On residential streets of Caracas with little traffic it is possible to see cars that have been abandoned by their owners for years. They probably migrated from Venezuela or cannot afford to repair and sell their vehicles. CREDIT: Humberto Márquez / IPS
by Humberto Marquez (caracas)
Inter Press Service
CARACAS, Oct 23 (IPS) – Diego has just enrolled to study journalism at a university in the Venezuelan capital and, with 2,000 dollars that his family members managed to gather, has bought his first car, a small 2007 Ford that can take him to class from his home in the neighboring Caribbean port city of La Guaira.
Tomás, an experienced physiotherapist who sold Diego the car, is leaving for Spain where a job awaits him without delay, “so I’m quickly selling off things that will give me money to settle there, such as furniture, household goods and appliances, but for now I sold only one of my two cars,” he told IPS.
“This Ford Fiesta was my first car, I loved it very much, but it doesn’t make sense for me to hold on to two vehicles. I’m keeping a 2011 pickup truck that is in good condition, just in case I don’t do well and I have to return,” added the professional who, like other sources who spoke to IPS, asked not to disclose his last name “for safety reasons.”
The migration of almost eight million Venezuelans in the last 10 years, and the general impoverishment of the population, have led to the deterioration of what was once a shiny fleet of vehicles, with one out of every four vehicles left standing now due to lack of maintenance and leaving much of the rest aging and on the way to the junkyards.
In the basements of parking lots, and in the streets of towns and cities, thousands and thousands of vehicles are permanently parked under layers of dust and oblivion, because their owners have left or because they do not have the money to buy spare parts and pay the costs of repairs.
Along the streets of any Venezuelan city can be seen old rundown vehicles with no sign that the necessary repairs will be made. The impoverishment of the population is at the root of this decline. CREDIT: RrSs
Aging vehicle fleet
Omar Bautista, president of the Chamber of Venezuelan Automotive Manufacturers, told IPS that “the vehicle fleet in Venezuela – a country that now has 28 million inhabitants – is about 4.1 million vehicles, with an average age of 22 years, and 25 percent of them are out of service.”
“The loss of purchasing power of the owners has caused most of them to delay the maintenance of their vehicles and the replacement of the spare parts that suffer wear and tear, such as tires, brakes, shock absorbers and oil,” Bautista said.
Moreover, in contrast to the immense oil wealth in its subsoil, gasoline in Venezuela is scarce and, after more than half a century being the cheapest in the world, it is now sold at half a dollar per liter, a cost difficult to afford for most owners of private vehicles or public transportation.
The country needs some 300,000 barrels of fuel per day and for several years it has had less than 160,000 barrels, according to oil economist Rafael Quiroz, who added that interruptions in the work of Venezuela’s refineries are frequent.
There is almost no residential building that does not have at least one vehicle in storage waiting for its owners to return from abroad. They are part of the 1.5 million vehicles that are permanently parked in the country. CREDIT: Humberto Márquez / IPS
Not enough money
The minimum wage in Venezuela is four dollars a month. Most workers receive up to 50 dollars in non-wage compensation for food, and the average income according to consulting firms is around 130 dollars a month.
Luisa Hernández, a retired teacher, earns a little more giving private English classes, but “the situation at home is very difficult. I can’t afford to pay for the repair of my Toyota Corolla, but a mechanic friend agreed to do the work, and I can pay him in installments,” she told IPS.
Mechanics have their finger on the pulse of the situation. “People leave and the cars often sit idle for years, and then the owners end up selling them, from abroad. Quite a few of those I have gone to pick up and have fixed them, to sell them,” Daniel, who runs a garage in the capital’s middle-class east side, told IPS.
He said that “many people do not sell their cars before leaving the country, thinking that they’re just going abroad to ‘see how it goes’. But they stay there and then decide to sell their vehicle before it further deteriorates and depreciates.”
Another mechanic, Eduardo González, told IPS that “There are people who go away and leave their cars in storage and from abroad they contact us so that from time to time we can check them and do some maintenance. Or they entrust their vehicle to a relative. There are people who travel and come back, but most of them end up selling.”
This situation “has favored buyers, who can get cars at a low price. But the problems come later, because that very used car will require spare parts and maintenance, and that is expensive and often the parts are difficult to get,” added González.
The same difficulty is also a concern for owners of cabs, buses and private vans that transport passengers, as well as cargo trucks.
“At least half of the truck fleet in the region is affected by the shortage and scarcity of spare parts,” said Jonathan Durrelle, president of the Chamber of Cargo Transportation of Carabobo, an industrial state in the center of the country.
Large and small buses for passenger transport in Venezuelan cities, including Caracas, as well as cargo vehicles, also suffer from the lack of sufficient revenue, as well as spare parts, to keep them in proper working condition. CREDIT: Humberto Márquez / IPS
Industries have closed down
Elías Besis, from the Chamber of Spare Parts Importers, attributed this to the closure of companies that “years ago manufactured 62 percent of the spare parts needed in the country, and now that production has plunged to two percent.”
Thousands of manufacturing companies closed down in Venezuela during the eight years (2013-2020) in which the country was in deep recession, suffering a loss of four-fifths of its GDP according to economic consulting firms.
Financial and banking activity has also declined, as has the vehicle loan portfolio, which peaked at 2.3 billion dollars in 2008 and plummeted to just 227,000 dollars by late 2022, according to economist Manuel Sutherland.
Vehicle assembly plants, of which there were a dozen until recently, also closed their doors. In addition to selling to hundreds of dealerships, they used to export vehicles to the Andean and Caribbean markets.
Their production peaks were recorded in 1978, with 182,000 new vehicles – Venezuela then had 14 million inhabitants and 2.5 million vehicles – and in 2007, when 172,000 cars were assembled.
In 2022 only 75 vehicles – trucks and buses – were assembled, and in the first six months of this year just 22.
Newer vans and cars drive through middle and upper class neighborhoods, but are part of the “bubble,” the small segment of the population less impacted by the deep economic crisis that Venezuela has suffered over the last decade. CREDIT: Motorpasión
Farewell to the bonanza
The result of this scenario is the aging and non-renewal of the vehicles circulating on Venezuela’s roads.
The new ones, Daniel pointed out, “are SUVs, crossovers and off-road vehicles that cost a lot of money and can only be bought by those who live in the bubble,” the term popularly used to refer to the segment of high-level officials and businesspersons whose finances are still booming in the midst of the crisis.
In addition, in view of the almost total closure of automotive plants, individuals are opting to import new vehicles directly from the United States, favored by the elimination of tariffs for the importation of most models.
For that reason, said Bautista, “there is no shortage of new vehicles, what there is is a shortage of consumers with the necessary purchasing power and conditions to buy new vehicles.”
These consumers were part of the hard-hit middle class – nine out of 10 families in that socioeconomic category had fallen below the middle class by 2020 according to the consulting firm Anova – and they no longer buy new or newer cars because they have swelled the legion of migrants, selling or leaving behind their main assets.
Since the days of the oil boom (1950-1980), Venezuelans developed a sort of sentimental relationship with their vehicles, associating them with comfort and enjoyment that favored cheap gasoline and a network of paved roads that made it easier to travel to places of recreation.
In middle class and even lower middle class families, it was quite common to change cars every two years and to give one to their children when they turned 18. They were helped by credit facilities, and were encouraged to buy cars in cities where public transportation has always fallen short.
They have had to say goodbye to their easy past on wheels, like migrants have said farewell to their country and homeland. Or at least “see you later”.
An aerial view of Hacendita Cafubá, on the north shore of Piratininga, a lagoon in southeastern Brazil, when ponds that serve as a spillway and to collect sedimentation of polluted water were being built and filter gardens that clean the water of the Cafubá River before discharging its waters into the lagoon were being planted. CREDIT: Alex Ramos / Niterói City Government
by Mario Osava (niterÓi, brazil)
Inter Press Service
NITERÓI, Brazil, Oct 20 (IPS) – Houses with balconies facing the street or the surrounding hills, when they are not hidden behind high walls, reflect a neighborhood where people live on the shore of a lagoon but reject the landscape it offers.
Piratininga, a 2.87 square kilometer coastal lagoon in the southern part of the Brazilian city of Niterói, began to change after several decades of uncontrolled urban growth with no care for the natural surroundings, in what has become a neighborhood of 16,000 inhabitants.
Garbage, polluted water, construction debris and bad odors hurt the landscape and the quality of life that is sought when choosing a lagoon and green hills as a place to build a year-round or weekend residence.
The accumulated sludge at the bottom of the lagoon is 1.6 meters thick, on average, resulting from both pollution and natural sedimentation.
“That’s what explains those houses that turn their backs to the lagoon,” explained Dionê Castro, coordinator of the Sustainable Oceanic Region Program (PRO Sostenible) of the city government of Niterói, a municipality of 482,000 people separated from the city of Rio de Janeiro only by Guanabara Bay.
Oceânica is one of the five administrative zones of the municipality, locally called regions, which includes 11 neighborhoods in the southern part, on the open sea coast, in contrast to others on the shore of the bay or inland areas without beaches. With two lagoons and a good part of the Atlantic Forest still preserved, the area stands out for its nature.
PRO Sostenible, which was founded in 2014, seeks to restore environmental systems and to ensure better and more sustainable urbanization in the area. Its actions are based on a systemic approach and nature-based solutions.
Dionê Castro is head of the Sustainable Oceanic Region Program of the municipality of Niterói, on the edge of the Piratininga Lagoon in southeastern Brazil. Gardens and piers jutting into the lagoon have replaced the garbage dumps, polluted water and construction debris that had led local residents to reject the landscape, leading houses to be built with their “backs to the lagoon.” CREDIT: Mario Osava / IPS
Natural clean-up of the water
The program’s flagship project is the Orla Piratininga Alfredo Sirkis Park, which pays homage to a leader of the environmental movement, former national lawmaker and former president of the Green Party, as well as journalist and writer, who died in 2020.
The park, known by its acronym POP, has the mission of recovering and protecting the ecosystems associated with the Piratininga Lagoon, in addition to fostering a sense of belonging to the environment and its surroundings. For this reason, the participation of the local residents in all stages of the project has been and continues to be a basic principle.
It comprises an area of 680,000 square meters, the largest in Brazil in nature-based solutions projects, with 10.6 kilometers of bicycle paths, 17 recreational areas and a 2,800 square meter Ecocultural Center.
To bring residents and visitors closer to the local environment, the plan is to complete three three-story lookout points – two of which have already been built – and piers reaching into the lagoon, part of which can be used for fishing, as fish still inhabit the lagoon despite the pollution of recent decades.
The first section, known as Haciendita Cafubá, was inaugurated on Jun. 17, with a water filtration system for the Cafubá River, one of the three that flow into the lagoon, a lookout point, piers, a bicycle path and even a nursery for newborn crocodiles in a special fenced-in area.
A view of ponds and, in the background, filtering gardens after their inauguration in June 2023. Hills covered by native vegetation surround the Piratininga lagoon and the neighborhood that grew up over half a century around it and now has 16,000 inhabitants, in Niterói, a neighboring city of Rio de Janeiro in southeastern Brazil. CREDIT: Mario Osava / IPS
“I went to see if I could find the crocodiles, my son made me walk down the street, he loves animals… I never thought I would see what I saw… I went to the beginning of the Haciendita, I saw fish where there was nothing living before, I saw flowers where there was only mud, I saw life where nature was already dead without any hope. Congratulations for tolerating us, that community is tough.”
This is the testimony of a resident, addressed to the head of PRO Sostenible. The park has had a large number of visitors since before its inauguration, attracted by flora and fauna that had long since disappeared from the shores of the lagoon.
The technology used to clean the waters is known around the world but has not been widely used in Brazil. It is based on filter gardens, in which layers of gravel and permeable substrates serve as a base for macrophytes, aquatic plants that live in flooded areas and are visible on the surface.
The plants filter the water in a process that does not require chemical inputs.
A special spillway receives the waters of the Cafubá, which conducts and controls them to give greater efficiency to the next pond, the sedimentation pond, the first step in cleaning the polluted waters by reducing the solid material produced by erosion and garbage thrown into the riverbed.
After the sedimentation basins, the water passes through three filtering gardens before flowing into the lagoon.
Biologists and environmental managers Heloisa Osanai and Andrea Maia are photographed at the Tibau Island lookout point at the western end of the Piratininga Lagoon in southeastern Brazil. The vegetation, dominated by the exotic and invasive white lead tree, is gradually being replaced by local species as part of the restoration and clean-up process. CREDIT: Mario Osava / IPS
Plantfilters
Twelve species of macrophytes are used in the filtration process, but the variety has been reduced due to maintenance difficulties. “We use only Brazilian species, and no exogenous species,” said Heloisa Osanai, a biologist specialized in environmental management and one of the 17 employees of PRO Sostenible.
Examples include water lettuce and water lilies with orange flowers.
“One of the effects of the water treatment is the reduction of mosquitoes, which is important to local residents, who used to burn dry vegetation in an attempt to drive away the insects. People no longer build bonfires in the evenings. The filter gardens attract dragonflies that eat the mosquitoes,” said Osanai.
In the larger Jacaré River, 11 filtering gardens were created, which operate in sequence and whose size was designed for greater efficiency, said Andrea Maia, another biologist and environmental manager of the team.
Filter gardens beautify the environment and expel mosquitoes, with macrophyte aquatic plant species that clean the water, in addition to decontaminating the Piratininga lagoon, restoring fishing and local tourism in a long-neglected ecosystem of Niteroi, in southeastern Brazil. CREDIT: Mario Osava / IPS
Awards and results
PRO Sostenible has already won several national and international awards. It was named one of the three best environmental sustainability programs in Latin America and the Caribbean in the Smart Cities 2022 award.
This year it won another award from Smart Cities Latin America, as the best in Sustainable Urban Development and Mobility. The Park also won awards for valuing biodiversity, from the Federation of Industries of Rio de Janeiro, and another as an environmental project, from the São Paulo city government, for contributing to the Sustainable Development Goals of the 2030 Agenda.
In addition to the Park, the program has inaugurated a Sports and Leisure Center on the island of Tibau, on the other side of the Piratininga Lagoon, closer to the sea.
As part of this project, sports fields, a playground and a lookout point have been built, while an invasive tree, the white lead tree (Leucaena leucocephala), native to Mexico and Central America, which dominated the island’s vegetation, has been gradually replaced with local species.
The systemic thinking that guides PRO Sostenible is based on three pillars, explained Dionê Castro.
First is the complexity of local ecosystems and of the projects being implemented, focusing on the environmental, natural, social and cultural dimensions.
In second place is what is called “intersubjectivity”, which takes into account new paradigms of science, leaving behind “simplistic and Cartesian views…The changes do not come from outside, but from local residents, with public input from the conception of the project to its execution,” said the geographer who holds a doctorate in environmental management.
The third pillar is irreversibility. The lagoon and its ecosystems will not return to their original state, “to zero,” but will be cleaned up as much as possible to reach a “new equilibrium,” she said.
Local support for the environmental project led to solutions in different areas, such as the regularization of real estate in the favelas or shantytowns, the improvement of health, the revitalization of fishing, and even the creation of a fishermen’s association.
“It’s environmental justice on the march,” Castro summed up.
Photo of several cable cars of the Cablebus, which runs on electricity and has been carrying passengers through the south and southeast of Mexico City since 2021. Mexican public transportation is still based on fossil fuels, and a transition to cleaner alternatives is necessary. CREDIT: Emilio Godoy / IPS
by Emilio Godoy (mexico city)
Inter Press Service
MEXICO CITY, Oct 12 (IPS) – Maribel Ochoa takes less time and spends less money commuting from her home to her work in eastern Mexico City thanks to the use of the electric Cablebus, a cable car that has improved her quality of life since the service began operating two years ago.
“It used to take me an hour. Now I make the trip in 15 minutes and the Cablebus drops me off three blocks from my house. And I don’t have to wait long for the cable car to come,” the 52-year-old married mother of seven, who is a cleaning lady for several families, told IPS.
In the past, she had to take a minibus to the Metro public transportation system to get to work.
The six-person turquoise-colored cable cars carry passengers dozens of meters at six meters per second through four hills on the east side of Mexico City. Below, passengers can watch the road traffic, the bustle of street vendors and children filing in and out of schools. Greater Mexico City is home to more than 20 million people.
The cable cars fly over the east side of the city, above the chaotic urban expansion below.
The route is part of one of the two lines of the Cablebus electric public transportation system, which is almost 11 kilometers long and connects the southeast with the eastern part of the city.
Since 2021, the cable car system, which cost some 300 million dollars to build, has transported around 36 million people on its two lines, at a rate of 120,000 passengers per day, in 682 cable cars for a distance over 20 kilometers. Line 1 connects the north and east of the capital.
In addition, since 2016, the Mexicable has been operating, with two 14-kilometer routes, in the municipality of Ecatepec, in the neighboring state of Mexico, north of the Mexican capital.
Together with a Metrobus line, a dedicated lane bus rapid transit (BRT) model and trolleybuses, these systems offer an alternative to the conventional fossil fuel-powered transportation networks that are predominant in this Latin American country of some 129 million people.
Mexico has a long tradition of using trolleybuses and cable cars, which were left in the past due to the prioritization of fossil-fueled ground transportation.
With 623 units, mostly trolleybuses, Mexico is the country with the third largest number of electromobility units, after Chile (2043) and Colombia (1589), according to the international E-BUS Radar platform. In total, the region has almost 5,000 electric buses, concentrated in the capital cities.
The replacement of fossil fuel vehicles with electric ones reduces gasoline consumption, air pollution and noise generation.
In Mexico, transportation accounted for 139.15 million tons of carbon dioxide (CO2) equivalent, a gas generated by human activities and responsible for global warming, out of a total of 690.62 million, according to 2021 data from the National Inventory of Greenhouse Gas and Compound Emissions of the governmental National Institute of Ecology and Climate Change (INECC).
A station of the Cablebus, the electric cable car that since 2021 connects the south and southeast of Mexico City, greatly shortening the commute for residents in those areas. Mexican public transport is still mostly powered by fossil fuels, and the country is making a very slow transition to cleaner alternatives. CREDIT: Emilio Godoy / IPS
Few electric vehicles
Bernardo Baranda, director for Latin America of the non-governmental Institute for Transportation and Development Policy (ITDP) said there was “insufficient progress” in the decarbonization of the sector, which, moreover, is taking place mainly in large cities.
“As a country, we are lagging behind. We need to make some adjustments and to be more ambitious. More support is needed from the federal government; it would be very good if it strengthened the mass transit program, to provide incentives for concessionaires and operators to acquire more electric fleets,” he told IPS in Mexico City, where the Institute’s regional headquarters is located.
In Mexico there are more than 53 million vehicles, and the number has been rising steadily since 2000, according to figures from the National Institute of Geography and Statistics, which adds that most of them run on fossil fuels. The institution reported 229.36 million public transportation users in July in the country’s eight main metropolitan areas and cities.
Victor Alvarado, head of the Mobility and Climate Agenda area of the non-governmental organization The Power of the Consumer, identified challenges such as profitability, sufficient demand, adequate facilities, and awareness of the issue among concessionaires and transport operators.
“What we envision today arises from local needs and a commitment to offer public transport services that can mitigate the effects of climate change. The useful life of conventional buses ranges from 10 to 15 years, and this becomes an opportunity to renew the fleet,” he told IPS.
At the national level, experts point out, Mexico lacks an electromobility strategy, with a plan yet to be finalized, despite its importance in the reduction of polluting emissions and the path to move towards a low carbon economy, which is an additional restriction for the adoption of policies.
However, the government of the capital has set goals for the deployment of alternative transportation and pollution reduction.
In addition, one of the lines of action of the capital city’s Electromobility Strategy 2018-2030 projects that 30 percent of the Metrobus fleet will be electric by 2030, equivalent to 300 buses.
Little by little, more initiatives are joining the move towards electromobility. The government of the capital is building a third Cablebus line, five kilometers long and with 11 stations, on the west side of Mexico City.
And the northern industrial city of Monterrey, with more than 1.5 million inhabitants, is preparing to introduce some 110 electric buses with an investment of 56 million dollars in public funds.
It is doing so through the Tumi E-Bus Mission project, aimed at supporting 500 cities (including Mexico City and Guadalajara, as well as Monterrey) in their transition to the deployment of 100,000 electric buses in total by 2025.
With technical advice from the German Agency for International Cooperation and six international organizations, the plan is part of the Transformative Urban Mobility Initiative.
One of the elevated trolleybuses that run along the east side of Mexico City, at one of the stops. Mexico has 623 electric units that reduce polluting emissions, even though the power supply depends on oil by-products. CREDIT: Emilio Godoy / IPS
ECLAC outlines three scenarios for Mexico, to 2025 and 2030. The intensive adoption perspective requires an addition of 18.99 million electric units, so that the proportion would rise to 21 percent and 42 percent of the total, respectively.
Ochoa hopes that alternative transportation will expand, so that her commute will become even shorter and cheaper.
But she knows that this depends on the decisions made by the national and local authorities.
Baranda, the regional expert, is confident that the next government will prioritize electric transport. “The sector is one of the main producers of pollutants. This has to be reflected in budgets. In small cities we should move towards the transition; smaller units can be used, these areas should not be left behind,” he said.
Alvarado the activist said actions are needed in financing, reallocation of budgets, professionalization of local authorities and creation of incentives for the acquisition of more environmentally friendly fleets.
“But part of the problem is that the energy source is still fossil fuels. That is where a focus on renewable energy generation comes in. In the states we have to see who dares to explore renewable energy for transportation; that is a great opportunity,” he said.
But until that future arrives, the urban population has to put up with mostly inefficient, unreliable and polluting public transport.
Farmer Gustavo Panameño stands in the middle of what is left of his cornfield, hit hard by drought and windstorms, near Santa María Ostuma, in central El Salvador. Many Salvadoran small farmers are feeling the impact of El Niño, as are many others in Central America and the rest of the world. CREDIT: Edgardo Ayala / IPS
by Edgardo Ayala (santa marÃa ostuma, el salvador)
Inter Press Service
SANTA MARÃA OSTUMA, El Salvador, Oct 10 (IPS) – The effects of El Niño on agriculture in Central America are once again putting pressure on thousands of small farmer families who are feeling more vulnerable economically and in terms of food, as they lose their crops, due to climate change.
But that is not all. In addition to the obvious fact that poor harvests lead to higher food prices and food insecurity, they also generate a lack of employment in the countryside, further driving migration flows, said several experts interviewed by IPS.
The El Niño Southern Oscillation (ENSO) weather phenomenon had not been felt in the area since 2016. But now it has reappeared with stronger impacts. Meteorologists define ENSO as having three phases, and the one whose consequences are currently being felt on the ground is the third, the strongest.
Impact on the families
“The lack of water made us plant later, in June, when a drought hit us and ruined our corn and beans,” Gustavo Panameño, 46, told IPS as he looked disconsolately at the few plants still standing in his cornfield.
The plot Gustavo leases to farm, less than one hectare in size, is located in Lomas de Apancinte, a hill in the vicinity of Santa María Ostuma, in the central Salvadoran department of La Paz.
“The beans were completely lost, I expected to harvest about 300 pounds,” he said.
The corn and bean harvest “was for the consumption of the family, close relatives, and from time to time to sell,” said Gustavo.
A large part of Héctor Panameño’s corn crop in central El Salvador was destroyed by strong winds during a period when rain was scarce as a result of the El Niño phenomenon. The small farmer also lost his bean crop, making it a challenge to feed his family of nine. CREDIT: Edgardo Ayala / IPS
Nearby is the plot leased by Héctor Panameño, who almost completely lost his corn crop and the few beans he had planted.
Corn and beans form the basis of the diet of the Salvadoran population of 6.7 million people and of the rest of the Central American countries, which have a total combined population of just over 48 million.
This subtropical region has two seasons: the wet season, from November to April, and the dry season the rest of the year. Agriculture contributes seven percent of GDP and accounts for 20 percent of employment, according to data from the Central American Integration System (SICA).
“I lost practically all the corn, and the beans too, they couldn’t be used, they started to grow but were stunted,” said Héctor, 66, a distant relative of Gustavo.
At this stage, the stalks of the corn plants have already been “bent”, a small-farming practice that helps dry the cobs, the final stage of the process before harvesting.
And what should be a cornfield full of dried plants, lined up in furrows, now holds barely a handful here and there, sadly for Héctor.
Both farmers said that in addition to the droughts, the crops were also hit by several storms that brought with them violent gusts of wind, which ended up knocking down the corn plants.
“The plants were already big, 45 days old, about to flower, but a windstorm came and knocked them down,” recalled Héctor, sadly.
“After that, there were a few plants left standing, and when the cobs were beginning to fill up with kernels another strong wind came and finished knocking down the entire crop.”
A few weeks ago both Gustavo and Héctor replanted corn and beans, trying to recover some of their losses. Now their hopes are on the “postrera”, as the second planting cycle is called in Central America, which starts in late August and ends with the harvest in November.
The windstorms mentioned by both farmers are apparently part of the extreme climate variability brought by climate change and El Niño.
The photo shows a parched ear of corn in a small cornfield that was destroyed in central El Salvador. It is estimated that losses of the staple crops corn and beans in the country, as a result of the impacts of extreme weather events, such as El Niño and the historical shortage of rainfall, on local production, will lead to a grain deficit of about 6.8 million quintals (100-kg). CREDIT: Edgardo Ayala / IPS
Guatemala is also experiencing what experts have noted in the rest of the region: because El Niño has arrived in the “strong phase”, in which climate variability is even more pronounced, there are periods of longer droughts as well as more intense rains.
That puts the “postrera” harvest in danger, said the experts interviewed.
This means that whereas El Niño would bring drought in the first few months of the agricultural cycle, now it is hitting harder during the second period, in August, when the postrera planting is in full swing.
“For the farmers it was clear since April that it was raining less, compared to other years,” Sigüenza told IPS from Guatemala City.
“Then, in August, we had the first warnings from the highlands and the southern coast that the plants were not growing well, that they were suffering from water stress,” he said.
The most affected region, he said, is the Dry Corridor, which in Guatemala includes the departments of Jalapa, Chiquimula, Zacapa, El Progreso, part of Chimaltenango and Alta Verapaz, in the central part of the country.
The Dry Corridor is a 1,600 kilometer-long strip of land that runs north-south through portions of Mexico, Guatemala, Honduras, El Salvador, Nicaragua and Costa Rica.
It is an area highly vulnerable to extreme weather events, where long periods of drought are followed by heavy rains that have a major effect on the livelihoods and food security of local populations, as described by the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO).
Sigüenza said that food security due to lack of basic grains is expected to affect some 4.6 million people in Guatemala, a country of 17.4 million.
Even the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) “predicted that August, September and October would be the months with the greatest presence of El Niño,” said Luis Treminio, president of the Salvadoran Chamber of Small and Medium Agricultural Producers.
Treminio said that 75 percent of bean production is currently planted, and because it is less resistant to drought and rain than corn and sorghum, there is a greater possibility of losses.
“So the risk now is to the postrera, because if this scenario is fulfilled, we will have a very low postrera production,” he said.
Treminio’s estimate is that El Salvador will have a basic grains deficit of 6.8 million quintals, which the country will have to cover, as always, with imports.
This bean plant growing on a Salvadoran farm may or may not make it to harvest. The El Niño phenomenon has begun to hit hard the “postrera” or second harvest in Central America, in which farmers hope to recover some of the losses suffered in the first harvest, in May and June. CREDIT: Edgardo Ayala / IPS
As in other countries in the region, Nicaraguan farmers suffered losses in the first planting, in May, and again in the second, the postrera, “and all of this leads to a strong imbalance in the small farmer economy,” the FAO official said from Panama City.
Sanches said that El Niño will be felt in 93 percent of the region until March 2024 and, in addition, 71 percent is in the “strong phase”.
He added that in the Dry Corridor 64 percent of the farms are less than two hectares in size. In other words, there are many families involved in subsistence agriculture, and with fewer harvests, they would face unemployment and would look for escape valves, such as migration.
“All this would then trigger an explosion of migration,” said Sanches.
With regard to the impacts in Nicaragua, researcher Abdel Garcia, an expert in climate, environment and disasters, said that, in effect, the country is receiving “the negative backlash” of El Niño, that is, less rain in the months that should have more copious rainfall, such as September.
García said that the effects of the climate are not only being felt in agriculture, and therefore in the economy, but also in the environment.
“The ecosystem is already suffering: we see dried up rivers and surface water sources, and also the reservoirs, which are at their lowest levels right now,” García told IPS from Managua.
García said that some farmers in the department of Estelí, in northwestern Nicaragua, are already talking about a plan B, that is, to engage in other economic activities outside of agriculture, given the harsh situation in farming.
In late August, FAO announced the launch of a humanitarian aid plan aimed at mobilizing some 37 million dollars to assist vulnerable communities in Latin America in the face of the impact of the El Niño phenomenon.
Specifically, the objective was to support 1.1 million people in El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua, Bolivia, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru and Venezuela.
Even more ambitious is an initiative in which FAO will participate as a liaison between the governments of 30 countries around the world and investors, multilateral development banks, the private sector and international donors, so that these nations can access and allocate resources to agriculture.
At the meeting, which will take place Oct. 7-20 in Rome, FAO’s world headquarters, governments will present projects totaling 268 million dollars to investors.
Among the nations submitting proposals are 10 from Latin America and the Caribbean, including Guatemala, Honduras, El Salvador and Nicaragua.
Meanwhile, despite the gloomy forecasts for farming families, who are taking a direct hit from El Niño, both Gustavo and Héctor remain hopeful that it is worth a second try now that the postrera harvest is underway.
“We have no choice but to keep working, we can’t just sit back and do nothing,” said Héctor, with a smile that was more encouraging than resigned.
Oil workers are busy on the banks of the Tiputini river, on the northern border of the Yasuní National Park, in Ecuador’s Amazon region. CREDIT: Pato Chavez / Flickr
by Carolina Loza (quito)
Inter Press Service
QUITO, Oct 09 (IPS) – The decision reached by Ecuadorians to put an end to oil production in Yasuní National Park, in a popular referendum in August, was a triumph for civil society and a global milestone in environmental democracy. But when it comes to implementation, the result is less promising.
Despite being a democratic decision, taken by the majority of Ecuadorians, who voted to halt oil exploration and production in the park, the authorities say the verdict is not clear.
During the Aug. 20 presidential and legislative elections, 59 percent of voters voted Yes to a halt to oil extraction in one of the most biodiverse protected areas in the world, part of the Ecuadorian Amazon rainforest that has been a biosphere reserve since 1989.
At the same time, 68 percent of the voters of the Metropolitan District of Quito voted against continued mining in their territory, in order to protect the biodiversity of the Chocó Andino, a forest northwest of the capital that provides it with water.
In the midst of an unprecedented political and criminal insecurity crisis in Ecuador, the two votes were a historic landmark at a democratic and environmental level, in addition to demonstrating that Ecuadorians are increasingly looking towards alternatives that would move Ecuador away from the extractivism on which the economy of this South American country has depended for decades.
But the No vote, i.e. the answer that allowed oil extraction to continue in the Yasuní ITT block, won in the provinces where the national park is located: Orellana and Sucumbíos. This is one of the arguments of the current authorities to stop compliance with the referendum, arguing that the areas involved want oil production to go ahead.
Constitutional lawyer Ximena Ron Erráez said the Ecuadorian government cannot escape the obligation to abide by the result of the referendum.
“As far as the Ecuadorian constitution is concerned…..it must be complied with in an obligatory manner by the authorities; there is no possibility, constitutionally speaking, that the authorities can refuse to comply with the results of the referendum,” she told IPS.
One of the murals that still remain on the streets of Quito from the campaign for the August referendum on whether or not to keep the oil wealth underground in Yasuní National Park, to which voters decided “yes”: leave it untouched. CREDIT: Carolina Loza / IPS
Ron Erráez also complained about a lack of political will.
On Sept. 5, Ecuadorian President Guillermo Lasso, in a meeting with indigenous communities, described the referendum as “not applicable”.
A leaked video in which he made the statement drew an outcry from civil society groups that pushed for the referendum for more than 10 years. Yasunidos, the group that was formed to reverse the 2013 decision by the government of then President Rafael Correa (2007-2017) to begin oil drilling and production in Yasuní, has declared itself in a state of permanent assembly.
The Correa administration had proposed a project that sought to keep the oil in Yasuní ITT (Ishpingo, Tambococha, Tiputini), also known as Block 43, in the ground, on almost 2,000 hectares, part of which is within the biosphere reserve and the rest in the so-called buffer zone.
The initiative consisted of asking for international economic compensation for not exploiting the oilfield, which contains more than 1.5 billion barrels of reserves, in order to continue to preserve the biodiversity of the park and its surrounding areas. But the proposal did not yield the hoped-for results in international financing and the government decided to cancel it.
This is despite the fact that Yasuní, covering an area of 10,700 square kilometers in the northeast of the country within the Amazon basin, is home to some 150 species of amphibians, 600 species of birds and 3,000 species of flora, as well as indigenous communities, some of which are in voluntary isolation.
Environmental activists and organizations working in favor of keeping Yasuní’s oil in the ground say the management of the project showed the dilemma of finding alternatives to the extractive industry and the lack of real political will on the part of the political powers-that-be to come up with solutions.
View of one of the rivers inside the Yasuni park, in northeastern Ecuador, which preserves an incomparable biodiversity. CREDIT: Manel Ortega Fernández / Flickr
Ron Erráez mentioned an important fact: Lasso, in power since May 2021, will be an outgoing president after the second round of presidential elections is held on Oct. 15, and it will be his successor who will have to fulfill the mandate of the referendum on the national park.
One difficulty is that his successor, who will take office on Nov. 25, will only serve as president for a year and a half, to complete the term of Lasso, who called for an unprecedented early election to avoid his likely impeachment by the legislature.
Alex Samaniego, who participates in Yasunídos from Scientist Rebellion Ecuador, said it was clear from the start that the campaign for the Yasuní and Andean Chocó referendums was a long-term process, which would not end with whatever result came out of the vote.
“We know that we have to defend the result, defend the votes of the citizens and make sure that the referendums are fully complied with,” he told IPS.
According to the environmental activist, the democratic process behind the referendums will serve as an example for many countries, including Brazil, where communities are waging a constant struggle to combat climate change by seeking alternatives to the extractive industries.
Capture from a video of the Quito Free of Mining campaign, which triumphed in the popular referendum on Aug. 20. CREDIT: Carolina Loza / IPS
“We are told about all the money that oil brings to the economy, but very little money stays in the communities,” said Samaniego, who mentioned alternatives such as community-based tourism and biomedicine and bioindustries as economic alternatives to oil production.
Ron Erráez said “the referendum process sets a precedent because it is a way of establishing what is called an environmental democracy, where the people decide what to exploit and what not to exploit.”
“These principles in practice are in harmony with the rights of nature that are mentioned in the Ecuadorian constitution, to protect nature above and beyond economic profit,” she added.
Ecuadorian voters decided at the ballot box, and their decision should accelerate the possibility of a transition to alternatives for their economy. But what will the implementation look like?
The referendum on the Andean Chocó region covers a conservation area of which Quito is part, which includes nine protected forests and more than 35 natural reserves, in order to avoid the issuance of mining exploration permits, a measure that will be implemented after the vote.
There are contrasting views over the halt to oil exploration and production in Yasuni. The state-owned oil company Petroecuador highlights the losses for the State and presents figures that question the studies of groups such as Yasunidos.
The referendum gives the government one year to bring oil production activities to a halt. But Ron Erráez said it could take longer to dismantle Petroecuador’s entire operation in Yasuní ITT. Meanwhile, operations in Block 43 continue.
Sofia Torres, spokesperson for Yasunidos, said that despite all the talk during the campaign about economic losses, the vote showed that a majority of Ecuadorians question the country’s extractivist industry status quo.
In her view, although government and oil authorities insist that oil resources are indispensable for the country’s development, Ecuadorians have not seen this materialize in terms of infrastructure, social measures or services.
For this reason, they decided that “it is better to opt for the preservation of something concrete, such as an ecosystem that provides us with clean water and clean air and that is something like an insurance policy for the future,” she told IPS.
On Oct. 15, Ecuadorians will choose between left-leaning Luisa Gonzalez, the protegé of former President Correa, and businessman Daniel Noboa. It will fall to one of them to enforce the majority vote on the future of Yasuní and the halt to oil industry activity in the park.
Indigenous leader and activist Vanda Witoto poses at her home in Manaus, Brazil, in October 2022. Credit: Michael Dantas/United Nations Foundation
by Farai Shawn Matiashe (brasÃlia)
Inter Press Service
BRASÃLIA, Oct 05 (IPS) – Raffaello Nava, a youth and student activist, has fled his home at the peak of the global Coronavirus pandemic after receiving death threats from multinational companies that invaded his ancestral lands in the Amazon rainforest.
The 22-year-old, whose name has been changed to protect his identity, is seeking refuge in Manaus, a gateway city to the Amazon tropical rainforest.
“They killed two of my friends. I had to run away,” he says while speaking in Portuguese through a translator.
The powerful companies are linked to former President Jair Bolsonaro. He was succeeded by 67-year-old Lula da Silva, a Latin American leftist and a veteran in Brazil’s politics who won in the October 2022 elections.
Nava’s tribe is resisting the invasions from these companies who are cutting down trees for timber and clearing land for agriculture.
“Our territory is wanted by these people. Cattle ranchers have already taken thousands of hectares. My people are receiving threats,” he says. “I am here on the frontline. Fighting to protect our land and that of Brazil, I do not even know if I will go back home or not. I fear for my life.”
Over the years, the lives of indigenous community activists and leaders have been at stake throughout the Amazon.
In 2020 alone, more than 260 human rights defenders were murdered in Latin America, 202 of which occurred in countries of the Amazon Basin, Colombia, Brazil, Peru, and Bolivia, representing 77 percent of the cases, according to a report by the Coordinator of Indigenous Organizations of the Amazon Basin (Coica).
About 69 percent of these murders in 2020 were against leaders working to defend territory, the environment, and the rights of indigenous peoples.
A boat on the shores of Rio Negro in Brazil. Credit: Michael Dantas/United Nations Foundation
Brazil holds 60 percent of the Amazon, the biggest tropical rainforest in the world, with the other portion shared by nine South American nations, including Peru and Colombia.
Brazil and Bolivia have about 90 percent of deforestation and degradation in the Amazon, shows data from research titled Amazonia Against the Clock, which covers nine countries sharing the tropical rainforest released in September last year by scientists from the Amazonian Network of Georeferenced Socio-environmental Information (RAISG) in collaboration with Coica.
Indigenous organisations from the Amazonas are calling for a global pact for the permanent protection of 80 percent of the Amazon forest by 2025.
In the Amazon, land grabbers have been invading the land of indigenous communities to pave the way for mining and agriculture.
Agriculture is responsible for 84 percent of deforestation in the Amazon forest, and the amount of land given over to farming has tripled since 1985, according to the report.
The Amazon forest plays a significant role in absorbing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, thus reducing the effects of climate change caused by gas emissions worldwide.
There are over 390 billion trees in the Amazon, helping it to retain some 123 billion tons of carbon dioxide.
But over the years, increasing deforestation and land degradation have been reducing the ability of the Amazon forest to absorb carbon dioxide and instead contributing to global warming through both human-caused and natural fires.
The tropical rainforest has also been experiencing droughts and floods, signs human activities are causing climate change.
During his campaign days, Lula promised to combat deforestation in the Amazon forest, which had worsened under Bolsonaro, who was President since 2019.
Bolsonaro backed farm and ranching expansion in the region due to his links to some of Brazil’s powerful agricultural industry leaders.
Another activist based in Manaus, whose life is in danger from powerful people, says deforestation in the Amazon worsened under Bolsonaro.
An aerial view of a scientific research station, Camp 41, in the Amazon in Brazil. Credit: Michael Dantas/United Nations Foundation
“His policies are of less protection. He also reduced the number of protected areas in the Amazon. He made laws that should protect the forest weaker,” he says in an interview in Manaus in October 2022 during Brazil’s elections.
He says during Bolsonaro’s era, there was an increase in the loss of vegetation due to deforestation, reduced biodiversity and a rise in cases of invasions of indigenous communities in the Amazon.
The activist says agro-businesses and those in the extractive industries use pesticides and chemicals that pollute and contaminate water bodies in the Amazon forest, putting many people and animals in danger.
Vanda Witoto, a Brazilian indigenous leader, says multinational companies and agro-businesses were funding illegal operations such as logging in the Amazon during the Bolsonaro era.
“I visited some communities in the Amazon. There was illegal gold mining. Sadly, there is less reporting because the locals are being threatened. Big companies are investing a lot in illegal mining and deforestation in the southern part of the Amazon,” Witoto says, toning down her voice and holding back her tears during an interview at her home in the neighbourhood of Parque das Tribos just outside of Manaus in October last year.
“I saw this with my own eyes. Some indigenous people work for these companies, pushed by poverty and unemployment. We are against this. We have always been fighting to stop it.”
Adriano Karipuna, an indigenous leader, during an interview in October last year, said law enforcement agents in the Bolsonaro government were ineffective in arresting people committing crimes against his people.
“Our people have been struggling with deforestation. We have been reporting for the past years. But it worsened under Bolsonaro,” says Karipuna, who represents the Karipuna people, an indigenous group who have inhabited the Amazon rainforest for centuries.
“We have been receiving threats. Bolsonaro’s government has been taking our land and donating it to the invaders. Environmental criminals are going unpunished.”
Lula has just hit the ground running with his appointment of a veteran environmentalist, Marina Silva, as the Environment and Climate Change minister.
The 64-year-old Silva’s task is to rebuild Brazil’s environmental protection agencies and stanch the destruction of the Amazon rainforest.
Under Lula’s Presidency, Joenia Wapichana, the first-ever Indigenous woman elected to Brazil’s Congress, has been appointed leader of the country’s Indigenous affairs agency, the National Foundation of Indigenous Peoples, popularly known as Funai.
This is a huge achievement for the Brazilian indigenous communities whose role was suppressed under Bolsonaro.
Bolsonaro had to cut some of Funai’s budget, authority and number of staff, a move that crippled the agency when he assumed Presidency in 2019.
Witoto says she is hopeful that the predicament of indigenous people will change under Lula’s regime.
“We have to elect a person who respects the rights of indigenous people,” she says, speaking to IPS before Lula’s successful election. She added her people lived in fear from the violence perpetrated by Bolsonaro supporters for merely wearing Lula regalia during the election period in October.
A recent joint analysis by researchers at the University of Oxford, the International Institute for Applied System Analysis (IIASA) and the National Institute for Space Research (INPE) shows deforestation could fall by 89 percent by 2030 under Lula if he reinstates the policies introduced during his first term in office, saving 28,957 square miles of the Amazon rainforest.
Note: Reporting for this story was supported by the United Nations Foundation.
When addressing food insecurity, it’s clear that insufficient food production isn’t the problem. According to FAO estimates, Latin America and the Caribbean could feed over 1.3 billion people, twice their population. Credit: Riccardo De Luca / FAO
Opinion by Mario Lubetkin (santiago)
Inter Press Service
SANTIAGO, Sep 29 (IPS) – Mario Lubetkin is FAO Assistant Director-General and FAO Regional Representative for Latin America and the CaribbeanIn recent years, the population of Latin America and the Caribbean has seen a worrying increase in hunger figures, especially among the poorest in the region.
When we talk about food insecurity in our region, as in the rest of the world, we realize that this problem does not stem from deficient food production. According to FAO estimates, Latin America and the Caribbean could feed more than 1.3 billion people, twice its population.
Thus, where does this problem arise? A relevant factor in this matter is food loss and waste, which prevention is fundamental in the development of agri-food systems.
In 2019, the United Nations General Assembly first established 29 September as International Food Loss and Waste Awareness Day, recognizing the positive impact of reversing FLW can have on people’s food and nutrition security.
Four years after the declaration of this day, we must take stock of what we have achieved, look ahead and take immediate action to reverse a complex scenario with economic, social, environmental, and moral costs.
According to FAO figures, 13% of the world’s food is lost in the supply chain, from post-harvest to retail, and a further 17% is wasted in households, food services, and retail. The highest levels of losses occur in nutrient-rich foods such as fruit and vegetables (32%), meat, and fish (12.4%).
Inefficiencies along the food chain and in consumption also have a significantly impact on the environment. Therefore, preventing food loss and waste can help to combat hunger and the consequences of climate change through greenhouse gas emissions.
Current scientific evidence points to innovative solutions that support family farming, distribution and supply systems, drive circular bio-economy actions, and target investments and funding to develop monitoring and early warning systems to prevent FLWs, as well as comprehensive legal frameworks aimed at prevention. But it is still not enough.
At the end of August, the FAO Regional Office for Latin America and the Caribbean organized a discussion on how to prevent and reduce food losses and waste in the context of food security and nutrition, with the participation of the Holy See, representatives of the Chilean government, and FAO.
This conversation explored ideas and solutions to move from reflection to action and to understand that ending the phenomenon of food loss and waste has a direct impact on the lives of individuals and society as a whole.
The way forward is clear: to address this situation it is imperative to work in a coordinated and multi-sectoral way to achieve results quickly. Governments, businesses, civil society and academia must join forces, to generate evidence, investments in infrastructure and technology, and other measures to address this situation.
Much needs to be done. Food loss and waste must be addressed from an ethical, political and scientific perspective. We are all responsible for this challenge.
Transport barges navigate one of the branches of the Paraná River in Argentina’s Santa Fe province. The Paraná, the second longest river in South America, has been turned into a major waterway through which a large part of Paraguay’s and Argentina’s agricultural exports are shipped out of the region. CREDIT: Fundación Humedales
by Daniel Gutman (buenos aires)
Inter Press Service
BUENOS AIRES, Sep 29 (IPS) – In addition to being a majestic river – the second longest in South America after the Amazon – the Paraná River is the waterway through which a large part of the area’s primary goods are exported. Today, its economic importance has sparked an unexpected diplomatic conflict between Argentina and the countries with which it shares the basin.
Argentina’s decision to charge tolls to vessels on its stretch of the river led to a formal complaint from Paraguay, Brazil, Uruguay and Bolivia, which argue that the river corridor agreement signed by the five countries in 1994 stipulated that no taxes or tariffs could be imposed without the approval of all parties.
The Paraguay-Paraná Waterway River Transport Agreement created an Intergovernmental Committee as the political body that would ensure its operation and maintain it as a motor for the development of the Southern Common Market (Mercosur), established by Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay and Uruguay in 1991 and later joined by Bolivia.
Tension reached unprecedented levels with Paraguay, a landlocked country that owns a gigantic fleet of ships that carry millions of tons of soybeans and beef, the engines of its economy, to the Atlantic Ocean and often return with fuels, essential to supply a nation that produces no oil or gas.
“What is happening is very serious. Paraguay has invested three billion dollars in the last 10 years and has 2,500 transport barges, one of the largest fleets in the world,” Andrea Guadalupe, vice-president in Argentina of the Mercosur-Southeast Asia Chamber of Commerce, which groups export companies from different countries, told IPS.
“It is not wrong for Argentina to charge a toll, because it carries out dredging and beaconing works that allow large ships to pass through the Paraná. But what is wrong is that it has not consulted the other countries and has taken a unilateral decision,” she argued.
Paraguayan Pesident Santiago Peña announced that he would resort to international arbitration, saying that his country’s sovereignty was at stake, and stating: “Paraguay has no future without the free navigability of the rivers.”
Although Peña denied that it was a reprisal, Paraguay announced this September that it would keep half of the electricity from the Yacyretá power plant located on the border between the two countries, on the Paraná River, which has an installed capacity of 3,200 megawatts.
Traditionally, although it is entitled to 40 percent, Paraguay has kept only 15 percent of Yacyretá’s energy and ceded the remaining 85 percent to Argentina, a country with a population of 46 million inhabitants, six times larger than Paraguay’s, which means it obviously consumes more energy.
The Rio de la Plata, seen from Buenos Aires, is at the mouth of the Paraná River and leads to the Atlantic Ocean, allowing the transportation to the export markets of a large part of the agricultural products of one of the most productive areas of South America. CREDIT: Daniel Gutman / IPS
Argentina says it invests between 20 million and 25 million dollars a year in dredging work on the Paraná, which in recent years has become more necessary due to a persistent drop in the water level, which has forced barges to carry less cargo and has increased the companies’ logistical costs.
“The situation is affecting the relationship between two countries that are brothers. Argentina’s attitude is not in line with the agreements, and Paraguay is a landlocked country that needs the river to connect with the world,” Héctor Cristaldo, president of the Union of Production Chambers (UGP), which groups Paraguayan agricultural business chambers, told IPS.
Cristaldo said the main impact for Paraguay is in the supply of fuels used for agriculture and livestock and also for land transportation. “Paraguay has no trains; everything moves on wheels,” he said.
The toll crisis escalated into open friction in early September, when a Paraguayan flagged barge heading north with 30 million liters of fuel was held up for several days by Argentine authorities who released it when it agreed to pay some 27,000 dollars in tolls.
The rate for vessels put into effect in January 2023 is 1.47 dollars per ton transported. It was set by the General Administration of Ports (AGP), the government agency that controls the Argentine section of the waterway.
The new toll drew a statement from the governments of Paraguay, Brazil, Bolivia and Uruguay, which expressed “special concern because it is a restriction on the freedom of transit” and asked Argentina to collaborate “to facilitate commercial transport, favoring the development and efficiency of navigation.”
Paraguayan President Santiago Peña (L) is greeted by his Argentine counterpart Alberto Fernández on Aug. 15, when he took office in Asunción. Relations between the two countries later deteriorated over navigation rights in the Paraná River basin. CREDIT: Presidency of Argentina
From Mato Grosso to the sea
The Paraná River, together with its tributary, the Paraguay River, form a waterway stretching almost 3,500 kilometers from Mato Grosso in west-central Brazil to its mouth in the Río de la Plata, which in turn flows into the Atlantic. The basin covers almost 20 percent of South America’s territory, and has an enormous biodiversity and a remarkable productive capacity.
The lower section, from the central Argentine city of Rosario to the mouth of the river, has been dredged to allow trans-oceanic vessels to pass through, carrying millions of tons of agricultural products for export each year. In total, some 100 million tons of goods are transported through the waterway every year.
The work began in 1995, when Argentina granted its section under concession to a consortium formed by the Belgian maritime infrastructure giant Jan de Nul and the Argentine Grupo Emepa, to be in charge of dredging and signaling. Thus, the river was deepened from its natural 22 feet to 34 feet from Rosario – the country’s main agro-industrial center – to the mouth.
Further north, the waterway is only 12 feet deep, which only allows the navigation of barges, with which Paraguay and Bolivia export a major part of their soybean production, which is transferred to larger ships in Rosario.
The following year, the Argentine Ministry of Agriculture authorized the cultivation of transgenic soybeans, which would lead to a major expansion of the agricultural frontier and great pressure from agribusiness to deepen the dredging of the Paraná, which crosses the most productive area of Argentina, so that larger ships could enter.
Map of the Paraguay-Parana waterway. CREDIT: Afip
Low cost transportation
“The Paraná was transformed into a waterway that began to fulfill a function analogous to the one played by the railroad until the first third of the 20th century: to facilitate the expansion of the productive frontier and to be a low-cost transit route,” wrote geographer Álvaro Álvarez, vice-director of the Geographic Research Center of the public Universidad Nacional del Centro.
Álvarez maintains that the Paraná today is “a key infrastructure in the insertion of the region as a supplier of commodities into the international economy, a process through which industrial agriculture, mega-mining and hydrocarbon exploitation have been degrading ecosystems for decades, expelling populations from territories and affecting the health of communities.”
One of the main questions about the waterway is that there are no studies of the environmental impact generated by the modification of the river and the constant traffic of large vessels.
“The State presented a 30-year-old environmental impact study in the file. Since then there has been and there continues to be removal of thousands of tons of sediment from the riverbed, which in many areas is contaminated with agro-toxins from industrial agriculture, and it is not known how that impacts the contamination and the dynamics of the river,” Lucas Micheloud, a member of the Association, told IPS.
“It is not a matter of adapting the river to the size of the ships, but of the ships adapting to the river,” said Ariel Ocantos, a graduate in International Relations and member of the Ecologist Workshop of Rosario, one of the environmental organizations demanding greater citizen participation in the interventions carried out in the Paraná River.
“We made several requests for information to the government because we want to know if they are conducting environmental impact studies. There is very little information and we are demanding citizen participation, which is absolutely necessary,” he said.
LIMA, Sep 28 (IPS) – Nearly 700,000 people have migrated internally in Peru due to the effects of climate change. This mass displacement is a clear problem in this South American country, one of the most vulnerable to the global climate crisis due to its biodiversity, geography and 28 different types of climates.
“We recognize migration due to climate change as a very tangible issue that needs to be addressed,” Pablo Peña, a geographer who is coordinator of the Emergency and Humanitarian Assistance Unit of the International Organization for Migration (IOM) in Peru, told IPS.
In an interview with IPS at the UN agency’s headquarters in Lima, Peña reported that according to the international Internal Displacement Monitoring Center, the number of people displaced within Peru’s borders by disasters between 2008 and 2022 is estimated at 659,000, most of them floods related to climate disturbances.
In this Andean country of 33 million inhabitants, there is a lack of specific and centralized data to determine the characteristics of migration caused by environmental and climate change factors.
Peña said that through a specific project, the IOM has collaborated with the Peruvian government in drafting an action plan aimed at preventing and addressing climate-related forced migration, on the basis of which a pilot project will begin in October to systematize information from different sources on displacement in order to incorporate the environmental and climate component.
“We aim to be able to define climate migrants and incorporate them into all regulations,” said the expert. The project, which includes gender, rights and intergenerational approaches, is being worked on with the Ministries of the Environment and of Women and Vulnerable Populations.
He added that this type of migration is multidimensional. “People can say that they left their homes in the Andes highlands because they had nothing to eat due to the loss of their crops, and that could be interpreted, superficially, as forming part of economic migration because they have no means of livelihood. But that cause can be associated with climatic variables,” Peña said.
Pablo Peña, coordinator of the Emergency and Humanitarian Assistance Unit of the International Organization for Migration (IOM) in Peru, stands in front of the headquarters of this United Nations agency in Lima. He highlights the need to address the situation of internal migration driven by the impacts of climate change. CREDIT: Mariela Jara / IPS
The Central Reserve Bank, in charge of preserving monetary stability and managing international reserves, lowered in its September monthly report Peru’s economic growth projection to 0.9 percent for this year, partly due to the varied impacts of climate change on agriculture and fishing.
This would affect efforts to reduce the poverty rate, which stands at around 30 percent in the country, where seven out of every 10 workers work in the informal sector, and would drive up migration of the population in search of food and livelihoods.
“The World Bank estimates that by 2050 there will be more than 10 million climate migrants in Latin America,” said Peña.
The same multilateral institution, in its June publication Peru Strategic Actions Toward Water Security, points out that people without economic problems are 10 times more resistant than those living in poverty to climatic impacts such as floods and droughts, which are increasing at the national level.
The country is currently experiencing the Coastal El Niño climate phenomenon, which in March caused floods in northern cities and droughts in the south. The official National Service of Meteorology and Hydrology warned that in January 2024 it could converge with the El Niño Southern Oscillation (ENSO) global phenomenon, accentuating its impacts.
El Niño usually occurs in December, causing the sea temperature to rise and altering the rainfall pattern, which increases in the north of the country and decreases in the south.
The manager of Natural Resources of the Piura regional government, Juan Aguilar, described the vulnerability to climate change of this northern coastal region of Peru at a September meeting organized by the IOM in Lima. The official explained that the El Niño climate phenomenon has become more intense and frequent due to the effects of climate change, which aggravates its impacts on the population, such as severe flooding this year. CREDIT: Mariela Jara / IPS
Reluctance to migrate to safer areas
Piura, a northern coastal department with an estimated population of just over two million inhabitants, has been hit by every El Niño episode, including this year’s, which left more than 46,000 homes damaged, even in areas that had been rebuilt.
Juan Aguilar, manager of Natural Resources of the Piura regional government, maintains that the high vulnerability to ENSO is worsening with climate change and is affecting the population, communication routes and staple crops.
At an IOM workshop on Sept. 5 in Lima, the official stressed that Piura is caught up in both floods and droughts, in a complex context for the implementation of spending on prevention, adaptation and mitigation.
Aguilar spoke to IPS about the situation of people who, despite having lost their homes for climatic reasons, choose not to migrate, in what he considers to be a majority trend.
“People are not willing overall to move to safer areas, even during El Niño 2017 when there were initiatives to relocate them to other places; they prefer to wait for the phenomenon to pass and return to their homes,” he added.
View of the Rimac River as it passes through the municipality of Lurigancho-Chosica, in the Peruvian province of Lima. In this town, many families are still living in housing in areas at high risk, which is exacerbated during the rainy season that begins in December and has intensified due to climate change and the increased recurrence of the El Niño climate phenomenon. CREDIT: Mariela Jara / IPS
He explained that this attitude is due to the fact that they see the climatic events as recurrent. “They say, I already experienced this in such and such a year, and there is a resignation in the sense of saying that we are in a highly vulnerable area, it is what we have to live with, God and nature have put us in these conditions,” Aguilar said.
He acknowledged that with regard to this question, public policies have not made much progress. “For example after 2017 a law was passed to identify non-mitigable risk zones, and that has not been enforced despite the fact that it would help us to implement plans to relocate local residents to safer areas,” he added.
The regional official pointed out that “we do not have an experience in which the State says ‘I have already identified this area, there is so much housing available here for those who want to relocate’ , because the social cost would be so high.”
“We have not seen this, and the populace has the feeling that if they are going to start somewhere else, the place they abandon will be taken by someone else, and they say: ‘what is the point of me moving, if the others will be left here’,” Aguilar said.
Paulina Vílchez, 72, has always lived in the Peruvian municipality of Lurigancho-Chosica. Despite the fear every year that the Rimac River might flood and that mudslides could occur in one of the 21 ravines in the area, she has never thought of moving away. “I’m not going to go to an empty plot to start all over again, that’s why I’ve stayed. I leave everything in the hands of God,” she said. CREDIT: Mariela Jara / IPS
The fear of starting over
Some 40 km from the Peruvian capital, in Lurigancho-Chosica, one of the 43 municipalities of the province of Lima, the local population is getting nervous about the start of the rainy season in December, which threatens mudslides in some of its 21 ravines. The most notorious due to their catastrophic impact occurred in 1987, 2017, 2018 and March of this year.
Landslides, known in Peru by the Quechua indigenous term “huaycos”, have been part of the country’s history, due to the combination of the special characteristics of the rugged geography of the Andes highlands and the ENSO phenomenon.
In an IPS tour of the Chosica area of Pedregal, one of the areas vulnerable to landslides and mudslides due to the rains, there was concern in the municipality about the risks they face, but also a distrust of moving to a safer place to start over.
“I came here to Pedregal as a child when this was all fields where cotton and sugar cane were planted. I have been here for more than sixty years and we have progressed, we no longer live in shacks,” said 72-year-old Paulina Vílchez, who lives in a nicely painted two-story house built of cement and brick.
On the first floor she set up a bodega, which she manages herself, where she sells food and other products. She did not marry or have children, but she helped raise two nieces, with whom she still lives in a house that is the fruit of her parents’ and then her own efforts and which represents decades of hard work.
Vílchez admits that she would like to move to a place where she could be free of the fear that builds up every year. But she said it would have to be a house with the same conditions as the one she has managed to build with so much effort. “I’m not going to go to an empty plot to start all over again, that’s why I’ve stayed. I leave everything in the hands of God,” she told IPS.
Maribel Zavaleta’s home in the Peruvian municipality of Chosica is built of wood, near the Rimac River and just a meter from the train tracks. She arrived there in 1989, relocated after a mud, water and rock slide two years earlier in another part of the town. She constantly worries that another catastrophe will happen again, and says she would relocate if she were guaranteed safer land and materials to build a new house. CREDIT: Mariela Jara / IPS
Very close to the Rimac River and next to the railway tracks that shake her little wooden house each time the train passes by lives Maribel Zavaleta, 50, born in Chosica, and her family of two daughters, a son, and three granddaughters.
“I came here in 1989 with my mom, she was a survivor of the 1987 huayco, and we lived in tents until we were relocated here. But it’s not safe; in 2017 the river overflowed and the house was completely flooded,” she told IPS.
Zavaleta started her own family at the age of 21, but is now separated from her husband. Her eldest son lives with his girlfriend on the same property, and her older daughter, who works and helps support the household, has given her three granddaughters. The youngest of her daughters is 13 and attends a local municipal school.
“I work as a cleaner and what I earn is only enough to cover our basic needs,” she said. She added that if she were relocated again it would have to be to a plot of land with a title deed and materials to build her house, which is now made of wood and has a tin roof, while her plot of land is fenced off with metal sheets.
“I can’t afford to improve my little house or leave here. I would like the authorities to at least work to prevent the river from overflowing while we are here,” she said, pointing to the rocks left by the 2017 landslide that have not been removed.
The state-owned Petróleos Mexicanos (Pemex) oil company is completing its seventh refinery on a 600-hectare site at Dos Bocas in the municipality of Paraíso, in the southeastern state of Tabasco. The plant will process some 290,000 barrels of fuels per day when it reaches full capacity. CREDIT: Erik Contreras-Gerardo Morales / IPS
But the monument lacks another element that has been vital to the region: oil, which has damaged the other three symbols through pollution. Marine animals have been affected by the oil and the mangroves have almost been cut down in a territory that had ample reserves of crude oil.
Despite the fading bonanza, the Mexican government decided to build the Olmeca refinery in the industrial port of Dos Bocas, in Paraíso, to refine some 290,000 barrels per day of oil from the Gulf of Mexico and thus reduce gasoline imports.
It will be the seventh installation of the National Refining System in the country, in a port area that already has a crude oil shipping and export center of the state-owned oil giant Petróleos Mexicanos (Pemex), which controls the exploitation, refining, distribution and commercialization of hydrocarbons in the country.
Construction of the new infrastructure on an area of 600 hectares began in 2019, and although it was officially opened in 2022, the work has not been completed and it is expected to be fully operational in 2024.
But the plant has already provided revenue for the local economy, in the form of rents, transportation and food. However, there are also fears about its impact on a city of more than 96,000 inhabitants.
Genaro, a cab driver who preferred not to give his last name and is married with three children, said there is a sensation of risk. “We know what has happened in other places where there are refineries, with all the pollution. Besides, accidents occur,” he told IPS.
Near the plant is the Lázaro Cárdenas neighborhood, home to hundreds of people and named after the president who nationalized the oil and electric industry in 1936.
There is an uneasy feeling among the local population. Irasema Lozano, a 36-year-old teacher who is a married mother of two, is one of the residents who is apprehensive about “the newcomer” to the city.
“Look around, there are houses, schools, stores. The government says it is a modern plant and that there is no danger, but we don’t feel safe with this huge plant,” she said.
Cab driver Genaro owns a house in the area, which he rents out. But he is now seriously thinking of selling it.
Construction of the plant has altered the life of the sprawling city around Dos Bocas. The “orange people”, referring to the color of the uniforms worn by everyone who works at the facility, are a permanent reminder of the changes as they move around town.
Talking about oil in Tabasco is a delicate matter, since the state is used to living with the exploitation of a light, low-sulfur, cheap and easy-to-extract hydrocarbon. It is also the home state of President Andrés Manuel López Obrador, a staunch defender of fossil fuels.
Pemex has financed the Olmeca megaproject with public funds, through its subsidiary Pemex Transformación Industrial. Its subsidiary PTI Infraestructura y Desarrollo has overseen construction.
The project has already had a high cost overrun, as the initial investment was estimated at seven billion dollars, a figure that has climbed to 18 billion dollars, according to the latest available data.
On this occasion, PTI ID has not turned to the international market to finance the work, according to the response to a public information access request from IPS.
The Olmeca refinery has a cost overrun, escalating from a planned initial investment of seven billion dollars to 18 billion dollars. The Mexican government expects the plant, located in Dos Bocas, in the southeastern municipality of Paraíso, to be fully operational by 2024. CREDIT: Erik Contreras-Gerardo Morales / IPS
The support of international banks
Traditionally, Pemex has depended on financial flows from international private banks. Between 2016 and 2022, 17 institutions gave nearly 61.5 billion dollars to the state-owned oil company, according to annual reports under the heading of “Banking on Climate Chaos” produced by a group of NGOs.
The British bank HSBC was the main financial backer of Pemex during this period, contributing 7.6 billion dollars, followed by the U.S.-based Citi (6.9 billion) and JP Morgan Chase (6.0 billion).
Pemex’s data gives a broader picture, as it shows more players in its lending field. Through direct loans, bond issuance, revolving credits (with automatic renewals) and project financing, 16 financial institutions have granted it 78.9 billion dollars since 2015.
In doing so, the international markets allow Pemex to obtain money for its operations and development, but in exchange they have turned it into the oil company with the highest debt in the world, some 100 billion dollars, which poses a great threat to Pemex and, by extension, to the country.
The main mechanism used is the insurance coverage or underwriting of Pemex’s financial operations by charging a commission.
Maaike Beenes, leader of banking and climate campaigns at the non-governmental BankTrack, told IPS that the large flow of financing means that banks feel confident that Pemex can repay the debt.
“Apparently it is because they think there are guarantees because it is a state-owned company. There is a lot of financing for the expansion of fossil fuel activities,” she said from the Dutch city of Amsterdam.
In 2020, Mexico was the 13th largest oil producer in the world and 19th largest gas producer. In terms of proven crude oil reserves, it ranked 20th and 41st respectively, according to Pemex data.
Two flares burn gas in the Nuevo Torno Largo neighborhood, in the municipality of Paraíso, in the vicinity of the Olmeca refinery. The southeastern state of Tabasco, on the coast of the Gulf of Mexico, has suffered the effects of pollution generated by oil production for more than 50 years through spills, contaminating gases, and water, air and soil pollution. CREDIT: Erik Contreras-Gerardo Morales / IPS
Fueling the crisis
By raising Pemex’s debt rating, the international banks risk their own voluntary climate targets for greenhouse gas (GHG) emission reductions, since the Mexican company’s GHG emission reduction targets are low.
For example, HSBC aims to achieve zero net emissions – where neutralized emissions equal those released into the atmosphere – in its operations and supply chain by 2030 and in its financing portfolio by 2050.
The bank says it is working with its clients to help them reduce their emissions. Its energy policy states that it will not finance new oil and gas fields.
But HSBC’s net zero goal has some gaps. According to the international Net Zero Tracker platform, its strategy lacks a detailed plan to achieve it, and has no reference on equity investment and no specification on formal accountability for monitoring progress, even though it covers Scope 1 (A1), 2 and 3 emissions.
A1 emissions come directly from sources under the polluter’s control, A2 emissions are indirect emissions from purchased energy, and A3 emissions are those originating in the final use of energy, not covered in A1 and A2, according to the Greenhouse Gas Protocol standard, the most widely used in the world.
By 2022, Citi committed to achieving a 29 percent absolute reduction in emissions for the power sector and a 63 percent reduction in the intensity of its portfolio pollution for the electricity sector by 2030, addressing A1, A2 and A3 levels.
In this regard, Net Zero Tracker says the bank does not have a complete detailed plan for these decreases and makes no reference to investment in fossil fuel companies.
Another major player, JP Morgan Chase, has a target of a 69 percent reduction in the carbon intensity of power generation, which accounts for most of the sector’s climate impact, by 2030.
In the oil and gas segment, the company aims for a 35 percent decrease in operational carbon intensity, as well as a 15 percent drop in end-use energy carbon intensity for the same year.
But its net zero targets are in doubt, as Net Zero Tracker points out that they have shortcomings, such as a complete detailed plan, and no reference to equity investment and only partial coverage of A3.
Louis-Maxence Delaporte, fossil-free finance campaigner at the non-governmental Reclaim Finance, said that international financing for companies like Pemex is problematic as it is not aligned with the 2015 Paris climate change agreement, which sets out to keep global warming below 1.5°C.
“By not meeting these targets there is only greenwashing, like net zero. Their commitments are not credible. It is said there is no room for new fossil fuel projects, but the banks continue to support oil companies, like Pemex,” she told IPS from Paris.
“In Mexico there are perverse incentives because the country depends on extractive activities. There is a vicious circle, as these activities demand a greater share of the public budget and the banks channel money into them,” she told IPS from London.
A photo taken at the entrance to the Olmeca refinery, which the Mexican government expects to start up by the end of the year and to be fully operational in 2024. The plant is located next to the Lázaro Cárdenas neighborhood which is home to hundreds of people, in the Paraíso municipality of the southeastern state of Tabasco. CREDIT: Emilio Godoy / IPS
Dirty money
Pollution from Pemex’s activities has grown since 2018, a reality to which its financiers turn a blind eye.
In 2019, the Mexican oil company released 48 million tons of carbon dioxide (CO2) equivalent into the atmosphere, an increase of 3.3 percent, compared to 2018 levels, according to the report that Pemex sent to the Securities and Exchange Commission, a requirement for the company to sell bonds in the U.S. market.
In 2020, that pollution increased to 54 million tons, a rise of 12.5 percent, and the following year, to 70.5 million, an increase of 7.1 percent.
The main drivers of these increases have been the expansion of exploration, production and refining activities, plus drilling and flaring.
As of October 2022, Pemex was not in compliance with the 10-point framework of Climate Action + 100, a platform dedicated to measuring companies’ approach to the Paris Agreement goals. These aspects are related to short- and long-term reduction targets (2025 and 2050), decarbonization strategy and climate policies.
Therefore, the oil company, the eighth-largest global polluter as of 2017, according to the ranking of the non-governmental U.S. Climate Accountability Institute, is in breach of the Paris Agreement, adopted in 2015 and in force since 2021.
This also makes Mexico a country in non-compliance, as Pemex accounts for 10 percent of its GHG emissions.
Pemex has projected the reduction of pollution from its oil and gas production and extraction from 22.9 tons per 1000 barrels of crude oil equivalent in 2021 to 21.5 in 2025. For oil refining, the target is 39.6 tons per 1000 barrels in 2035, compared to just under 45.2 tons in 2021.
Delaporte criticized these targets as weak and insufficient, as they address only exploration and production (A1) emissions and leave out A2 and A3, the latter being the most polluting.
The Olmeca refinery is located in a coastal area of southeastern Mexico prone to flooding and exposed to rising sea levels due to increasing temperatures, one of the consequences of burning fossil fuels. CREDIT: Erik Contreras-Gerardo Morales / IPS
The national buttress
Another facet of the financial movement is related to national development banks, which have been pushing fossil fuel expansion without respecting their own social and environmental safeguards.
Since 2019, Bancomext has delivered 895 million dollars to the oil and gas industry, including Pemex, although the specific amount that went to the company itself is not public knowledge.
Banobras has been a great support for the oil company. In 2021, it provided over 1.1 billion dollars for the total acquisition of the Deer Park refinery in the U.S. state of Texas, of which Pemex already owned half and Shell the other 50 percent.
In addition, the bank shelled out 299 million dollars for the renovation of the Miguel Hidalgo refinery in the central state of Hidalgo.
Nafin lent Pemex 200 million dollars to upgrade the plant in 2021.
One phenomenon is the participation of the National Infrastructure Fund (Fonadin), which until now had never financed the fossil fuel sector. Last year, the fund contributed 346 million dollars for the renovation of diesel and gasoline processing technology at the Hidalgo refinery and at the Antonio M. Amor refinery, located in the central state of Guanajuato.
The latest operation involves 2.5 billion dollars in financing for the acquisition of the 13 production plants owned in the country by the Spanish company Iberdrola, 12 gas plants and one wind farm, in what has been described as part of “a new nationalization process.”
This maneuver also shows that international banks are still interested in financing fossil fuels, as the Spanish banks BBVA and Santander, as well as the U.S. Bank of America, have expressed a willingness to provide financing for the already agreed acquisition.
Climate activists stress that Mexican development banks have had social and environmental standards in place since 2017, but argue that they have been reluctant to apply them when it comes to Pemex.
Banobras has no safeguards assessments with respect to oil and gas projects, according to responses to information requests submitted by IPS. The same applied to Nafin, which did not carry them out in 2022 and 2023. The bank conducted one in 2021, classified as a bank secret. Bancomext also keeps information on this matter classified.
In the municipality of Paraíso, when the refinery begins to fully operate sometime in 2024, the pace will slow down, contrary to what the government wants. “We hope it will be profitable because it has cost a lot. And we hope nothing serious happens,” said Lozano, the teacher.
Beenes said Mexican and foreign banks should respect the Paris Agreement and abandon fossil fuels.
“State-owned banks can offer guarantees or insurance for credits. That is worrying, it is a problem for the transition. We are asking them to support the transition with specific investment conditions. It is in their best interest to stay away from fossil fuels, because they run the risk of having stranded assets in their portfolios,” she said.
The expert believes that banks are aware of the need for change, but the question is how fast they can do it.
Delaporte said development banks should finance green and non-oil companies.
“The change must be global, including commercial banks, development banks and hedge funds. Shareholders should ask Pemex not to build more facilities. If it refuses, they should divest and put the money into renewable companies,” she said.
Guzman, for her part, warned that if the current trend continues, it will be difficult for Mexico not only to meet its own climate targets, but also its contribution to the overall goal of keeping the global climate increase down to 1.5 degrees Celsius.
“There is talk of the need to continue mobilizing financing through national development banks for climate change. They should take advantage of this to allow the channeling and mobilization of funds” for the energy transition, she said.
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