The natural environment in Nicaragua has been damaged by rural development policies geared for the export of cash crops, by uneven land distribution and the near absence of concerns about the environmental effects of the prevailing model of development. The demands made by market forces for the export of primary materials have been reasons for land degradation in the big farms, and the need to survive a poverty stricken existence has forced the peasantry to damage the marginal and fragile land they worked. Successive governments did not address these underlying causes of environmental degradation, and even the opportunities afforded by the environment programme that resulted from the 1979 Sandinista revolution, did not result in significant environmental improvements. The paper briefly considers the constraints faced by the Sandinista administration and how the farmer-to-farmer programme (Campesino-a-Campesino) was brought about as a result of the impacts of the Sandinista era. The substantive part of the paper considers PCAC's significance as an agroecological programme and its advantages and limitations for improving peasants' livelihoods via dissemination of land-protective measures. The viability of the programme is assessed by field work carried out examining in detail the case of three communities, and the paper concludes that the gains made in environmental protection and conservation are in jeopardy without structural policy changes. The paper proposes that for the programme to improve its potential, adequate political will, power and organization are necessary to facilitate greater access to secure land tenure among the peasantry.
The controversial form in which the oil industry is run has once more caused a huge disaster--this one affecting the Galician coastal environment and economy. Oil-spill clean-up operations have been managed in Europe with some success but with considerable economic, environmental and social costs. The oil industry often avoids fully or even partially compensating those affected. The lack of both political will and political power has let the culprit (the oil industry) off the hook. This paper considers the spill of the Prestige to assess whether the balance of power between affected people and the oil industry can be changed. The paper examines the growing awareness of environmental issues among ordinary people in Spain, through the massive involvement of volunteers concerned with the damage done to the environment and to the livelihoods of fishing communities in Galicia. To understand these growing public concerns and the strength of opinion, the paper examines the details of the decisions taken by the central Spanish and local governments and the way these have informed the clean-up operations, the character of the oil companies involved and the feeling of impotence in the face of such disasters. The conclusion here is that the operations of the oil industry should be tightly regulated through EU legislation, and that this can come about as a result of organised political pressure from those affected by the oil spill, from the mass of volunteers, as well as from public opinion at large.
This paper proposes a methodological approach to data gathering as a sound basis for understanding land degradation processes, breaking down barriers of distrust between Government officials and land users, and promoting participation in planning for soil and water conservation. It examines how landscape changes, of value as indicators of erosion, are perceived by land users and can be used in planning. It is proposed that the participation of land users in the construction of questionnaires, data gathering, analysis and writing up of the findings are examples of the participatory initial stages in planning.
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