Matriz del monitoreo y evaluación a) Matriz de Monitoreo
NIVEL DE LOGRO DE LA ACCIÓN
The peasant gardens surrounding Caracol, a community whose 15,000 inhabitants rely on fishing, agriculture and salt making, were chosen by the government of Haiti as the site for the new 246-acre Caracol Industrial Park (CIP). The CIP is a US$300 million project jointly funded by the IDB (initially providing US$105 million and recently promising an additional US$40.5 million), the U.S. State Department (US$124 million), the Clinton Foundation, and the Korean apparel manufacturer Sae-A Trading Co. Ltd. (US$78 million). In addition, USAID has allocated US$268 million to build a power plant and a deep-water port to support the CIP (GAO 2013). But alongside capital, the CIP required land, so the government forcefully evicted over 400 peasants from 251 hectares of agricultural land.
The site chosen for the CIP reveals how rural food security is being undermined through land conversions associated with pushes to deepen and extend export manufacturing in this post-earthquake period. Our research, conducted between January and July 2012, is based on focus groups with: peasant groups, smallholders who were evicted from their land to make room for the Caracol Industrial Park, community leaders,
workers in the Caracol Industrial Park, and local government leaders37; and semi- structured qualitative in-depth interviews with peasant leaders, municipal officials, and leaders of civil society organizations. Interviewees were purposively sampled. Interviews were coded and analysis led to the emergence of key themes. In this paper we highlight the themes of environment and food security.
Community responses to the CIP highlight the links between the project and local food security. In fact, one of the strongest themes that emerged during content analysis was the expression of land appropriation as an abuse to peasant autonomy, food security and well-being. Respondents consistently lamented that fertile land, which had been passed down for generations, had been seized, making comments like:
• “Where the CIP is, that’s the most fertile land, the best land in Caracol”
(Priest);
• “This land had all sorts of fruits and there were plantains, corn, and sugar-
cane…that was how everyone lived” (CASEC);
• “It gives the country food” (CASEC).
Another peasant said: “I’m 65, for me, at my age… my land had mangoes, chadek (a
cross between a grapefruit and an orange), I had 37 trees of bwa chenn (a hardwood tree). Now I’ve lost it all.” Since they were displaced “the peasants are saying they can’t feed their kids or send them to school” (CASEC). The Interim Mayor expressed: “we are
37 Local government in Haiti comprises a CASEC (Conseil d’Administration de Section
Communale, CASEC), which is a Municipal District Governing Board and an (Assembles des Sections Communales, ASEC), which is a Municipal District Assembly.
already starting to lack food” (Interim Mayor): “There has been increased hunger in the area because of the park” (CASEC).
Respondents also expressed concerns about the CIP’s environmental impact as well as how environmental damage could impact their food supply (mainly fish). The industrial plant is located in the middle of the Trou du Nord watershed, which empties into Caracol Bay, a fragile and ecologically important marine ecosystem. Caracol Bay, located 5 kilometers from the CIP, is part of the Caribbean Biological Corridor (CBC)- a United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) and European Commission supported framework established in 2009 and aimed at protecting ecological systems and reducing biodiversity losses in areas in Haiti, the Dominican Republic, and Cuba. The Bay is also first on the list to be included in the National System of Protected Areas (SNAP) that was initiated by the UN Development Program and Haitian Ministry of the Environment (MOE) in 2010. The bay is home to one of Haiti’s last remaining mangrove forests and coral reefs, which are valued at US$109,733,000 annually (OAS/IABIN 2009), and provides habitat for multiple species that support the local fishing industry (including lobster, prawn, pike, and mollusks).
In a 2011 environmental impact assessment, U.S. consulting firm Koios found that the CIP “will affect critical natural habitats” and poses “significant adverse environmental impacts” to Caracol Bay (Koios 2011, 126). Wastewater drainage from the CIP has been identified as one of the most serious threats to the Bay. For example, the textile industry requires vast amounts of water for dying and manufacturing, which creates significant wastewaters requiring multiple treatments (HGW 2011). Although the IDB has committed to financing wastewater treatment facilities, there is skepticism that
this will adequately ameliorate the environmental consequences of wastewater drainage into Caracol Bay. For example, Findley and Côté (2011) suggest that the increased runoff and drainage from power plant operations will unavoidably cause soil and water pollution. Furthermore, the Koios report suggests that whether or not the water is treated other threats related to the industrial park put ecosystems at risk. For example, when the water used to cool the CIP electrical plant leaves the building it is hot and unless it is cooled to less than 3 degrees Celsius, it is likely to have negative ecological consequences.
Alongside direct consequences of drainage from the CIP, the expected influx of between 100,000-400,000 people to Caracol will also magnify pressure on the Trou de Nord watershed and Caracol Bay. In a landscape that lacks landfills and sewage treatment plants, increased solid sewage and trash waste, if not properly managed, will threaten downstream marine and mangrove ecosystems (Findley and Côté 2011). In addition, the vegetative clearing that has fostered wastewater drainage, as well as potential poor disposal of toxic waste and petroleum products, may hamper normal vegetation growth, and increase soil erosion and sedimentation in the watershed and Caracol Bay (Findley and Côté 2011).
Though it is theoretically possible to diminish the environmental costs of the CIP (Koios 2011), the costs are onerous. Haiti Grassroots Watch argues that sufficient environmental assessments and environmental mitigation efforts would cost US$54.5 million, and since Sae-A Trading is exempt from paying taxes for the first 15 years of operation, extracting sufficient tax revenues to fund environmental management seems doubtful (HGW 2011). This has led to concern that the formidable financial cost of
environmental protection will entail their neglect (HGW 2011). It is worth pointing out that the Koios consultants concluded that to avoid impacts on sensitive environments like the Caracol Bay, another site would be a better solution, but the CIP is now in operation (Koios 2011).
Interviewees voiced their environmental concerns, often connecting them to the
harsher erosion of food security.The Catholic Priest said: “The industrial Park has a paint
company, and a textile company, they produce waste. The paint waste is running into the water table, which feeds into the ocean and is killing all the fish.” Community members agreed: “the industrial park is making huge amounts of waste and dumping it into the water. It is pushing the fish further from the shore and threatening the fishers” (Community Leader). Peasant producers and labourers in the CIP also expressed nervousness for the environment: ‘We doubt they are treating the waste before they dump it in the ocean’ (Peasant): “We think the waste goes into the sea” (Worker); “Now there are no fish in the sea” (Worker). The Interim Mayor expressed the urgent need for environmental protection:
With the environmental damage from the park we have to include some kind of protection here…we have to have a means to protect the environment. I asked them about the ocean’s ecosystem – the waste is toxic – if it is dumped in the ocean won’t it kill the fish? Won’t it harm the people? And that is the biggest livelihood for people – fishing. So if you throw waste in the ocean people will lose their livelihoods.
But in the same breath the Mayor expressed feelings of powerlessness: “But, we don’t have any role in decisions about how companies manage the land or the natural resources” (Interim Mayor).
4.8 Conclusion
Haiti’s ecological inheritance and food insecurity are the result of a centuries old preoccupation with export-expansion (in agriculture and since the 1970s, in manufacturing). Associated with this export orientation is a commitment to the pursuit of comparative advantage and a faith in its ability to provide sufficient revenue gains from exports to produce food security. We believe this approach to be misguided. Abandoning the goal of self-sufficiency, as suggested by international creditors, is a risky proposition – particularly in an era of unpredictable and volatile price fluctuations in food (Clapp 2009). Given the extreme vulnerability of Haiti’s poor, and that unexpected price hikes harm lower-income groups most, a maximum degree of self-sufficiency should be the goal (Otero et al., 276).
On a related note, the lack of attention to trade policy reform by the multilateral development finance agencies and their bilateral allies the players Easterly (2009) has aptly called the ‘aid cartel’ – is problematic, particularly given their unequivocal commitment to food security. The absence of references to trade in post-earthquake policy documents indicates a continued belief in the benefits of full trade liberalization (Shamsie 2010). Despite the admission by United Nations Special Envoy to Haiti, Bill Clinton, that US trade policy during the 1990s gravely undermined rural livelihoods, creditor and donor institutions have little to say about how this policy set might be re- shaped. This is difficult to understand given that trade liberalization, and the resulting
decreases in national production have intensified the country’s dependency and its vulnerability to speculation, supply disruptions, and food price fluctuations (Rights and Democracy 2008). If there was evidence that food imports did not adversely affect Haiti’s marginalized masses, one could be more generous regarding these obstructions. This, though, is clearly not the case.
The growing disparity between rich and poor worldwide and the prevailing political environment (neoliberal precepts) would seem to offer little hope for change. And yet, the persistent disjuncture between the intents and outcomes of the current ‘food security through trade’ paradigm might be shaking things up. Otero et al. (2013) note that some creditor and donor institutions are questioning this approach to food security. The Netherlands, for instance, has acknowledged that trade liberalization “benefited countries competitive in the export market, but discouraged farmers where agriculture was not competitive. They now rely even more on food imports than before and are more susceptible to food price increases on the global market” (POED, 7 cited in Otero et al 2013, 285). Still, words must be accompanied by deeds. Donor policies need to support small-scale farmers that produce for local markets, ensure they can remain on the land and enhance their livelihoods. Trade rules in agriculture require major reform. Policy sovereignty must be respected, particularly when it concerns those countries trapped on the outer periphery. Haiti and its local communities must be allowed to determine and carry out their own approach to food security, free from the dictates of external agencies.
At the same time, an important part of the food security puzzle is domestic in nature. It requires political action aimed at dismantling authoritarian orders and entrenched social hierarchies within Haiti. Moreover, past experience has shown that the
poor are more likely to be treated equitably when they manage to organize themselves into a powerful political movement. It is, therefore, significant that Haiti’s peasant producers are well organized. They are asking for access to land, and autonomy over what they produce and what they consume, which includes calls for lower food import dependence. They are calling for ‘food sovereignty,’ a concept that entails not only access to adequate food, but is also the recognition of the socio-political dimensions of food and food systems, to give people control over what they consume and produce, and to democratize the food system (Patel 2009). Indeed, it is a concept that resonated strongly with the ideas articulated by the peasant producers we spoke with in the Caracol area.