Abstract
This essay characterizes environmental struggles in El Salvador from 1992 to 2014 and discusses what type of environmentalism has emerged from them. The chapter begins with an account of the political and sociological changes in the last decades of Salvadoran history. Second, it presents an overview of post-civil-war environmental conflicts, describing issues at stake and groups participating in the mobilizations. Third, it discusses how local environmental conflicts have been the “breeding ground” of Salvadoran environmentalism. Finally, the conclusion section argues that environmentalism in El Salvador is a product of both environmental and social justice struggles and discourses.
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Notes
- 1.
In a 2010 assessment of land cover, agriculture and pastures covered 74 % of the country, including coffee grown under tree cover (10 %). Urban land uses accounted for 4 % (MARN 2013).
- 2.
Previous academic research on this topic is scarce (Navarro et al. 2007; Cartagena 2008, 2009a; 2009b; Valencia 2012). Therefore, the study relied on sources such as media accounts and NGOs reports. Methodology included archival research, interviews, case studies, and cross-case synthesis. The core of the data was gathered from Cartagena (2009a), but this paper updates those analyses to include developments from 2009 to early 2014.
- 3.
It is unrelated to the international homonymous network. Friends of the Earth was founded in 1946, and four decades later, in 1987, it was a founding member of the Unión Ecológica Salvadoreña (Salvadoran Ecological Union, UNES; La Prensa Gráfica 1987), which became in the 1990s one of the most vocal organizations.
- 4.
The plans were not implemented at the time, as reflected in the belated declaration of the first national park until 1987, but it lead to the protection of the main forests that today compose the National System of Natural Protected Areas (Sistema Nacional de Áreas Naturales Protegidas).
- 5.
The sample is a selection from a larger list of cases identified in bulletins, reports, memos, newspapers, and other documents kept in environmental NGOs archives and repositories, as well as personally interviewing activists (Cartagena 2009a). Thus, the sample may underestimate the occurrence of conflicts of little interest to media and environmental groups.
- 6.
The country is divided into 262 municipalities, each managed by a mayor and city council elected every 3 years. Proactively or reactively, they confront environmental issues for they must provide waste collection and management, construction permits and other relevant services. There is an intermediate division into 14 departments, yet their appointed governors have a limited influence on environmental matters.
- 7.
By late 2007, they comprised 0.5 % of the country (Cartagena 2009a).
- 8.
Low-public-profile conflicts were omitted, although all protected areas face hunting, firewood extraction, crops, or human settlements. For instance, the Montecristo National Park is excluded from the sample but conflicts are latent. Over a 100 families inhabit the park without security of tenure (Cartagena 2012).
- 9.
This account excludes case #46 caused by tourist and real estate interests in a rural coastal community.
- 10.
Agrarian labor precariously housed in latifundia with the right to cultivate a small area for self-subsistence. Colonos’ descendants still live in estates that became urban land or national parks.
- 11.
Coffee plantations grown under the shade of large trees are valued as part of the country’s forests, because they have strategic roles for biodiversity protection and climate change mitigation (Hecht and Saatchi 2007).
- 12.
Substrate services are not considered in the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment (2003) but in Gómez-Baggethun and de Groot (2007).
- 13.
Women were accounted only when they were individual leaders (#6, 8, 56) or when women’s organizations openly engaged in mobilizations (#53, 54). Such information could indicate underreporting, since rural and urban women have taken leadership and public roles in their communities during the postwar years (Herrera 2008).
- 14.
Until 2012, the winning party in municipal elections kept the mayor seat and 100 % of the council seats. Thus, local government and political party completely overlapped.
- 15.
Catholic Church representatives are considered here as local instead of extra-local actor, since diocesan bodies engaged in conflicts recruited their members among the local population. Even bishops have roots in the territories.
- 16.
University students supported the El Espino case (#14) and the anti-mining campaign (#54, 59). They also carried on a struggle against pollution in San Miguel (#24).
- 17.
After a harsh storm showed compromising geological risks, construction of El Chaparral halted in May 2010 and had not resumed by May 2015.
- 18.
However, other groups may adhere to values of environmental protection and sustainability, but do not necessarily define their identity or mission accordingly.
- 19.
Using names like “ecologic group,” “environmental committee,” or ”environmental monitoring committee” (Grupo ecológico, comité ambiental, comité de monitoreo ambiental, respectively).
- 20.
Counted cases refer to having a salient role in the coalition, but both UNES and CESTA have public statements on a larger number of conflicts, including many not listed in the sample.
- 21.
Interestingly, one sustainable development NGO supported communities challenging strict conservation measures in El Imposible National Park (Martínez 1997).
- 22.
Insufficient information in four conflicts (#3, 7, 11, and 38) does not enable to confirm or rule out local grassroots participation.
- 23.
The farm is in the municipal terms of San Salvador, Santa Tecla, and Antiguo Cuscatlán.
- 24.
The priest seemed to be referring to the Special Law Against Terrorist Acts passed in 2006.
- 25.
NGOs specialized in wildlife conservation have emerged but they are delinked from grassroots struggles (Cartagena 2008).
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Cartagena Cruz, R. (2015). Environmental Conflicts and Social Movements in Postwar El Salvador. In: Almeida, P., Cordero Ulate, A. (eds) Handbook of Social Movements across Latin America. Handbooks of Sociology and Social Research. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-017-9912-6_17
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