10 March 2009 | News | Resisting neoliberalism
State of Alert
El Salvador is going through a “serious environmental crisis”, according to organizations
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Salvadoran Party Alianza Republicana Nacionalista (ARENA) came into office in 1989 and nobody has been able to take them away. Twenty years after, the assessment of their environmental actions coudn´t be worse.
A document issued by the Salvadoran Centre for Appropiate Technology (CESTA-Friends of the Earth El Salvador) holds the right wing party responsible for the “serious environmental crisis” the country is going through, and for subjecting nature to the pursuit of profits which features the neoliberal model.
In a detailed report mainly based on official data, the environmentalist organization explains the situation of emergency El Salvador is going through in different areas, and the results are worrying.
In terms of forests and biodiversity, for instance, deforestation reached 80% of the national territory and it is estimated that 4,500 hectares of forest are cut down per year. These examples allow to understand the concern: previously forested territories are currently used for shopping malls, housing projects and highways.
“The destruction of forests has had serious impacts on biodiversity. El Salvador has 720 endangered species (295 fauna and 425 flora), some of them in extreme danger such as the spider monkey which has a population of 200, or the white hawk, with less than fifteen animals”, explains CESTA-Friends of the Earth´s report.
In terms of forests, and based on information issued by the Environment Ministry, it is estimated that 70% of Salvadoran land is eroded. The increase of the price of food and communities threatened by desertization are some of the clear consequences of this phenomena.
This, together with air pollution and an unappropriate solid waste disposal system are the result of a “historical process of capital accumulation at the expense of nature”, which has clearly advanced during the last 20 years of ARENA´s administration.
And the list of dissapointing situations can be attributed to the continuous governmental management. The Salvadoran Executive Branch, according to CESTA, hasn´t been able to protect the water resources and supply enough and good quality water to the population; and the environmental laws have been breached with complete impunity during the last two decades. El Salvador has become a country “highly vulnerable” to the impacts of climate change.
To support this last issue it is enough to resort to statistics: 400 Salvadoran people died in 1998 with Mitch Hurricane, 700 with the landslide which took place in El Balsamo in 2001; 70 people in 2005 with Stan Storm, and 32 people died in 2008 with the floods which affected La Málaga, among other disasters.
