Green Left Weekly's SARAH PEART spoke to Ricardo Navarro, chairperson of Friends Of the Earth International, who has recently been in Australia. Navarro is the first chairperson of FoEI from the Third World.
What are some of the major environmental issues facing Latin America today, in particular El Salvador?
One of the main issues facing many countries in Latin America is lack of clean water. In the case of El Salvador, the water table in the capital city is going down more than one metre a year. Every day there are complaints on the radio, television, and newspapers about water scarcity. On the TV news you often see people demanding that the water be connected — and this is everywhere.
The level of air pollution is increasing so dramatically that in countries like El Salvador the leading cause of death is now infectious respiratory diseases. Air pollution causes more deaths than intestinal diseases which have always been recognised as one of the major causes of death in the Third World.
So things like air and water pollution, deforestation, soil erosion, desertification, improper management of solid wastes are probably the main environmental issues in Latin America.
How is the environmental movement in the South different to that in the North?
The main difference is that ecologically problems in Latin America are also social problems — you cannot separate them, and they are becoming political problems. In my country, when you talk about social problems you talk about lack of water and that is something you feel every day. When there is no water you cannot just say "Well who cares?" You have to go and get the water, period. So social problems and ecological problems are the same thing.
Also environmental problems are very much related to poverty. For example, take two people who are at the coast trying to gather sea turtle eggs and sell them — that has an ecological impact because sea turtles don't have a chance to reproduce themselves. On the other hand, people need the exotic animals in order to survive. You cannot solve the ecological problem if you don't solve social problems.
When we talk about social problems, it is not just about better salaries, better working conditions. It is also better water and clean air. So our ecological problems are social problems and also political problems.
How does FoE International relate to other political movements?
The idea of FoE International is to coordinate movements in many parts of the world (we have groups in 68 countries) and try to launch international campaigns. It has been said for many years "think globally and act locally" — now we are saying "think globally and act globally" — because problems are global in nature and so need global solutions.
For example, people in the North are using a lot of oil that generates CO2 (carbon dioxide) and that generates climate change and climate change means floods in Venezuela, with 25,000 people killed; it means tornados in India, with 12,000 people killed; it means floods in Mozambique, with 1 million people displaced.
How are we going to reduce the impact of this environmental destruction? By reducing greenhouse gas emissions which are predominantly emitted in the North.
So we cannot solve the problems by just concentrating on El Salvador or concentrating on Mozambique. We have to go global which is why we are part of the FoE International network.
In that context, what is your assessment of the new anti-globalisation movement of predominantly young people in the North that began in Seattle? What does it mean for the possibility of greater international coordination of environment and social justice movements?
I think it is extremely important, because with all these campaigns (for example against greenhouse gases or desertification) the impact is more limited every time because of the higher concentration of economic and political power. For example, take the question of climate: It requires one person — Mr Bush — to say no to the Kyoto protocol and everything can go to the basket. Nothing will happen if the US does not participate. The point is that a very, very tiny number of people can upset the whole world.
What it means is that we need to work on the issues of democracy, on issues like reducing the power of the WTO [World Trade Organisation] or the World Bank. This is probably more important than working on purely ecological campaigns.
We can have very good campaigns on climate change — we can get everyone riding bicycles — but what happens when the oil corporations don't want to reduce consumption or the production of oil? It is very difficult to have any impact.
What is the role of SESTA (Salvadorian Centre for Proper Technology) in El Salvador?
In El Salvador, I work for SESTA and the local FoE group. We work on many different levels. For example, we have what are called eco-centres. These train people to produce technologies to deal with waste, to stop erosion, to promote reforestation. We train people to assemble bicycles, to collect organic garbage and so on. These centres promote technologies and processes that help the social and ecological conditions of the communities.
We also work in many communities and also at the national level where we are involved in legislative work, lobbying, work with the media trying to raise awareness about environmental issues and we also participate in demonstrations.
What are your thoughts on Cuba's role in challenging the corporate global agenda and in particular their initiatives in environmentally sustainable alternatives?
Cuba is an example of a country that has tried to be independent as much as it can be. It is very interesting because despite the US blockade Cuba has managed to survive. This is not a good example for US corporations and other corporations because it shows that this little country one way or another can manage. It shows that there are some alternatives to the so-called development process.
It is good that Cuba is following a lot of environmental projects in the course of their development. When Cuba had more resources — at the time when the Soviet Union was supporting it — the environment was not a high topic in the agenda. This was unfortunate because with more resources they could have done more, but now in the last decade they have proven that there are alternatives to the current abuse of the world's resources.
I think we can learn a lot from places like Cuba.