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Central America Wants End to War on Environment |
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By Néfer Muñoz*
One of the Earth's most fragile regions but with great biological wealth will ask at the Rio+10 Summit that humanity declare peace with nature
SAN JOSE - The seven countries of Central America will make a joint appeal for a commitment to the environment as meetings get under way at the World Summit on Sustainable Development in the South African city of Johannesburg, ending Sep 4.
The Central American nations will demand that transnational corporations adopt international principles of social responsibility in the areas of environmental protection and sustainable development and that they launch processes for oversight by the appropriate multinational bodies.
"For years Central America suffered civil wars, but now we are at peace and we want to tell the world that it is necessary to build peace with nature," Mauricio Castro, executive director of the Central American Commission on Environment and Development (CCAD), told Tierramérica.
The declaration of the governments of Belize, Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua and Panama was officially announced Aug 26 at the World Conservation Union (IUCN) environment center in Johannesburg, said Castro.
Central America is also a supporter of the Latin American and Caribbean Initiative for Sustainable Development, which demands that rich countries open their markets to products of the developing South, an increase in international development assistance, and a target of 10 percent consumption of "clean energy" by 2010.
The text drawn up by the Central American governments outlines non-quantifiable commitments for the region in the areas of water and sanitation, energy, health, agriculture and biodiversity, the five themes of the Johannesburg Summit, according to Kofi Annan, Secretary-General of the United Nations. And he adds one more, which runs through all five: general policies for sustainable development.
"Central America is a region that is preparing to follow a path towards sustainable development," and there is the political will to consolidate behind one voice on this issue, says CCAD's Castro.
"We want to call other nations' attention to the fact that if we continue in conflict with nature, we are simply going to lose," says a preliminary draft of the text, to which Tierramérica had exclusive access prior to the Summit.
The official presentation of the report was entrusted to Costa Rica's minister of environment, Carlos Manuel Rodríguez, as that country currently holds the rotating presidency of the CCAD.
The declaration lists the region's advances since the 1992 Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro, including the creation of the Alliance for Sustainable Development and the Meso-American Biological Corridor (an initiative aimed at restoring the chain of forest ecosystems through the region), the Civil Society Permanent Forum, the consolidation of environment ministries and the signing of important multilateral agreements.
"Central America is the first region in the world, within the areas considered biodiversity 'hot-points', that has reached an agreement on its environmental wealth," Rodríguez told Tierramérica.
The isthmus is committed to promoting schemes that pay for what are known as "environmental services", which are provided by intact forests, for example, and to dealing in "carbon credits" aimed at curbing climate change. Other modes of generating environmentally-friendly revenues include ecotourism and bioprospecting.
Costa Rica's President Abel Pacheco will take the initiative even farther and ask for payment to the region for environmental services provided through the preservation and sustainable use of forests, which hold seven percent of the world's biodiversity but are under grave threat from uncontrolled logging.
In fact, this is a policy that Costa Rica already applies domestically, subsidizing the conservation and controlled use of forested areas that are privately owned.
Minister Rodríguez says the region will urge wealthy nations to continue financing environmental projects and developing countries to set their own goals and timelines for preserving their natural resources.
The Central American text also mentions the region's own great challenges, as it is home to 37 million people, 22 million of whom are poor, with 25 percent of children suffering chronic malnutrition.
Environmental groups, meanwhile, doubt that the conference will make much headway in concrete plans for halting the destruction of the planet.
"We are seeing a process that is largely dominated by transnational corporations. We are working from within civil society to curb that dominance," Ricardo Navarro, world director of the non-governmental Friends of the Earth, said in a conversation with Tierramérica.
Attending the Johannesburg Summit will be more than 100 heads of state and as many as 50,000 delegates. The ministerial-level negotiations for reaching agreements will last until Sep 1, with the presidents and prime ministers gathering Sep 2-4 for the closure of the massive meet.
* Néfer Muñoz is an IPS correspondent.
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