quantifying genes; presented ecotourism as a world of leisure, freedom, good taste, and risk-free for those with money to spend; and offered the rainforest as the storage place for carbon sinks. Moreover, they opened the door to mining and mineral corporations by supporting the mining industry as sustainable development, despite the fact that it is based on the extraction of non-renewable concentrations created over millions of years. Once extracted, the destruction is permanent; for instance, the cyanide lixiviation technique contaminates permanently, as it continues to leach onto land, water, and air. The costs are always borne by the locals. The ENGOs also controlled popular dissent to delegitimize any resistance, externally by nominating Costa Rica for international prizes as a green state at the Rio Conference in 1992, and internally by empowering

The “Greening” of Capitalism

169

park rangers to stop “intruders,” as community members have been renamed, in the conservation areas. Second, the National Biodiversity Institute’s (INBio’s) conservation scheme transformed conservation areas into reservoirs of material resources to be exploited and turned into profit through bioprospecting, biotechnology, and intellectual property rights. INBio has become an instrument of dispossession. It threatens the survival of rural women, peasants, and Indigenous people who, in the past, have survived because of the very expertise in biodiversity INBio seeks to appropriate. Through INBio, Western science transformed nature’s bounty into commodities of global economic value. Bioprospectors enjoy jurisdiction over the inventory, prospecting, and commercialization of biodiversity, and the legal framework known as intellectual property rights has been extended to mainstream researchers, mainly biologists, to encompass the expropriation of genetic material and traditional knowledge. Moreover, INBio has received international awards, such as the Prince of Asturias award from Spain, in 1995. ANDAR de Costa Rica similarly benefited from the NetherlandsCosta Rica debt-for-nature program. ANDAR developed a Woman in Development (WID) program, which in Abanico carried out a microcredit program supposedly to reduce gender disparities and poverty by increasing the participation of women in economic development. Instead the microenterprise program remade medicinal plants and women, as well as their products. Translated to the market, medicinal plants lost their biological power and became a source of women’s exploitation. The program also resulted in women becoming indebted, extending their working time, transferring their biomass and food production to the production of medicinal plants, and working for much less than the minimum wage, worsening their working and social conditions. In addition, it connected vulnerable local nature and local women to the international markets and the world economy for capital accumulation. These three ENGOs have quite successfully integrated Costa Rica’s nature and labour with corporate globalization. As a result of the revenue generation, ENGOs have increased their budgets, the number of their workers, and their power in the political ecology of the political economy. Furthermore, debt-for-nature exchanges opened doors for new NGO agreements. On 18 November 2009, the Costa Rica Forever Association, organized by four US nonprofit private organizations – the Nature

170

The “Greening” of Costa Rica

Conservancy, the Linden Trust for Conservation, the Gordon & Betty Moore Foundation, and the Walton Family Foundation, was set up to administer trust and equity funds for conservation in Costa Rica, such as debt-for-nature fund (http://costaricaporsiempre.org/en/the -actors.aspx). In July 2010, Sistema Nacional de Areas de Conservacion (SINAC) and the Costa Rica Forever Association signed a five-year cooperation agreement (SINAC & Forever, 2009). It reads: “The objective of this agreement is to establish the commitments of mutual cooperation between SINAC and the Association [Forever Costa Rica] for the fulfilment of the Global Goals of Conservation of Costa Rica in the frame of the Program of Work of Protected Areas [of the United Nations Biological Diversity Convention] by means of implementation and monitoring the Annual Plans of Work” (p. 3). A better reading of this agreement shows that SINAC drew up a contract that facilitates delivery to the Costa Rica Forever Association of the intellectual property rights on research and other studies to be carried out in the protected wild areas, whether or not these are national parks. Again, this agreement that is “meant to support SINAC’s activities” shifts costs to peasants, Indigenous people, future generations, and other species. Therefore, it is a false solution to the climate crisis. In addition, debt-for-nature funds gathered by the Costa Rica Forever Association might accumulate yields on Wall Street. The current president and chief executive officer of the Nature Conservancy and the president of the Linden Trust for Conservation worked for Goldman Sachs. But the principal amount of the debt-for-nature funds will be used to accumulate wealth for the NGOs, consequently expanding the number of associate creditors involved in the ecological indebtedness owed by the North to the South already denounced at the Earth Summit in 1992 by those who signed the Debt Treaty (Debt Treaty, 1992). The “Global Commons” An economy based on services opened new markets for trade based on the knowledge of peasants and Indigenous people, specifically the valorization process dominated by patents, as well as the immaterial world, e.g., air and scenery. In the Arenal-Tilaran Conservation Area, WWF-C disassembled the natural commons and enclosed 250,000 hectares of land on which many people depended for their livelihood. To serve a global market machine, the commons – genes, scenery, forests,

The “Greening” of Capitalism

171

medicinal plants, and mountains – were renamed as natural capital and transformed in paper money. Meanwhile, without access to their livelihoods, the commoners became criminalized, objectified, and indebted. My research in ACA-Tilaran has shown the following results of this process Privatization of biodiversity. The enclosure of genetic material for economic prospecting has transformed biological organisms into resources for scientific research and appropriated local knowledge of native plants and animals. Privatized knowledge systems are supported by intellectual property rights, controlling how that knowledge can be used, but they ignore where peasant and Indigenous knowledge originates: in holistic, renewing relationships with nature, and from visions, dreams, and sacred beings. Such knowledge cannot be reduced to an assemblage of accumulated information. Privatization of the forest. Forests of indebted countries have been redefined as carbon sinks. At present, forests in Costa Rica have been transformed into monoculture plantations. This situation has produced a crisis of nature, because these trees need massive amounts of agrochemicals and do not reproduce. Since the industrial world is not held responsible for mitigating its own levels of emissions, this type of solution allows the industrial world to continue polluting as long as it can purchase carbon credits from indebted rainforest-dense countries. Privatization of scenery. The consumption of scenery and culture, which involves a high volume of movement of people over long distances, has had a violent impact on vulnerable people, species, and their habitats as the construction of hotels and cabins expands deforestation. It has transformed sites of local agriculture into recreation areas and mutated residents from agricultural workers into service providers. This service industry established internal boundaries separating local people from the volcanoes, waterfalls, rivers, hot springs, and havens for wildlife they had shared, making the sex trade virtually the only way left for women and children to earn a living. Destruction of spaces and water resources by open-pit mining. Deep holes in the soil have been opened sometimes to remove entire mountains, with the aim of finding rocks containing gold, silver, and other minerals and metals. The shattered rocks, when combined with a cyanide and water mixture to remove the gold, destroy ecological cycles and contaminate ecosystems, poison hydro resources, pollute the atmosphere through the release of poisonous substances, and thereby affect all life. This activity destroys the conditions necessary for peasants’

172

The “Greening” of Costa Rica

subsistence survival because it eliminates the productivity of agricultural land. Creation of indebtedness. Women’s work in cultivating and caring for medicinal plants has added to their impoverishment. Such work has proven to be one more example of invisible, unpaid, and unrecognized labour, such as child care, home care, elder care, and community care. Women engaged in this project not only produce under high levels of exploitation but also become indebted to NGOs. Further, the focus on monoculture means they are losing the traditional wisdom of their healers and knowledge of the curative capacities of their ecosystems. Conclusion This book has shown concrete connections between political economy and political ecology, the global and the local, people and nature, and state and citizenship. It has uncovered the creation of a new form of capital accumulation, which I call “greening.” This concept represents a new form of exchange value based on biological forms and processes such as genetics and medicinal plants (bio-products), air and scenery (non-material commons), and water (material commons), which, when facilitated by debt-for-nature, is inserted into many forms of international market relations. It also represents the final step of dispossession and privatization of the commons. This “greening” results in the enclosure of collective knowledge and public commons within conservation areas. The rise of reductionist science of conservation areas can be equated with the instrumental principles of the Earth Summits. Both reductionist science and the Summits’ principles share the pursuit of growth and development by exploiting Indigenous ecologies and expropriating the subsistence economies that are inseparable from these ecologies. Indeed, violent interventions are carried out to destroy the very means of survival of unwaged and poorly waged commoners. The expansion of this “greening” endangers peasant and Indigenous way of life. In sum, this book uncovers that the Earth Summits, the economists of the World Bank, and the biologists of large ENGOs, using debt-for-nature swaps, have created a service economy, centralized the accumulation process, and forced a shift of products, biomaterials, and cheap or unwaged labour towards international markets. Understood within an ecofeminist framework, women, peasants, and Indigenous people are authorized subject-knowers, with distinct

The “Greening” of Capitalism

173

voices. They are the true experts, and many have spoken out about their place and the new relations of domination developed as a by-product of the environmental crisis. For peasants and Indigenous people, both women and men, this form of “greening” is disastrous, as the biodiversity, native agriculture, forests, and mountains are literally demolished. Furthermore, when rural women and men are forced off the land, they are coerced to join an urban population victimized by the stabilization and the structural adjustment programs of the IMF and the World Bank that have been in force since the beginning of the debt crisis. Oppressed by both the neoliberal political economy and political ecology, young women and children have become objectified and violated as sex trade workers. Once again, we see how the rural population and their environment are exploited by those with power, those who also define whose knowledge can be seen as authoritative. Finally, this book advocates for an alternative ecofeminist perspective that offers a liberation of women and men, nature, and the maldeveloped world that does not rest on the continuation of exploitation, colonization, catch-up development, and “greening” for capital accumulation.

This page intentionally left blank

Abbreviations

ACA-Tilaran Arenal-Tilaran Conservation Area ACOPE Asociación Costarricense de Productores de Energía (Costa Rican Association of Producers of Energy) AIFLD American Institute for Free Labor Development ARAO Asociación Regional de Agricultores Orgánicos BNDES Banco Nacional de Desarrollo Económico y Social de Brazil BOP balance of payments CAF Cooperación Andina de Fomento CDM clean development mechanism CENAP Centro Nacional de Acción Pastoral (National Centre for Pastoral Action) CGIAR Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research CI Conservation International CIDA Canadian International Development Agency CINDE Coalición Costarricense de Iniciativas para el Desarrollo (Costa Rica Development Initiatives Coalition) CNP Consejo Nacional de Producción (National Production Council) CONADEP Comisión Nacional de Desaparición de Personas EAI Enterprise for the Americas Initiative ECLAC United Nations Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean

176 Abbreviations

ECODES

Estrategia de Conservación para el Desarrollo Sustentable (Conservation Strategy for Sustainable Development) EIB European Investment Bank ENGO environmental non-governmental organization ERE Programa de Estabilización y Recuperación Económica (Stabilization and Economic Recuperation Program) EZLN Ejercito Zapatista de Liberación Nacional FAO Food and Agriculture Organization FFI Fiscal Forestry Incentive FONAFITO Fondo Nacional de Financiamiento Forestal (National Forestry Financing Fund) FONPLATA Financial Fund for the Development of the Plate Basin FPAR Feminist Participatory Action Research FUNDACA Fundación para el Desarrollo del Area de Conservación Arenal (Development Foundation for the Arenal Conservation Area) FUNDECOR Fundación para el Desarrollo de la Cordillera Volcánica Central GATT General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade GCA Guanacaste Conservation Area GDFCF Guanacaste Dry Forest Conservation Fund GEF Global Environmental Facility GEMA Grupo Ecológico de Mujeres de Abanico (Women’s Ecological Group of Abanico) GNP gross national product GRM global resource manager IADB Inter-American Development Bank IARC International Agricultural Resource Centers IBRD International Bank for Reconstruction and Development ICE Instituto Costarricense de Electricidad (Costa Rican Institute of Electricity) ICMM International Council on Mining and Metals

Abbreviations 177

IDA IFI IIRSA IMF INBio ITCO IUCN IUCNR MAG MCFR MINAE MINAET MIRENEM

MOVASA NGO OECD PEN PLN PPP PRP PWU REDD SAP SETENA

Instituto de Desarrollo Agrario (Agrarian Development Institute) international financial institution Iniciativa para la Integración de la Infraestructura Regional Sudamericana International Monetary Fund Instituto Nacional de Biodiversidad (Costa Rican National Biodiversity Institute) Instituto de Tierras y Colonización (Land and Colonization Institute) International Union for the Conservation of Nature International Union for Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources Costa Rica. Ministerio de Agricultura y Ganadería Monteverde Cloud Forest Reserve Costa Rica. Ministerio de Ambiente y Energía (Ministry of the Environment and Energy) Costa Rica. Ministerio del Ambiente Energía y Telecomunicaciones Costa Rica. Ministerio de Recursos Naturales, Energía y Minas (Ministry of Natural Resources, Energy and Mines) Molinos de Viento Arenal S.A. non-governmental organization Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development Programa Estado de la Nación Partido Liberación Nacional (National Liberation Party) Plan Puebla Panama Productive Reconversion Program Priority Working Unit Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Degradation Structural Adjustment Program Secretaría Técnica Nacional Ambiental

178 Abbreviations

SINAC SSAP TFC TRC TSC UN UNCED UNDP UNEP UNFCCC USAID USIA WID WTO

Costa Rica. Sistema Nacional de Areas de Conservación (National System of Conservation Areas) Stabilization and Structural Adjustment Program Tropical Forest Conservation Truth and Reconciliation Commission Tropical Science Centre United Nations United Nations Conference on Environment and Development United Nations Development Program United Nations Environment Program United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change United States Agency for International Development United States Information Agency Women in Development World Trade Organization

Notes

Preface and Acknowledgments 1 According to Juan Figuerola (2005), a forestry engineer, “In tropical countries such as Costa Rica extensive plantations of monocultures degrade the soil and other ecological conditions, bringing among other things the following consequences: (1) they generate favourable conditions for the proliferation of pests and diseases, which entails the application of chemicals that pollute and alter the atmosphere and life of organisms; (2) they deplete soils: in tropical forests, soils maintain a balance between the production and expenditure of elements and micro-chemical elements; in these same soils, few-species plantations are concentrated in a few elements and break the balance sheet; overexploited soils are transformed into inert substrates that require chemical fertilizers to continue producing and the environment becomes a large intensive-care room; (3) they erode soils: extensive plantations of few species are generally peers [of the same age], and at the time of the harvest forestry management apply the tala rasa [when all trees are cut at once]. As a result fragile soils are exposed to the sun and rain, washing and losing their nutrients in a short time, and the erosion problems also move to great distances” [reaching marine ecosystems] (p. 16). 2 According to the head of the Ministry of Agriculture and Cattle Ranching in La Fortuna (personal interview, August 1998), the use of an agrochemical technological package [including chemicals such as tamaron, counter, butamar, piton, quirol, all of which produce residues], results in new pest infestations and sickness in the community. These chemicals are absorbed by inhalation or simply through the skin. Workers (usually men) do not use protection when they apply the toxic chemicals. The chemical

180  Notes to pages 13–122 containers are usually rusty and the liquid spreads over the workers’ clothes and skin. These men are fathers who carry their children without washing their hands or changing their clothes. Moreover, heavy rains wash agrochemicals into the rivers and roads contaminating community water sources. Children in the area suffer high levels of sicknesses related to agrochemicals. Introduction: The “Greening” of Costa Rica 1 All dollar figures refer to US currency, unless otherwise noted. 2.  The Political Economy of Costa Rica’s Neoliberal State 1 Between 1955 and 1979, thirteen areas in Costa Rica were declared forestry reserves and national parks: Volcan Irazu (1955), Tortuguero (1970), Calmita (1970), Volcan Poas (1970), Santa Rosa (1971), Manuel Antonio (1974), Barra Honda (1974), Rincon de la Vieja (1974), Chirripo (1975), Braulio Carrillo (1975), Corcovado (1978), Isla de Cocos (1978), and La Amistad (1979). In addition, six biological reserves, one national monument, and one absolute natural reserve represented 8.8% of protected areas, by 1988 (Quesada, 1990, p. 47). 2 The following laws govern SINAC and MINAE policies: Forestry Law No. 7575 (5 February 1996); Biodiversity Law No. 7788 (23 April 1998); National Park Law No. 3763 (19 October 1966); and Wildlife Conservation Law No. 7317 (21 October 1992). 3.  Nature and People in the Arenal-Tilaran Conservation Area 1 A latifundio is a large land holding specializing in an agroindustry export. Examples are banana plantations and cattle ranches. 6.  Ecotourism and Social Development 1 A biological corridor is “a continuous geographic extent of habitat linking ecosystems, either spatially or functionally; such a link restores or conserves the connection between habitats that are fragmented by natural causes or human development. Such corridors are an important aspect in the preservation of species richness and biodiversity” (Boyle & Ervin, 2010).

Notes to pages 135–52

181

7. Women’s Microenterprises and Social Development 1 During field trips to ACA-Tilaran I collected the uses and names of wild medicinal plants and herbs. These included azul de mata (justicia tinctoria), for wounds; albahaca verde and morada (ocimum basilicum) (basil), for earaches and as a dressing; calendula (calendula officinalis), a natural antibiotic; calzoncillo (passiflora biflora), for kidney functioning; carambola (averrhoa carambola), for fibre and the kidneys; cipres (cupressus lusitanica), for prostate; cucaracha (acanthus mollis), for treating diabetes; chinitas (impatiens walleriana), for allergies; chilca (baccharis dracunculifolia), for rheumatism; diente de leon (taraxacum officinale) (dandelion), for energy; eucalypto (eucalyptus globulus labill), for sinusitis and asthma; gavilana leaves (neurolaena lobata), as an insecticide and fungicide; ginger (zingiber officinale), for influenza; gotukola (centella asiatica), for improved memory; güitite (acnistus arborescens),for allergies; hierbabuena (mentha sativa), for stomachache; hoja de sen (caesalpinia pulcherrima), for constipation; hoja de guayaba (psidium guajava), as a toothpaste; flor de jamaica (hibiscus sabdariffa), for the regulation of blood pressure; hombre grande (quassia amara), for the liver; hoja del aire (kalanchoe pinnata), for headaches; incienso (plectranthus madagascariensis), for relaxation; juanilama (lippia alba), for rheumatism and arthritis; llantén (plantago lanceolata), for kidney and cataracts; madero negro (gliricidia sepium), for allergies and gastro-intestinal conditions; mastuerzo (tropaeolum majus), for inflammation; mint (mentha), as a digestive aid; naranjo agrio (citrus aurantium), for depression; oregano (origanum vulgare), for seasoning and for respiratory ailments; papaya (carica papaya), for liver and digestion; reina de la noche (brugmansia candida) flower, as an insect repellent; romero (rosmarinus officinalis), as an anti-inflammatory medication; ruda (ruta graveolens), for headache and other pain; sabila (aloe vera) for burns and gastric cancer; salvia virgen (buddleja americana),for allergies; saragundi (senna reticulata), for arthritis and rheumatism; sarzaparrilla (smilax aspera), for regulating blood pressure; sauco (sambucus nigra), for asthma and bronchitis; tilo (tilia cordata), for depression; and zacate limon (cymbopogon citratus), for the respiratory system. 8. Mining and the Dispossession of Resources and Livelihoods 1 SETENA (Secretaria Tecnica Nacional Ambiental) is a Costa Rican government body in charge of approval of mining projects. It bases its decisions on the Environmental Impact Study (EIS) presented

182

Notes to pages 154–60

by the corporation. Sonia Torres argues that this body is paid by the interested mining body, which then approves the EIS without community consultation. In cases where communities are consulted, they do not have access to the technical documents or do not have adequate technical support for analysis and interpretation. Further, “Our authorities do not think about environmental disasters and the need for restoration or compensation” (S. Torres, personal communication, August 2001). 2 The judges used Article 46, paragraph 4; Article 50 of the Political Constitution; and Article. 70, paragraph d, and Article 75, paragraph 2, of Código Procesal Penal to annul the sentence (see Rios Minerales v. Blanco Martinez). 9. The “Greening” of Capitalism 1 According to Third World Network, Type II outcomes are the voluntary commitments to specific targets or objectives for the implementation of sustainable development made by individual governments, non-governmental actors or by partnerships of governmental or non-governmental actors. Type IIs were not negotiated in the formal World Summit on Sustainable Development preparatory process and do not require consensus agreement between all UN member states. From the beginning many civil society groups, including NGOs, Indigenous peoples, women’s organizations, and trade unions, questioned the move to give official blessing to Type II partnerships at a summit level, especially when it became clear that a major goal was to get big business on board. (http://www.twnside.org.sg/title/twr145f.htm).

Bibliography

Adams, C.J. (1990). The sexual politics of meat: A feminist-vegetarian critical theory. New York, NY: Continuum. Agosín, M. (1994). Chile: Patchwork of memory. NACLA Report on the Americas, 27(6), 11–14. Alfaro, G. (2005). El pueblo que se come el dosel del bosque humedo premontano. Ambientales, 29, 3–22. Alpizar, W. (1997). Venta de servicios ambientales a través de proyectos de implementación conjunta. Ambien-Tico, 53, 1–4. Altvater, E. (1994). Ecological and economic modalities of time and space. In M. O’Connor (Ed.), Is capitalism sustainable?: Political economy and the politics of ecology (pp. 76–89). New York, NY: Guilford Press. Abangares. (1999). Resumenes de Actas. 48 sesiones de la Municipalidad de Abangarees. 26 de Febrero 1998 al 25 de Enero de 1999. Arguedas, C. (2001, May 28). Venganza en incendio de Casona de Santa Rosa. La Nacion. Arias, R., & Murillo, C. (2005). Innovación y aprovechamiento de la biodiversidad en Costa Rica. Ambien-Tico, 143, 18–20. Asiedu-Akrofi, D. (1991). Debt-for-nature swaps: Extending the frontiers of innovative financing in support of the global environment. International Lawyer, 25(3), 557–586. Asociación ANDAR. (1996). Resumen ejecutivo: La educacion participativa y el enfoque de genero para fortalecer las capacidades de organizacion de Mujeres y Hombres Campesinos de la Region Huetar Norte. San José, Costa Rica: Asociación ANDAR. Asociación Conservacionista de Monteverde & World Wildlife Fund-Canada (1996). Programa de investigacion para el uso racional de la biodiversidad en el Area de Conservacion Arenal: Proposal presented to MINAE. (n.p.): Authors.

184

Bibliography

Aston, T.H. & Philpin, C.H.E. (Eds.). (1985). The Brenner debate: Agrarian class structure and economic development in pre-industrial Europe. New York, NY: Cambridge University Press. Badilla, E. (1998). Actividades mas relevantes de la subregion de San Ramon para el Periodo 98. ACA en Acción, Special issue, 6. Baldizán, G., & Cruz, F.G. (1987). La mujer rural en los grupos productivos y la politica estatal de Apoyo: El caso del programa de Clubes 4-S y amas de casa. Unpublished undergraduate paper, Faculty of Social Sciences, University of Costa Rica. Baltodano, J. (2003). Monocultivos arbóreos no merecen pagos de servicios ambientales. Ambien-Tico, 123, 3–5. Baltodano, J. (2004). Bosques en reservas del Ida: Biodiversidad y manejo. Ambien-Tico, 133, 14–17. Barquero, J. (2008). Beneficios de los volcanes ticos. Ambien-Tico, 182, 10–11. Benería, L., & Sen, G. (1981). Accumulation, reproduction, and women’s role in economic development: Boserup revisited. Signs (Chicago, Ill.), 7(2), 279–278. Retrieved from http://www.jstor.org/stable/3173878 Bennholdt-Thomsen, V., & Mies, M. (1999). The subsistence perspective: Beyond the globalized economy. New York, NY: Zed Books. Boserup, E. (1970). Woman’s role in economic development. London, England: Allen & Unwin. Boyle, M., & Ervin, J. (2010). Biological corridor. In The encyclopedia of earth. Retrieved from http://www.eoearth.org/view/article/51cbed157896bb431 f68f96f Boza, M.A. (1993). Conservation in action: Past, present and future of the national park system of Costa Rica. Conservation Biology, 7, 239–247. http:// dx.doi.org/10.1046/j.1523-1739.1993.07020239.x Brockett, C.D. (1988). Land, power and poverty: Agrarian transformation and political conflict in Central America. London: Unwin Hyman. Brooks, E., & Tate, W. (1999). After the wars: Cross-border organizing in Central America. NACLA Report on the Americas, 32(4), 32–36. Canadian International Development Agency (1992). Working paper on debt conversion. [Ottawa, ON]: Author. Carstens, A. (2004, July). Twenty years without a crisis in Costa Rica: The IMF's view. Speech presented at the Academy of Central America, Costa Rica Seminar on Volatility and Vulnerability. Retrieved from http://www.imf .org/external/np/speeches/2004/071204.htm Casa Alianza (2002, January 31). Costa Rica policeman convicted for helping child pimp escape. [Online forum post]. Retrieved from https://groups .google.com/forum/#!topic/misc.activism.progressive/gQEUubF9Vxg

Bibliography 185 Castañeda, J. (1994). Utopia unarmed:The Latin American Left after the Cold War. New York, NY: Vintage Books. Central America and Caribbean Price Bulletin. (1993, October). Retrieved from http://www.fews.net/sites/default/files/documents/reports/Central _America_2013_10_PB_EN.pdf Cerdas Cruz, R. (1998). La otra cara del 48: Guerra fría y movimiento obrero en Costa Rica 1945–1952. San José, Costa Rica: EUNED Editorial Universidad Estatal a Distancia. Cheng, N., & French, M. (2013, January 15). International trade affects Costa Rican rice industry. [Web log post]. Retrieved from http://mucostarica. wordpress.com/2013/01/15/international-trade-affects-costa-rican-rice -industry/ Comisión Nacional sobre la Desaparición de Personas (1984). Nunca más. Retrieved from http://www.desaparecidos.org/nuncamas/web/investig/ articulo/nuncamas/nmas0001.htm Consejo Nacional de Producción. (2000). Resumen de la Metodologia de Estimaciones y Pronosticos Agricolas de Granos Basicos. Retrieved from http:// www.cnp.go.cr/biblioteca/frijol/D_CNP_Frijol_2902.pdf Consejo Nacional de Producción (2009). Ficha tecnica frijol: Periodo agricola 2008/2009. San José, Costa Rica: Author. Conservation International. (1991). The debt for nature exchange: A tool for international conservation. Washington, DC: Author. Corbridge, S. (1993). Debt and development. Cambridge, Mass.: Blackwell. Costa Rica, datos e indicadores básicos. [Costa Rica at a glance] (1998). San José, Costa Rica: Market Data. Costa Rica. Ministerio de Economía, Industria y Comercio, Area de Integración Económica y Desarrollo Regional. (1998). Cuadro No 1: Costa Rica importaciones de frijol: Enero–Abril, 1998. San José, Costa Rica: Author. Costa Rica. Ministerio de Recursos Naturales, Energía y Minas. Area de Conservación Arenal (1993). Plan general de uso de la tierra. Vols. I–IV. San José: MIRENEM, Agencia Canadiense de Desarrollo Internacional, and Fondo Mundial para la Naturaleza de Canadá. Costa Rica. Ministerio del Ambiente y Energía. (2001). Plan nacional de desarrollo forestal, 2001–2010. San José, Costa Rica: Author. Retrieved from http://biblioteca.catie.ac.cr:5050/repositorioforestal/bitstream/123456789/ 6578/1/PNDF_2001-2010.pdf Costa Rica. Sistema Nacional de Areas de Conservación and Asociación Costa Rica por Siempre. (2009). Convenio de cooperación entre el Sistema Nacional de Areas de Conservación y la Asociación Costa Rica por Siempre. San José, Costa Rica: Author.

186

Bibliography

Costa Rica y Republica Dominicana analizan la trata de personas. (2008, June 18). [Web log posting]. Radio la Primerísima. Retrieved from http://www .radiolaprimerisima.com/noticias/resumen/31819. Cox, S.K. (1992). Contradictions in Canadian development assistance: A critical analysis of Canadian bilateral aid to Costa Rica, Nicaragua, and Honduras with reference to structural adjustment conditionality. North York, ON: York University. Cruz Ramirez, M.C., Fallas Alarcon, M.C., Navarrete Davilla, I., & Varga Alfaro, M.T. (1988). Condiciones de vida de la mujer de escasos recursos economicos del area metropolitana de San José. Un Estudio de Caso en la Clinica Biblica, Universidad de Costa Rica. San José: University of Costa Rica. Cuoto Soarez, M.C. (Ed.). (1992). Debt swaps, development and environment. Rio de Janeiro, Brazil: IBASE. Daly, H., & Farley, J. (2011). Ecological economics: Principles and applications (2nd ed.). Washington, DC: Island Press. Davis, B. (Ed.). (2003). Food, agriculture and rural development: Current and emerging issues for economic analysis and policy research (CUREMIS II). (Vol. I). Latin America and the Caribbean. Rome, Italy: United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization, Economic and Social Department. Dawkins, K. (1992). Debt-for-nature swaps. In C. Sourez & M. Clara (Eds.), Debt swaps, development and environment (pp. 31–46). Rio de Janeiro, Brazil: IBASE. De Camino, R., Segura, O., Arias, L.G., & Pérez, I. (2000). Costa Rica: Forest strategy and the evolution of land use. Evaluation country case study series. Washington, DC: World Bank. Debt Treaty. (1992). In NGO alternative treaties from the Global Forum at Rio de Janeiro, June 1-15,1992. Retrieved from http://www.stakeholderforum. org/fileadmin/files/Earth_Summit_2012/1992_treaties/Debt_Treaty.pdf Deléage, J.-P. (1994). Eco-Marxist critique of political economy. In M. O’Connor (Ed.), Is capitalism sustainable?: Political economy and the politics of ecology (pp. 37–51). New York, NY: Guilford Press. Devlin, R. (1985). La deuda externa en America Latina. In E. Ferrero (Ed.), El Perú frente al capital extranjero: Deuda e inversión (pp. 39–78). Lima, Peru: Centro Peruano de Estudios Internacionales. Dunayer, J. (1995). Sexist words, speciesist roots. In C.J. Adams (Ed.), Animals and women: Feminist theoretical explorations (pp. 11–31). Durham, NC: Duke University Press. Escobar, A. (1995). Encountering development: The making and unmaking of the Third World. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Fallas, C.L. (1961). Mamita Yunai. Havana, Cuba: Impr. Nacional de Cuba.

Bibliography 187 Federici, S. (2009). Caliban and the witch: Women, the body and primitive accumulation. New York, NY: Automedia. Fenech, A., Hansell, R., Isla, A., & Thompson, S. (Eds.). (1999). Report of an April 23, 1999 workshop on natural capital: Views from many perspectives. Toronto, ON: University of Toronto, Institute for Environmental Studies. Figuerola, J. (2003). Pago de servicios ambientales a la tala rasa. Ambien-Tico, 123, 10–11. Figuerola, J. (2005). Nativos y exóticos pero conservando la biodiversidad. Ambien-Tico, 141, 16–17. Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (n.d.). Total imports: Commodities by country, Costa Rica 2011. [Data file]. Retrieved from http:// faostat.fao.org/desktopdefault.aspx?pageid=342&lang=en&country=48 Fornaguera, I. (2014, February 11). Costa Rica deberá afrontar arbitraje por lío minero en Crucitas. La Nacion. Retrieved from http://www.nacion.com/ nacional/Pais-afrontar-arbitraje-minero-Crucitas_0_1396060427.html Foster, J.B. (1999). The vulnerable planet: A short economic history of the environment. New York, NY: Monthly Review Press. Franceschi, H. (2006). Conflictos socio ambientales intercampesinos por los recursos naturales. Revista de Ciencias Sociales, 111–112, 37–56. Friedman, M. (1962). Capitalism and freedom. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Fundación Coyoche. (1997). Mina Macacona: Un libro abierto que todos debemos leer. Puntarenas, Costa Rica: Author. Furtado, C. (1970). Economic development in Latin America: A survey from colonial times to the Cuban revolution. Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press. Garcia, R., & Tremblay, C. (1997, September). Avances, fortalezas y debilidades del proceso de consolidacion del Area de Conservacion Arenal en el Marco del Sistema Nacional de Areas de Conservacion de Costa Rica (SINAC). America Central. Paper presented at the Nikan International Congress on Territorial Applications of Sustainable Development, Jonquière, PQ. Gindling, T.H., & Terrell, K. (2007). The effects of multiple minimum wages throughout the labour market: The case of Costa Rica. Labour Economics, 14(3), 485–511. Glass, R.I., Lyness, R.N., Mengle, D.C., Powell, K.E., & Khan, E. (1979). Sperm Count Depression in Pesticide Applicators Exposed to Dibromochloropropane. American Journal of Epidemiology, 109(3), 346–351. Glencairn Gold Corporation (2007). Glencairn announces name change, share consolidation and exercise of previously issued subscription receipts [Press release]. Retrieved from http://www.reuters.com/article/2007/11/29/ idUS75368+29-Nov-2007+MW20071129

188

Bibliography

Goldman, M. (1998). Inventing the commons: Theories and practices of the commons professional. In M. Goldman (Ed.), Privatizing nature: Political struggles for the global commons (pp. 20–53). New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press. González, C.H. (1998). Agricultura orgánica y comercio alternativo: Una aproximación al comportamiento del mercado costarricense. Perspectivas Rurales, 3, 103-104. Retrieved from http://www.revistas.una.ac.cr/index .php/perspectivasrurales/article/download/3484/3341 Government of Canada & Government of Costa Rica (1995). Memorandum of understanding between the Government of Canada and the Government of the Republic of Costa Rica concerning the Canadian debt conversion initiative for the environment. (n.p.): Authors. Gudynas, E. (1995). INBIO y la privatización de la biodiversidad. Ambien-Tico, 32, 4–8. Gudynas, E. (1997). La Naturaleza ante el doctor Fausto: ¿Apropiación o conservación de la biodiversidad? Ciencias Ambientales, 13, 55–63. Gudynas, E. (1998). Conservación, sustentabilidad ecológica y la articulación entre comercio y ambiente. Ciencias Ambientales, 14, 48–57. Guereña, A. (2006). Auge del tourism rural comunitario en Costa Rica. Ambien-Tico, 150, 14–18. Guha, R., & Martínez-Alier, J. (1997). Varieties of environmentalism: Essays North and South. Calcutta, India: Oxford University Press. Hale, T., & Mauzerall, D.L. (2003). Managing the disaggregation of development: How the Johannesburg “Type II” partnerships can be made effective. Princeton, NJ: Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs, Princeton University. Halloway, M. (2008, July 29). Democratizing taxonomy. [Web log post]. Retrieved from http://www.conservationmagazine.org/2008/07/ democratizing-taxonomy Hamilton, K. (2001, September). Genuine savings, population growth and sustaining economic welfare. Paper presented at Conference on Natural Capital, Poverty, and Development, Toronto, ON. Haque, M.S. (1999). Restructuring development theories and policies: A critical study. Albany, NY: State University of New York Press. Harvey, D. (2009). A brief history of neoliberalism. New York: Oxford University Press. Hitz, W. (1989). The “debt for nature swap”: Meeting Costa Rica’s conservation needs? (Master’s thesis). University of California, Los Angeles, CA. Hobsbawm, E.J. (1996). The age of revolution, 1789–1848. New York, NY: Vintage Books.

Bibliography 189 INBio. (1995). Biodiversidad y desarrollo socio-economico: Un programa de utilización sustentable de los recursos de la biodiversidad de Costa Rica y consolidación del Insituto National de Bioversidad (INBio): Proyecto presentado al Comité de Fideicomiso para Bioversidad Costa Rica-Canadá. San José, Costa Rica: Author. IndexMundi (n.d.). Unemployment, youth female (% of female labor force ages 15–24). Retrieved from http://www.indexmundi.com/facts/costa-rica/ unemployment International Council on Mining and Minerals (2005, May). ICMM Toronto Declaration. Retrieved from www.icmm.com/document/31 International Union for Conservation of Nature, and International Council on Mining and Metals. (2003). Mining and biodiversity: Towards best practice. Retrieved from http://liveassets.iucn.getunik.net/downloads/doc1.pdf Isla, A. (2007). Reflecting on the disappearance of siblings: The biographical family archive project of Abuelas de La Plaza de Mayo, and the neoliberal agenda. Panel presentation at the VI World Social Forum, Caracas, Venezuela, 2006. Published in ACME: An international e-journal for critical geographies, 6(1). Retrieved from http://www.acme-journal.org/vol6/AI_e.pdf Isla, A. (2009). The eco-class-race struggles in the Peruvian Amazon basin: An ecofeminist perspective. Capitalism Nature Socialism, 20(3), 21–48. Isla, A. (2013). The politics of sustainable development: From Rio 1992 to Rio+20 in 2012: A subsistence view. In A.R. Miles (Ed.), Women in a globalizing world: Transforming equality, development, diversity and peace (pp. 169–188). Toronto, ON: Inanna Publications and Education. Isla Salas-De Rubio, A.E. (2000). An environmental feminist analysis of Canada/Costa Rica debt-for-nature investment: A case study of intensifying commodification (Doctoral dissertation, University of Toronto). Retrieved from http://www.ots.ac.cr/rdmcnfs/datasets/biblioteca/pdfs_private/ nbina-5386.pdf Jimenez, W., Zamora, M., Angulo, F., Camacho, L., Quesada, R., & Pleitez, J. (1998). Biodiversidad y empresa campesina: ¿Simbiosis o depredacion? Perspectivas Rurales, 3, 60–74. Kappelle, M. (1999, May). Mapping and monitoring Costa Rica’s biodiversity: The ECOMAPAS-INBio project. Paper presented at the Foro Mundial sobre Biodiversidad. San José, Costa Rica. Ley Forestal [Forestry Law], No. 7575. (1996). Retrieved from http://www .cne.go.cr/cedo_dvd5/files/flash_content/pdf/spa/doc387/doc387 -contenido.pdf Loaiza, V., & Zeledon, I. (2001, May 10). Golpe a la historia: Ardio la casona. La Nación.

190

Bibliography

Lobo, J. (2003). Porque no pagar servicios ambientales a monocultivos forestales. Ambien-Tico, 123, 6–7. Lohmann, L. (2005). Marketing and making carbon dumps: Commodification, calculation and counterfactuals in climate change mitigation. Science as Culture, 14(3), 203–235. http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/09505430500216783 Malarek, V. (Producer). (2004, March 6). Prostitution in Costa Rica. [Television series episode]. In W-5. Toronto, ON: CTV. Martin, R. (2008). Latin Heartthrob Ricky Martin is using his star power to launch “llama y vive” or “call and live,” a campaign to prevent human trafficking. [Web log post]. Retrieved from http://www.rickymartinfoundation.org/en/ latest/news/212-latin-heartthrob-ricky-martin-is-using-his-star-power-to -launch-llama-y-vive-or-call-and-live-a-campaign-to-prevent-human-trafficking Marx, K. (1977). Capital: A critique of political economy (Vol. 1). New York, NY: Vintage Books. Mateo, N. (1997). Wild biodiversity: The last frontier?: The case of Costa Rica. In C. Bonte-Friedheim & K. Sheridan (Eds.), Globalization of science: The place of agricultural research (pp. 113-122). New exp. ed. The Hague, Netherlands: International Service for National Agricultural Research. Mellor, M. (2010). The future of money: From financial crisis to public resources. New York, NY: Pluto Press. Mendo, C. (1980, July 24). Dimite el jefe de los servicios secretos de Chile. El Pais. Retrieved from http://elpais.com/diario/1980/07/24/ internacional/333237603_850215.html Mendoza, R. (2009, July 12). Cazador de conflictos. La Republica. Retrieved from http://www.larepublica.pe/12-07-2009/cazador-de-conflictos Mies, M. (1986). Patriarchy and accumulation on a world scale: Women in the international division of labour. London, England: Zed Books. Mies, M. (interviewee). (2005). The subsistence perspective. [Video transcript]. Retrieved from http://www.republicart.net/disc/aeas/mies01_en.pdf Mies, M., & Shiva, V. (1993). Ecofeminism. London, England: Zed Books. Miramar Front (1999). Bellavista Mining [Pamphlet]. Miramar City: Author. Monestel Arce, Y. (1999, January 17). Campesinos precaristas en su propia tierra. Eco Católico, p. 11. Mora Castellanos, E. (1993). La asociación costarricense para la conservación de la naturaleza (ASCONA) y su papel de fiscal del ambiente. Ambien-Tico, 6, 6–8. Mora Castellanos, E. (1994). Claves del discurso ambientalista. Heredia, Costa Rica: Editorial Fundación. Mora, M.E. (1998). Arenal, corazón energético de Costa Rica. ACA en Acción, Special issue, 1–3.

Bibliography 191 Morfin Otero, M.G. (2009). Violence against women in Juarez. Canadian Woman Studies, 27(1), 45–49. Moya, R.R. (2004). Wood of gmelina arborea in Costa Rica. New Forests, 28, 209–307. Nygren, A. (1995). Forest, power and development: Costa Rican peasants in the changing environment. Helsinki, Finland: Finnish Anthropological Society. Obregon, C. (1999, May 30). Breve reseña cronológica que se impone. Eco Católico, p. 19. O’Connell Davidson, J., & Sanchez, J. (1995). Child prostitution and sex tourism: Costa Rica. Bangkok: ECPAT International; Retrieved from http://www. streetchildrenresources.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/02/child-sex -tourism-costa-rica.pdf. Odio, E. (2001, August 24). Modelo unico en el mundo. Al Dia, op-ed column, p. 3. Ornelas, J. (2003). El Plan Puebla Panama y la globalizacion neoliberal. In E. Sandoval Forero & R.S. Perez (Eds.), Lectura crítica del Plan Puebla Panamá (pp. 19–54). [Buenos Aires, Argentina]: Libros en Red. Pearce, D.W., & Warford, J.J. (1993). World without end: Economics, environment, and sustainable development. New York, NY: Oxford University Press. Peru. Defensoría del Pueblo. (2010). Conflictos sociales. Retrieved from http:// www.defensoria.gob.pe/temas.php?des=3 Peruvian Truth and Reconciliation Commission. (2003). Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Peru Final Report: General Conclusions. Lima, Peru: Comision de la Verdad. Petch, T. (1988). Costa Rica. In J. Roddick (Ed.), The dance of the millions : Latin America and the debt crisis (pp. 191–215). London: Latin America Bureau. Petras, J. (1977). Chile and Latin America. Monthly Review (New York), 28(9), 13–24. http://dx.doi.org/10.14452/MR-028-09-1977-02_2 Pizarro, E. (1998). Impactos de la mineria en la salud. Abangares, Costa Rica: Ministerio de Salud, Área Rectora de Abangares. Pleumaron, A. (1999). The rise and fall of southeast Asian tourism? Third World Resurgence, 103, 4–8. Prebisch, R. (1963). Towards a dynamic of development policy for Latin America. New York, NY: United Nations. Programa Estado de la Nación. (1996). Estado de la nación en desarrollo humano sostenible. San José, Costa Rica: Author. Programa Estado de la Nación. (2007). Estado de la nación en desarrollo humano sostenible. San José, Costa Rica: Author. Programa Estado de la Nación. (2010). Estado de la nación en desarrollo humano sostenible. San José, Costa Rica: Author.

192

Bibliography

Quesada Mateo, C. (1990). Estrategia de conservación para el desarrollo sostenible de Costa Rica. [San José, Costa Rica]: Ministerio de Recursos Naturales, Energía y Minas, República de Costa Rica. Radcliffe, S.A. (1993). Women’s Place/ El Lugar de Mujeres: Latin America and the politics of gender identity. In S. Pile & M. Keith (Eds.), Place and the politics of identity (pp. 102–116). London, England: Routledge. Ramirez, A., & Maldonado, T. (1988). Desarrollo socioeconómico y el ambiente natural de Costa Rica: Situación actual y perspectivas. San José, Costa Rica: Editorial Heliconia. Ramirez Flores, E. (2009). Tecnologias de punta fueron un fiasco: Colapso de la mina Bellavista es un mal presagio. Retrieved from: http://kioscosambientales .ucr.ac.cr/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=263:tecnologias -de-punta-fueron-un-fiasco-colapso-de-la-mina-bellavista-es-un-mal -presagio-&catid=40:noticias-ambientales&Itemid=60 Raub, E. (2008, October 7). Scientists declare Costa Rica’s Holdridge toad extinct [Web log post]. Retrieved from http://www.costaricapages.com/ blog/costa-rican-wildlife/toad-extinct/1518 Rios Minerales v. Blanco Rodriguez . Res: 2002-279, Exp: 00-000063-416PE-(8). Roddick, J. (1988). The dance of millions: Latin America and the debt crisis. London, England: Latin America Bureau. Rodriguez, N. (2010). Una detención histórica. El Pais. Especial Pinochet. Retrieved from http://www.elpais.com/especiales/2001/pinochet/londres/detencion .html Rodriguez, S. (1995). Los determinismos mercantiles y tecnocráticos en el “modelo” de funcionamiento del INBio. Ambien-Tico, 32, 11–16. Rogers, B. (1981). The domestication of women: Discrimination in developing societies. New York, NY: Routledge. Rogers, T. (2009, October 16). Costa Rica’s sex-tourism is growing. [Web log post]. Retrieved from http://ticotimes.com/costa-rica/sex-prostitution-growing Sachs, W. (1999). Planet dialectics: Explorations in environment & development. Halifax, NS: Fernwood; Johannesburg: Witwatersrand University Press. London, England; New York, NY: Zed Books. Sage, L.F., & Quirós, R. (2001). Proyección del volumen de madera para aserrío proveniente de las plantaciones de melina, teca, y otras fuentes: Proyecto Mercadeo e industrialización de madera proveniente de plantaciones forestales. San José, Costa Rica: FAO-MINAE-FONAFIFO. Salazar Perez, R. (2003). El vinculo militar del Plan Colombia y el Plan Puebla Panama. In E. Sandoval Forero & R.S. Perez (Eds.), Lectura critica del Plan Puebla Panama (pp. 135–165). [Buenos Aires, Argentina]: Libros en Red.

Bibliography 193 Salleh, A. (1997). Ecofeminism as politics: Nature, Marx and the postmodern. New York, NY: Zed Books. Salleh, A. (2004). Global alternatives and the meta-industrial class. In R. Albritton, S. Bell, & R. Westra (Eds.), New socialisms: Futures beyond globalization (pp. 201–211). London, England: Routledge. Sanchez Taylor, J. (2000). Tourism and “embodied” commodities: Sex tourism in the Caribbean. In S. Clift & S. Carter (Eds.), Tourism and sex: Culture, commerce and coercion (pp. 41–53). London, England: Pinter. Schifter, J. (2007). Viejos verdes en el paraíso: Turismo sexual en Costa Rica. San José, Costa Rica: Editorial Universidad Estatal a Distancia. Sheikh, P.A. (2007). Debt-for-nature initiatives and the Tropical Forest Conservation Act: Status and implementation (CRS report for Congress RL31286). [Washington, DC]: Congressional Research Service, Library of Congress. Sheikh, P.A. (2010). Debt-for-nature initiatives and the Tropical Forest Conservation Act: Status and implementation (CRS report for Congress RL31286). Retrieved from http://www.cnie.org/NLE/CRSreports/10Apr/RL31286.pdf Shiva, V. (1989). Staying alive: Women, ecology and development. London, England: Zed Books. SOA Watch. (n.d.). About SOA Watch. Retrieved from http://soaw.org/index. php?option=com_content&view=article&id=100 Sojo, A. (1984). Estado empresario y lucha política en Costa Rica. Ciudad Universitaria Rodrigo Facio, Costa Rica: Editorial Universitaria Centroamericana. Sojo, C. (1991). Costa Rica: Política exterior y sandinismo. San José, Costa Rica: Facultad Latinoamericana de Ciencias Sociales. Sojo, C. (1992). La mano visible del mercado: La asistencia de Estados Unidos al sector privado costarricense en la década de los ochenta. [San José, Costa Rica]: Ediciones CRIES. Solano, L. (2006). Turismo rural comunitario en Costa Rica. Ambien-Tico, 150, 9–13. Theidon, K. (2009). The milk of sorrow: A theory on the violence of memory. Canadian Woman Studies, 27(1), 8–16. Thrupp, L.A. (1991). Sterilization of workers from pesticide exposure: The causes and consequences of DBCP-induced damage in Costa Rica and beyond. International Journal of Health Services, 21(4), 731–757. Torres, S. (1999). Impactos socioambientales de la Minería del Oro en el Pacifico Norte y Central de Costa Rica. Research Report No. 12. Miramar, Costa Rica: Coordinadora Frente Nacional de Oposición a la Minería. Torres, S. (2000). El proyecto Minero Bellavista. Research Report No. 1. Miramar, Costa Rica: Coordinadora Frente Nacional de Oposición a la Minería. Torres, S. (2007). Derrumbamiento de Mina Bellavista en Costa Rica CEUS del golfo de nicoya. Miramar. http://alainet.org/active/21058&lang=es??

194

Bibliography

Tremblay, C. (1999). Estrategia de transferencia de responsabilidades y traspaso de recursos del proyecto de conservacion y desarrollo Arenal. ACA en Acción, 19, 16–19. Tremblay, C., & Malenfant, D. (1996, October). Estrategias locales para favorecer la sostenibilidad de acciones de desarrollo El Caso del Proyecto de Conservacion y Desarrollo Arenal, Costa Rica. Paper presented at Congreso Mundial para la Conservación. Montréal, PQ. Ugalde-Lobo, J.G. (1993). Intoxicacion por Plaguicidas en Costa Rica, 1987-1990. Medicina Legal de Costa Rica, 10(1), 19–24. Ugarteche, O. (1980). Teoría y práctica de la deuda externa del Perú. Lima, Peru: IEP. Ulloa Gamboa, C. (1996a). Diagnostico socioambiental de la unidad territorial priorizada. La Fortuna, San Carlos: Proyecto de Conservación y Desarrollo Arenal, Tilaran, Costa Rica. Ulloa Gamboa, C. 1996b, December). Estrategia de conservación y desarrollo sostenible unidad territorial priorizada La Fortuna. Paper presented to the Proyecto de Conservación y Desarrollo Arenal, Organizaciónes Comunales et Institutiones que trabajan en la Zona. San José, Costa Rica. UNESCO. (1991). Debt for nature: Tackling debt and degradation. Environment and development brief No. 1. Paris, France: Author. United Nations. (n.d.). Clean development mechanism. Retrieved from http://unfccc.int/kyoto_protocol/mechanisms/clean_development _mechanism/items/2718.php United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs. Division for Sustainable Development. (2006). The Johannesburg summit test: What will change? Retrieved from http://www.johannesburgsummit.org/html/ whats_new/feature_story41.html United Nations Environment Programme. (1994). The United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. Geneva, Switzerland: UNEP. United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. (2005). Joint implementation (JI) [The Kyoto Protocol]. Retrieved from http://unfccc. int/kyoto_protocol/mechanisms/joint_implementation/items/1674.php US Department of State Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor. (2010). 2009 Human Rights Report: Costa Rica. Retrieved from http://www .state.gov/g/drl/rls/hrrpt/2009/wha/136107.htm Valdes, T., & Gomariz, E. (1995). Latin American women: Compared figures. Madrid, Spain: Instituto de la Mujer. Van der Laat, R. (2008). Beneficios económicos de los volcanes ticos. AmbienTico, 182, 8–9. Vargas, E. (1992). El INBio y la Merck: ¿El fin del colonialismo farmacológico? Ambien-Tico, 3, 3–4.

Bibliography 195 Vargas, F. (1995). Mineria en la zona fronteriza de Nicaragua: Lo legal y lo ambiental. Ambien-Tico, 30, 5–8. Vasquez, I. (1996). The Brady plan and market-based solutions to the debt crisis. Cato Journal, 16(2), 233–243. Vaughan, C. (1988, October). Ponencia sectorial: Biodiversidad. Paper presented at the Memoria–Primer Congreso Estrategia de Conservacion para el Desarrollo Sostenible (ECODES). San José, Costa Rica. Vaughan, G. (2007). Introduction: A radically different worldview is possible. In G. Vaughan (Ed.), Women and the gift economy: A radically different worldview is possible (pp. 1–38). Toronto, ON: Inanna Publications and Education. Vega Carballo, J. L. (1992). Pobreza y coyuntura social en Costa Rica en la época de los PAEs. San José, Costa Rica: CEDAL and Friedrich Ebert Stiftung. Vizcaíno, I. (1999, August 29). Deuda millonaria por las expropiaciones. La Nación. Waring, M. (1988). If women counted: A new feminist economics. San Francisco, CA: Harper and Row. Weatherford, J. (1988). Indian givers: How the Indians of the Americas transformed the world. New York: Fawcett Columbine. Werlhof, C.v. (2007a). Capitalist patriarchy and the negation of matriarchy: The struggle for a “deep” alternative. In G. Vaughan (Ed.), Women and the gift economy: A radically different world is possible (pp. 139–153). Toronto, ON: Inanna Publications and Education. Werlhof, C.v. (2007b). No critique of capitalism without critique of patriarchy!: Why the left is no alternative. Capitalism Nature Socialism, 18(1), 13–27. http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/10455750601164600 Winson, A. (1989). Coffee and democracy in modern Costa Rica. Toronto, ON: Between the Lines. Wood, E.M. (2002). The origin of capitalism: A longer view. New York: Verso. World Bank (n.d.). External debt stocks, total (DOD; current US$). Retrieved from http://data.worldbank.org/indicator/DT.DOD.DECT.CD World Bank. (1992). Third report on adjustment lending: Private and public resources for growth. Washington, DC: Author. World Bank. (1997). Measuring the wealth of nations. In Expanding the measure of wealth: Indicators of environmentally sustainable development (pp. 19–39). Washington, DC: Author. World Bank (2003). Briefing: Shareholders and donors of Mesoamerican Biological Corridor Conference, December 12–13, 2002. Paris, France: World Bank Conference Center. World Commission on Environment and Development. (1987). Our common future. New York, NY: Oxford University Press.

196

Bibliography

World Resources Institute (n.d.). Certified tradable offsets. Retrieved from http:// projects.wri.org/sd-pams-database/costa-rica/certified-tradable-offsets World Resources Institute, World Conservation Union, & United Nations Environment Programme. (1992). Global biodiversity strategy: Policy-makers’ guide. Washington, DC: World Resources Institute. World Vision. (n.d.). World Vision's work to prevent child sex tourism. Retrieved from http://www.worldvision.org/worldvision/pr.nsf/stable/child_sex _tourism_wvwork?Open&lid=wvwork&lpos=main

Index

Abangares, 81–2, 84, 148–9, 153 Abanico, 4, 29, 64–5, 72–4, 79–81, 134–5, 137–41, 145–6, 169 Aboriginal. See Indigenous abundance, 76, 78, 118, 121, 163 accumulation, 5–8, 11, 19, 24, 26, 37, 47–8, 50, 55, 61, 65–6, 112, 140, 152, 161, 165, 169, 172–3 activists, 157, 163 agencies, 4–5, 17, 30, 54, 57, 63–5, 80, 86, 103, 119, 124, 137–8, 140–1, 163–5 Agenda 21, 4, 6, 159 agrarian, 46, 69, 80 agricultural, 21, 28, 37, 40–1, 43–6, 57, 62, 65, 74, 77–8, 81–2, 86, 88, 92, 94, 104, 109, 122–3, 125–6, 130, 132, 138, 142, 167, 171–2 agriculture, 26, 28–30, 40–7, 56, 64–5, 72, 74, 77, 81, 88, 102, 122–3, 126–7, 131–2, 135–6, 140, 149, 152, 167, 171, 173 agrochemicals, 41–2, 71, 78, 80–8, 105–6, 113, 118, 132, 171 agroforestry, 72 agronomists, 42, 45 aid, 12, 15, 38–40, 56, 80, 88, 104

Amazonia, 160 American Institute for Free Labor Development (AIFLD), 17 ancestors, 69, 96, 144 anti-mining, 151, 156–7 aquifer stratum, 83 Arenal, 3, 5, 26, 50, 57, 59, 69–73, 75, 77–9, 81, 83, 85, 90–1, 96–7, 108–10, 115, 118–25, 130–1, 149, 158, 168, 170 Arenal Conservation Area–Tilaran (ACA–Tilaran), 3–5, 26, 31, 50, 57, 59, 61, 69–73, 75, 77, 79, 81, 83, 85, 89–91, 97, 108–9, 116, 118–19, 122–5, 135, 138, 148–9, 158, 165, 168, 170–1 Argentina, 12–14, 17, 35, 165 assets, 20–2, 25, 56, 133 Asociación ANDAR de Costa Rica (ANDAR), 4–5, 31, 64–5, 81, 135–40, 145, 158, 169 Asociación Costarricense de Productores de Energía (ACOPE), 103 association, 4–5, 31, 51, 79, 90, 103–4, 133, 139, 142, 158, 169–170 authoritarianism, 13–14, 133 autonomy, 6, 7, 18, 37, 118, 130, 140

198

Index

balance of payments (BOP), 12, 16 banking, 12, 19–20, 38, 72, 81, 124, 167 beans, 43, 81, 88, 109–10, 117, 126–7 Belize, 159 biocatalysts, 95 biochemistry, 27; biochemical properties, 86, 92 biodiversity, 4–6, 8, 22, 25, 27, 31, 45, 48–50, 55–7, 60–4, 71, 86, 88–92, 94–6, 98–9, 105–7, 114, 127, 133, 158–9, 161, 163, 167, 169, 171, 173 biogenetic, 88 biological, 7, 27, 29–30, 51, 62–3, 66, 84, 86–9, 90–3, 95, 97–9, 105–6, 117, 122, 133, 148, 150, 158–9, 163, 169–72 biomass, 47, 104, 106, 140, 145, 166–9 biophysical, 23, 89, 99, 148 biopiracy, 63, 88, 91–2, 99, 126, 166 bioprospecting, 61–3, 86, 88, 91–3, 99, 169 biosphere, 23 biotechnology, 5, 62–3, 70–1, 92, 94, 99, 162, 168–9 biotic, 121, 131 Bolivia, 5, 13–14, 88, 160, 162, 165 botanical, 64, 88, 146 Brazil, 4, 12–13, 53, 160, 162 Bretton Woods, 19 Brundtland Report, 20, 49, 85 Business Action for Sustainable Development, 30 campesina/o, 81, 125 Canada, 3–5, 26, 40, 48, 54–8, 62, 73, 94, 96, 103, 128–9, 138, 149, 158, 168 Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA), 54, 57, 59, 89

Canadian mining, 73, 81–2, 147, 149, 155, 157 capitalism/capitalist, 7–12, 18, 20, 25, 31, 60–1, 65, 88, 129, 158–61, 163, 165, 167, 169, 171, 173 carbon dioxide, 100–1, 166 carbon sinks, 28, 100–2, 166, 168, 171 Caribbean, 17, 36, 38, 147 cash crops, 65, 81, 108 cattle, 28, 40–2, 46, 56, 74, 76–7, 83, 117, 122, 126, 150, 152, 162 Central America, 17, 30, 38, 59, 121, 128, 158–9, 162–3 Centro Nacional de Acción Pastoral (CENAP), 135 Chiapas, 161 Chile, 12–14, 17, 165 Chipko Movement, 103 civil society, 53, 150 climate change, 28, 31, 100–3, 121, 158, 163 Coalición Costarricense de Iniciativas para el Desarrollo (CINDE), 38, 102 Colombia, 12, 88, 155, 160, 162, 165 colonialism/colonialist, 7–8, 10, 15, 17, 24, 46, 69, 74, 80, 83, 88, 107, 145, 147, 164, 168, 173 commercialization, 63, 94, 169 commodification, 6, 114, 120, 140 commodity, 8, 23, 25, 91, 99, 113, 122, 133, 135, 143, 169 commons, 6–7, 10, 22–24, 31, 63, 76, 117, 127–8, 155, 160–1, 163, 166–7, 170, 172 communal, 17, 73 community, 14–15, 19, 23, 27, 30, 40, 57, 60, 73, 75, 77–8, 80, 82–84, 86, 89–91, 97, 104, 110, 117, 120, 122–5, 136–40, 142, 144, 149, 151–7, 163, 167, 169, 172

Index 199 compensation, 7, 84, 98–9, 107–8 competition, 71, 89, 99, 123, 141 competitiveness, 45, 145 conditionalities, 35 Consejo Nacional de Producción (CNP), 45, 126–7, 137, 140–2, 145 conservation, 3–6, 25–7, 29–30, 33, 42, 48–55, 57, 59–65, 69–73, 75, 77, 79, 81, 83, 85–6, 90, 92–9, 102–3, 105, 107–10, 113, 115–17, 119, 121–2, 124–6, 149, 158, 160, 164–70, 172 conservationist, 20, 50, 60, 97 Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR), 88 consumption, 11, 29, 43–4, 46, 73, 81, 122, 126–7, 159, 171 contamination, 30, 70, 82–5, 106, 107, 118, 122, 148, 150–2, 156, 168, 171 conventions, international, 27–8, 86–7, 89, 91–3, 95, 97–101, 170 Coopelesca, 77 cordillera, 50, 81, 102, 148 corporate globalization, 166, 169 corporations, 20, 30, 36, 40, 42, 48, 53, 63, 83, 86, 88–9, 92, 94, 101, 104, 113, 147–9, 151–7, 159–62, 166–8 corridor, biological, 76, 122, 158–60 credit, 5, 12, 16, 19, 29, 35, 41–2, 47, 56, 78, 103–4, 133, 135, 138–9, 146, 161 creditors, 4, 12, 40, 54–5, 57, 107, 125, 128, 131, 143, 164–6, 170 credits, 5, 12, 28–9, 61, 71, 99–104, 106–10, 113, 126, 138, 160, 171 criminalization, 98, 171 crises, 4–7, 14–17, 20, 22, 25–8, 35, 37–8, 40, 42, 44, 48, 50, 54, 56, 61, 77, 99–100, 103–4, 109, 114, 125, 128, 141–2, 150, 156, 158, 161, 164–5, 170–1, 173

crops, 40, 65, 80–81, 108, 127, 133, 135, 137, 145 Cuba, 37 cultivization, 42, 65, 74, 76, 78, 117, 124, 127, 137 culture, 9, 11, 18, 29, 59, 69, 106, 114, 122, 136, 151, 163, 171 cyanide, 30, 82–4, 148, 150–1, 168, 171 dam, 5, 59, 159 debt, 3–5, 12, 14–17, 19–20, 25–7, 31, 33, 35, 37–40, 42, 44, 46, 48–51, 53–8, 62, 64–5, 72–3, 77, 94, 96, 98, 101–2, 108–9, 115, 116, 128, 130, 133, 136, 138, 139, 141, 145, 158, 163–5, 167–70, 172–3 debt swaps, 25, 31, 39, 54–5, 98, 133, 136, 164, 172 debt-for-nature exchange, 3–5, 25 deficit, 12, 16, 40 deforestation, 26, 46–47, 49–50, 71, 75–6, 102, 104–5, 107, 110, 150, 171 democracy, 13, 14, 63, 156, 162 deregulation, 16, 35, 37, 44, 81, 122, 157 desertification, 148, 150 destabilization, 4 destitution, 28, 60, 143 devaluation, currency, 16, 37, 81, 139 devastation, environmental, 83, 148, 150 development, 3–7, 11–15, 17–27, 29–31, 36–8, 39, 40, 44, 46, 48–51, 53–7, 60–5, 69–74, 76–7, 80, 82, 86, 89, 95–6, 99–103, 106–7, 109, 113–17, 118–25, 127, 129–33, 135–7, 139, 145, 147–8, 157–60, 162–4, 168–9, 172–3 dictatorships, 12–15, 17, 47

200

Index

Dirección de Inteligencia Nacional (DINA), 13 dispossessed, 7, 26, 29, 50, 86, 99, 107, 109, 113, 128, 131, 147, 164, 167, 169, 172 diversification, agricultural, 40, 77–78 diversity, biological, 30, 74, 84, 86–9, 91–3, 95, 97–9, 104–6, 117, 148, 150, 163, 170 dynamite, 30, 148 earth, 3–4, 6, 18, 21, 24, 30, 53–4, 60, 64, 86, 100, 114, 133, 147, 149, 151, 153, 155, 157–60, 163, 166, 170, 172 Earth Summit, 4, 6, 21, 24, 30, 53–4, 86, 100, 114, 133, 147, 149, 151, 153, 155, 157–8, 160, 166, 170 earthworms, 77 ecofeminism, 6–8, 10–11, 17, 24, 59, 85, 172–1 ecological concerns, 4, 7, 9, 17, 19–20, 22–27, 30–1, 45–8, 49, 54–5, 60–1, 64–5, 71, 93, 95–7, 102, 105, 107, 109, 120, 122, 132, 135, 137, 147, 150, 153, 157–8, 161, 163–6, 167–9, 170–3 Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC/CEPAL), 17, 36–7, 44–4 economic growth, 6, 11–13, 21, 26–7, 31, 48, 50, 56, 60–1, 69, 85, 114, 130, 148, 152, 159, 161, 163, 167 economic policies, 35, 38 economists, 8, 12, 22–3, 172 ecosocialists, 22–3 ecosystems, 4, 8, 18, 22–3, 27, 30, 53, 59, 69, 85, 93–5, 99, 104–7, 112, 116–17, 122, 128, 133, 135, 148, 150, 171–2

ecotourism/ecotourists, 5, 27–8, 61, 63, 71, 113–23, 125–31, 159, 162, 166, 168 Ecuador, 14, 88, 160 education, 16, 21, 37, 54, 65, 71, 77, 138–9 Ejercito Zapatista de Liberación Nacional (EZLN), 161 El Salvador, 17, 35, 159, 165 electricity, 43, 77, 117 emissions, 28, 100–2, 109, 171 enclosure, 6, 27–30, 50–1, 89, 116, 128, 167, 171–2 endemism, 90 England, 6–7, 13, 80 enterprise, 16, 25–6, 29, 36, 39, 45, 48, 55, 60–1, 65, 102, 118, 142, 145, 164–5 entrepreneurs, 20, 35–6, 41, 63, 104, 113 entropy, 23 environment, 3–7, 19–23, 25, 27–8, 45–51, 53–7, 59, 61–3, 65, 70–1, 83– 4, 86, 89, 92–3, 96, 98–9, 102–105, 107–8, 112–14, 122, 125–6, 130, 132, 137, 148, 150, 152, 155–6, 158–9, 161, 163–6, 168, 173 Environmental Nongovernmental Organizations (ENGOs), 3–5, 57, 164, 166, 168–169, 172 environmentalists, 22, 28, 105, 111, 150 epiphytes, 106 equality, 10, 31, 125, 136–7, 141, 145, 158 equity, 64–5, 170 erosion, 37, 76, 83, 106–7, 135, 148, 150 Estabilización y Recuperación Económica (Programa de) (ERE), 38–9

Index 201 Estrategia de Conservación para el Desarrollo Sustentable (ECODES), 26, 49–51, 53, 55, 65, 100, 102, 115 eucalyptus, 104, 113 eviction, 79, 110–11 exchange, 3–5, 22, 25, 29, 38, 40, 48, 54–6, 64, 69, 92, 105, 110, 115–16, 130, 138, 142, 144, 161, 164, 166, 172 exploitation, 7, 15, 17, 20, 24, 29, 53, 59, 62, 69–70, 88, 92, 94, 99, 129, 135, 145, 154, 162–3, 169, 172–3 export, 15, 38, 40–2, 44, 46–7, 49, 76, 78, 80–1, 104, 115, 126, 130, 145, 152, 167–8 expropriation, 8, 11, 28, 30, 86, 92, 99, 107–10, 113, 128, 141, 156–7, 166, 169, 172 extinction, 20, 50, 60, 71, 121 extraction, 4, 10, 24, 47, 62–3, 105, 148, 168 farming/farmers, 11, 28, 40, 45, 47, 60, 65, 76, 83, 108, 110, 118, 126, 134, 150, 156, 162 farmland, 43, 89, 110, 167 fauna, 30, 84, 89–90, 105–6, 148, 150 feminism, 13, 65, 137 feminist participatory action research (FPAR), 137 fertility, 77, 105, 127, 135 fertilizer, 41–2, 46, 56, 78, 105, 138–9 FIDEICOMMISSA (Costa Rica/ Canada Trust Fund for Biodiversity), 56–7 finca, 42, 60–1, 74, 81, 83, 108, 112–13 Fiscal Forestry Incentives (FFI), 104, 113 fisheries, 152 fishing, 28, 71, 76, 97, 117–18, 120, 127

flooding, 46, 124, 150 flora, 30, 84, 89–91, 148, 150 Fondo Nacional de Financiamiento Forestal (FONAFITO), 108 Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), 102, 127 food sovereignty, 27 food system, 118 foodstuffs, 11, 81, 127 forestry, 50, 71, 81, 90–1, 103–10, 113, 119, 149 Forestry Incentive Programs (FIP), 108–9, 113 Fortuna, La, 26–7, 29, 41, 64, 72–8, 96, 116–20, 122, 125–7, 130 fossil fuels, 60 free trade, 16, 20, 35, 86 frijol, 127 frogs, 121 Fundación para el Desarrollo de la Cordillera Volcánica Central (FUNDECOR), 102 Fundación para el Desarrollo del Area de Conservación Arenal (FUNDACA), 72–3, 81, 123–5, 135, 138, 140 fundamentalism, 19 fungicides, 41 gender, 4, 9, 11, 15, 18, 28–9, 63–5, 123–5, 133, 136–7, 141, 146, 161, 168–9 gender analysis, 136 General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT), 19 genes/genetics, 6, 21–2, 27, 56–7, 59, 62, 86–90, 92, 94, 96, 98–9, 105, 133, 168–72 genetic engineering, 88 genocide, 15

202

Index

geopolitics, 38, 47–48 geothermal energy, 59, 84 global economy, 63, 94 Global Environmental Facility (GEF), 5–6 Global Resource Managers (GRMs), 23–24 globalization, 11, 15, 19, 27, 60, 125, 129, 142, 147, 156, 159, 166–7, 169 gold, 30, 81–83, 148–153, 155–156, 171 government, 3–6, 11, 13–17, 20–1, 23–4, 27, 29–30, 36–40, 43, 47, 49, 54–57, 61–4, 73–5, 77–9, 81–3, 85–6, 88, 98–101, 103–4, 108–11, 113, 115–16, 123–4, 126–7, 129–31, 133, 136–7, 141, 147–8, 151–3, 156, 158–62, 164, 166, 168 grain, 81 grandmothers, 14–15, 75, 144 grassroots, 17 green business, 161 green capitalism, 31, 158, 161, 163, 165 Green Revolution, 40–41, 47, 76, 117, 121, 132 greenhouse gas emissions, 28, 100, 102 “greening,” 3–4, 24, 36, 38, 40, 42, 44, 46, 50, 52, 54, 56–8, 60, 62, 64, 66, 70, 72, 74, 76, 78, 80, 82, 84–5, 88, 90, 92, 94, 96, 98, 102, 104, 106, 108, 110–12, 116, 118, 120, 122, 124, 126, 128, 130, 134, 136, 138, 140, 142, 144, 146, 148, 150, 152, 154, 156, 158–73 gross domestic product (GDP), 27, 37, 167 gross national product (GNP), 18, 23, 129 groundwater, 152

Grupo Ecológico de Mujeres de Abanico (GEMA), 137, 140 Guanacaste, 50, 54–5, 77, 80, 82, 97–8, 110, 149–50 Guanacaste Conservation Area (GCA), 54, 98 Guanacaste Dry Forest Conservation Fund (GDFCF), 55 Guatemala, 17, 159 guerrillas, 39, 162 Guyana, 160 habitat, 50, 114, 121, 131, 171 harvest, 42–3, 78, 105, 117, 139 healers/healing, 133, 135, 144, 172 health, 16, 21, 23–4, 27, 37, 43, 77, 81–2, 84, 109, 115, 117–18, 120, 135, 139, 144, 150, 156–7, 160 hegemony, 92 herbicides, 41, 139 herbs, 135, 142 Holland, 64 Honduras, 159 household, 8, 14–15, 18, 25, 44, 46, 69, 132, 136, 139, 144, 161 housewifization, 6, 8, 15, 24, 45, 140 housework, 8 human rights, 17, 111, 122, 129, 162 hunters/hunting, 71, 76, 97–8, 117–18, 127 hydroelectric power, 5, 59, 71, 73, 108, 159, 161 imperialism, 168 imports, 41, 81, 127, 152 impoverishment, 27, 121, 131, 172 indebtedness, 3–5, 16, 19, 25–6, 28, 48, 67, 78, 81, 101–2, 115, 128, 131, 140–1, 143, 145, 148, 159, 164–6, 168–72

Index 203 indentured labour, 81, 140 Indigenous peoples, 3, 5–6, 8, 13–14, 18–19, 24, 26–8, 56, 59, 62, 69, 76–7, 81, 86, 88, 92, 95–6, 99, 106, 109, 115, 130, 132–3, 147, 149, 157–8, 161–3, 166, 168–73 industry/industrialization, 5, 8, 11–12, 17–18, 20–1, 23–4, 28–9, 36–7, 61–2, 66, 88, 92, 94–5, 98, 100–3, 128–9, 136, 147, 159–60, 171 inequality, 44, 60–61, 71, 97, 122, 132–3 inflation, 16, 20, 37, 81, 139 informal economy, 18 Instituto Costarricense de Electricidad (ICE), 77, 108–9 Instituto de Tierras y Colonización (ITCO), 80 Instituto Nacional de Biodiversidad (INBio), 4–5, 31, 48, 55, 57, 61–5, 89–90, 92–6, 98–9, 158, 169 Integración de la Infraestructura Regional Sudamericana (IIRSA), 31, 158, 160–3 intellectual property rights, 28, 86, 169–71 Inter-American Development Bank (IADB), 13, 130, 160 International Agricultural Resource Centers (IARCs), 88 International Bank for Reconstruction and Development (IBRD), 160 International Chamber of Commerce, 30 international financial institutions (IFIs), 160 International Monetary Fund (IMF), 4, 13, 15–17, 19, 26, 35, 37–42, 54, 65, 81, 115–16, 139, 164, 173

International Union for Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources (IUCNR), 4, 49, 121, 147 Johannesburg, Earth Summit, 30, 147, 160 Kyoto Protocol, 100, 102–3, 108, 112 labour, 6–10, 15, 18–19, 24, 28–30, 43, 45, 61, 65, 74, 76, 95, 99, 111, 118, 124–5, 132, 139–41, 143–4, 146, 166–9, 172 labour-intensive activities, 76, 139 labourers, 4–5, 8, 18, 43, 140 land rights, 99 landholders, 107, 111 landlessness, 41, 74, 77, 79–80 landowners, 42, 47, 76, 78, 108, 110, 132, 162 landslides, 151 Latin America, 11–13, 15, 17, 36–7, 43, 56, 115, 147, 164 leaching of chemicals, 82–3, 152, 168 livelihood, 11, 25, 27, 30, 42–4, 71, 75–8, 98–9, 108, 113, 117, 122, 127, 131, 147, 149–52, 156–8, 160–1, 167, 170–1 livestock, 42, 126, 136 lixiviation, 30, 82, 148, 151, 155, 168 loans, 4, 12, 15–16, 37, 39, 42–3, 55, 72, 78, 81, 109, 124, 136, 138, 143 maldevelopment, 18, 59, 102, 148, 173 mangrove, 51, 83–4, 152 maquila/maquiladoras, 159, 162 market economy, 11, 127, 165 marketing, 21, 41, 48, 119–20, 128, 130, 133, 138–139, 145 marketplace, 21, 133

204

Index

Marx, Karl, 7–8, 24 mercury, 150 Mesoamerica, 158 metals, 30, 82, 151, 171 Mexico, 12–13, 15–16, 88, 103, 159, 161–2 microbiology, 94 microcredit, 124, 138, 169 microenterprise, 27, 29, 64, 71–3, 122–5, 132, 135–8, 140–1, 143–4, 169 microorganisms, 27, 30, 95, 148, 150 migrants/migration, 121, 124, 131 migration, 121, 131 militarization, 161 mines/mining, 5, 27, 30, 49–51, 73, 81–5, 147–57, 160, 163, 166, 168, 171 Ministerio de Agricultural y Ganadería (MAG), 42, 45, 72, 74 Ministerio de Recursos Naturales, Energía y Minas (MIRENEM), 49, 59 Ministerio del Ambiente y Energía (MINAE), 5, 26, 51, 53–4, 57, 62–3, 69, 71, 73, 89–93, 97–9, 102–4, 107–11, 113, 116, 119, 149–54, 167–8 Ministerio del Ambiente, Energía y Telecomunicaciones (MINAET), 51 Miramar, 30, 73, 81–2, 84, 148–52, 154–7 modernization, 5, 36–7, 45, 49, 136 monetarism, 12, 16, 21, 53, 96 monetary systems, 4, 13, 15, 19–20, 127–8, 146, 152, 168 monoculture, 28, 69, 78, 101, 104–8, 113, 132–3, 135, 162, 166, 171–2 Monteverde Cloud Forest Reserve (MCFR), 57, 59 mudslides, 131

Mujeres Unidas de Sarapiqui (MUSA), 140 multinationals, 40, 42, 53, 63, 89, 92, 94, 161–2 National Front Against Gold Mining, 81 native people, 10, 69 native plants, 27, 69, 104–7, 171, 173 natural capital, 6, 21–22, 47, 56, 103, 116, 161, 171 nature, 3–11, 17–31, 33, 39, 43, 48–49, 51, 53–62, 64–65, 67, 69, 72–5, 81–2, 84–6, 93–6, 98–100, 102–4, 107, 114–21, 128, 130, 133, 135–6, 138, 142, 144–5, 150, 154, 157–9, 161, 163–73 neoliberal/neoliberalism, 3–5, 7, 11–13, 15–16, 19–20, 24, 26, 35, 37, 39–43, 45, 47–48, 50, 53, 62–5, 109, 113, 130–2, 138, 157, 159, 164, 168, 173 Netherlands, 4, 54, 64–5, 80, 90, 103, 136, 138, 145 New York Stock Exchange (NYSE), 166 Nicaragua, 17, 35, 37–9, 47, 124, 159 nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), 3–6, 23, 27, 29–31, 48, 53–8, 61, 63–5, 73, 81, 86, 88–9, 98–99, 102, 123, 130, 132–3, 136, 138–9, 141, 143, 147–8, 151, 158, 164–70, 172 Norway, 103 Norwegian Agency for Development (NORAD), 64 offsets, 103 open-pit mining, 5, 27, 30, 83, 147–8, 150, 153, 156–7, 166, 171

Index 205 oppression, 10–11, 24, 128, 168 organic agriculture, 29, 45, 59, 64–5, 72, 123–4, 132, 134–5, 137–8, 140–1 Organisation for Economic Co– operation and Development (OECD), 19 organisms, 27, 57, 62, 95–6, 99, 171 otherization, 10 Our Common Future, 20 Panama, 30, 35, 158–9, 162–4 Paraguay, 13 paramilitary, 162 parataxonomists, 86, 91, 93, 96 Partido Liberación Nacional (PLN), 36, 38 partnership, 53–4, 62, 89–90, 92–3, 116, 159–60, 166 pastureland, 42, 110 patents, 92, 99, 170 patriarchy, 8–11, 15, 17–18, 60, 128–9, 137, 146, 163–4 peace, 39, 82, 166 peasants, 3, 5–6, 8, 11, 14, 18–19, 24, 26–8, 40, 42, 44–5, 47, 49, 56, 59, 69, 73–4, 77–81, 86, 88, 92, 96, 99–100, 103, 105, 107–11, 113, 115, 122–3, 126–8, 130, 132, 137, 141, 147, 158, 161, 166, 168–73 periphery, 19, 36, 54, 99, 128 Peru, 12–14, 16–17, 35, 88, 160–3, 165 pesticides, 41–2, 46, 78, 139 pimping, 129 pipeline, 77, 161, 163 Plan Colombia, 162 Plan Dignity, 162 Plan Puebla Panamá (PPP), 30, 158–9, 161–4 plantations, 40–2, 71, 74, 76, 101, 103–8, 113, 166, 171

pollution, 21, 30, 83–4, 110, 167 pornography, 129 poverty, 16, 18, 20–1, 25–6, 31, 37, 44–5, 48, 50, 108, 110, 118, 139, 143, 158–9, 161–3, 169 power, 5, 7, 11–12, 15, 29, 42, 55–6, 61, 63, 94, 98–9, 128, 131, 133, 135, 159, 163, 166, 169, 173 priority working unit (PWU), 26, 72–3 privatization, 16, 22, 39, 61, 86, 94, 120, 135, 160–1, 171–2 production, 7–8, 18–19, 21, 23, 25, 29, 36, 40–47, 56, 61, 65, 71, 78, 81, 91–2, 96, 108–10, 122, 124–7, 132, 135–8, 141–3, 145–6, 157, 159, 162–3, 167, 169 Productive Reconversion Program/ Programa de Reconversion Productiva (PRP), 45 profit, 12, 19–20, 38, 49, 53, 55, 57, 63, 92, 95, 103, 107, 116, 128–9, 142–3, 152, 167, 169 Programa de Investigación para el Uso Racional de la Biodiversidad en el Area de Conservación Arenal (PROACA), 90 property rights, 6, 20, 28, 35, 60, 63, 86, 94, 169–71 prostitution, 128–9, 131, 150 Puntarenas, 30, 82–83, 149–54 racism, 11, 162 radicalization, 14 rainforest, 16, 27–8, 62, 76, 92, 94, 100, 102–4, 106, 109–11, 113–14, 116–17, 122–3, 130, 159, 168, 171 ranches/ranching, 28, 40, 46, 56, 74, 76–77, 122, 126, 152, 162 rape, 7, 16, 162

206

Index

raw material, 99, 136 Rayrock, 151–3 Reducing Emissions for Deforestation and Degradation (REDD), 102 reforestation, 103–5, 107, 110, 113 reproduction, 8–9, 18–19, 23–24, 97, 132 reservoirs, 59, 77, 116, 169 restructuring, 24, 26, 40, 167 revolution, 35–7, 40–1, 47, 69, 76, 117, 121, 123, 132 Rio de Janeiro, 4, 6, 100, 114, 133 runoff, 46, 148 rural women, 5–6, 16, 29, 43, 56, 59, 63–4, 109, 115, 128, 130, 132, 135–6, 144–5, 147, 157, 162, 169, 173 Salvador, 12, 17, 35, 159, 165 sedimentation, 83, 148, 150 seeds, 78, 92, 139 self-sufficiency, 18 sex trade, 128, 171, 173 sexism, 10–11 sexual division of labour, 18, 29–30, 65, 118, 132 sexuality, 63 single women, 80, 137 Sistema Nacional de Areas de Conservación (SINAC), 5, 50–2, 57, 90, 170 sisterhood, 162 slavery, 98 social justice, 14–15, 28 socialism, 13 soil, 47, 78, 81, 83, 91, 103, 105–7, 122, 127, 133, 135, 148, 150–1, 171 South America, 13, 31, 47, 160–1, 163, 165 speciesism, 11 stabilization, 15, 37–8, 143, 164, 173

stabilization and structural adjustment programs (SSAPs), 15–16, 41, 164 structural adjustment, 15, 37, 139, 143, 164, 173 structural adjustment programs (SAPs), 37 struggle, 12, 14, 79, 82, 98, 151–3, 155–6, 162–3, 168 subsistence, 6–7, 14, 17–18, 25, 27–8, 43–4, 65, 69, 76, 96, 98, 108–9, 117–18, 126, 128, 131, 136, 138, 140, 143, 145–6, 156–7, 163, 167–8, 172 Suriname, 160 sustainability, 24, 89, 104, 108, 148 sustainable development, 3–4, 6–7, 18–22, 24–7, 30–1, 48–51, 53–6, 60–1, 63–5, 69, 73, 96, 99–100, 102–3, 106–7, 109, 113, 116, 122, 124–5, 132–3, 135–7, 145, 147–8, 157–60, 162–4, 168 technology, 22, 26, 41, 45, 47, 65, 78, 91, 93, 95, 99, 103, 136, 151 tepezcuintle, 97, 117 third world countries (TWCs), 54 Tilaran, 3–5, 26, 31, 50, 57, 59, 61, 69–75, 77, 79, 81, 83, 85, 89–91, 97, 108–9, 116, 118–19, 122–5, 135, 138, 148–50, 158, 165, 168, 170–1 Toronto, 147, 152 tourism, 28, 47, 60, 73, 78, 114–16, 118–30, 136, 152, 167 toxins, 83, 151 Trade-Related International Property Rights (TRIPs), 119 trafficking: of women and children 130; drug, 162 Trinidad, 80

Index 207 Tropical Forest Conservation Act (TFCA), 164, 167 Tropical Science Centre (TSC), 57 unemployment, 37, 111–12 United Nations (UN), 3, 6, 17, 20, 27–8, 38, 54, 65, 96, 100–2, 147, 158, 160, 170 United Nations Conference on Environment and Development (UNCED), 6, 65 United Nations Development Program (UNDP), 102 United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), 54 United Nations Environment Program (UNEP), 27, 102 United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), 101 United Nations System of National Accounts (UNSNA), 96 United States, 5, 12, 17–18, 25, 36–40, 42, 49, 56, 63–4, 75, 79, 91, 96–8, 104, 109, 111–12, 116, 121, 123, 125, 127, 129–30, 138, 142–3, 161–2, 164–5, 169 United States Agency for International Development (USAID), 5, 17, 26, 37–40, 47–8, 51, 54–6, 102, 164 unpaid labour, 6, 8, 24, 172 unsustainability, 27, 148 unwaged labour, 6, 8, 17–19, 24, 43, 48, 172 Uruguay, 13–14, 165 Vancouver, 156 Vanessa Ventures Ltd., 149, 157

Venezuela, 160 volcanos, 3, 28, 42, 71, 73, 77–8, 91, 96, 108–9, 115–16, 118–23, 125, 128, 130–1, 149, 171 waged labour, 8, 17, 19, 24, 43, 45, 128, 152, 172 Wall Street, 19, 103, 107, 170 war, 11, 18, 35–7, 39, 47, 152, 161–2 Washington consensus, 19 watersheds, 46 wealth, 6, 13, 18, 22, 47, 50, 60, 66, 117–18, 129, 145, 159, 168, 170 wildlife, 5, 26–8, 48–51, 53, 57, 60, 71, 83, 86, 88, 90–1, 96–9, 105, 107, 118, 120–2, 130, 149, 159, 163, 168, 171 women, 3, 5–11, 13–16, 18–19, 24–6, 28–30, 43–5, 56, 59, 63–5, 69, 73, 75, 80, 84, 96, 109–11, 114–15, 118, 123–5, 128–33, 135–47, 149–51, 156–7, 159, 161–2, 166–7, 169, 171–3 women in development (WID), 5, 29–30, 64–5, 133, 135, 137, 143, 145–6, 169 Women's Legal, Education and Action Fund (LEAF), 62, 106 work, 3–4, 6, 8, 14, 18–19, 26, 43–5, 47–48, 56, 64–5, 77–8, 93–4, 96, 99, 111, 118, 123, 125, 128, 131, 136–46, 152, 162, 166–7, 170, 172 workers, 6–7, 10, 15, 17–19, 24, 36, 43, 45, 63, 76, 83, 93, 96, 116, 121, 125–6, 129, 131, 140–1, 145, 152–3, 162, 169, 171, 173 working class, 35–6 World Bank, 3–6, 13, 15–17, 19, 21–2, 26, 30, 35, 37–8, 40–2, 49, 54–6, 64–6, 81, 88–9, 104, 107, 115–16, 133, 139, 147, 158–9, 164, 166–7, 172–3

208

Index

World Health Organization (WHO), 5, 8, 15, 18, 20, 22–3, 29, 42, 44, 47, 59, 69, 71, 74–82, 92–3, 96–8, 100, 103, 105, 108–9, 111, 113, 117, 120–9, 132–3, 137, 141–2, 144, 147, 151, 153, 155, 159, 161, 166–7, 169–70, 173 World Trade Organization (WTO), 19, 127 World Wildlife Fund (WWF), 4–5, 26, 31, 48–9, 51, 53, 56–7, 59–62, 65, 69,

71, 73, 89–90, 92, 99, 116, 119, 130, 148–9, 158, 164–5, 168, 170 World Wildlife Fund–Canada (WWF–C), 4–5, 26, 31, 48, 57, 59–62, 65, 69, 71, 73, 89–90, 92, 99, 116, 119, 130, 148–9, 158, 165, 168, 170 Z–Trece, 73–4, 77–9, 81, 87, 117–18, 120, 122–4, 130, 136