by John Burnett
For anyone watching the news in the 1980s, Central America was a land of
leftist revolutionaries, right-wing militaries, and peasants caught in
the crossfire. In those days, green signified camouflage fatigues, not a
lush rainforest.
It was tough being an environmentalist in the eighties as Guatemala was
trying to put down a rebel insurgency.
"Ten years ago, I couldn't talk to you about this situation," says Jorge
Cabrera, a leading Guatemalan environmentalist, "I could be in very
serious danger of extinction. But now, there's more freedom."
The end of the bloody civil wars has permited an environmental movement
to blossom in Central America. People have recognized the fact that this
land bridge between two continents contains a wealth of biodiversity
worth preserving. Costa Rica and Panama together have more bird species
than the United States and Canada combined.
But while the war was bad for environmentalists, the conflicts were, in
their way, good for the environment. The terrorist bombings, kidnappings
and land mines scared away timber and mining and petroleum companies.
"During the war, there was a positive result for nature, in a way," says
Marco Gonzalez, an environmental lawyer from Nicaragua. "I remember
visiting border areas between Honduras and Nicaragua in 1991, and I was
amazed to discover how much the forest had grown in 12 years of conflict,
because there were no people there."
U.S. anthropologist Mac Chapin noticed the same thing in the rainforests
of Nicaragua and Panama where he works on land tenure issues with
indigenous groups.
"People were fighting," Chapin says, "they weren't occupied in the
pillageof natural resources."
Today, political stability, trade liberalization and privatization have
created a more attractive climate for foreign investment.
"The sheer scale of investmentthreatens to open up vast expanses of
previously undisturbed natural areas. And the rate at which new
concessions have been granted over just the last five years means that
this threat is an immediate concern for conservation," concludes a recent
report by Conservation International, looking at resource extraction
throughout Latin America.
Says Mac Chapin: "Everybody's going after the natural resources right now
as never before."
To name a few of the larger projects under way:
Central America is trying to make up for lost time. It must rebuild
economies devastated by the wars, and address the crushing poverty that
fueled the guerrilla movements. In this light, foreign investment doesn't
appear so sinister to some analysts in the region.
"It's a good thing peace has broken out and foreign investors are now
taking a much greater interest in this region and are much more willing
to come here and look at the potentials of Central America for economic
growth," says Stacy Rhodes, Guatemala-based regional director of the U.S.
Agency for International Development.
On the whole, conservationists doubt the mining, timber and oil companies
will behave responsibly, given the lack of environmental protection laws
and monitoring in most of Central America.
But some environmentalists are encouraged, now that the wars are over,
that the seven countries are finally talking seriously about the
environment. And in one ambitious project, they're discussing the
creation of a Meso-American Biological Corridor that would stretch all
the way from Mexico to Panama.