Development aid and environmental sustainability: a case from Argentina
Posted 1:56 PM by Internal Voices in Labels: 11th edition
Alessandra Devitofrancesco, UNRIC Brussels
When I arrived in Buenos Aires in 2006, the conflict around the Uruguay River pulp mills had been going on for a year. A diplomatic crisis between Argentina and Uruguay, the most dramatic one ever, was threatening the historically good relations between the two countries. But, more surprisingly, it was mobilizing thousands of people -- of all social statuses, cultural and ethnic background -- to go into the streets and protest to defend their sovereignty over their land and resources, against a huge “development project”, which would change their lives forever.
In 2003 the Uruguayan President, Julio Batlle announced the construction of two paper mills in the locality of Fray Bentos, on the Uruguay River, which would be owned by two transnational companies, the Finnish Matse Botnia and the Spanish Ence. The project, which was applauded as one of the biggest development investments in Uruguay, was meant to provide economic benefits that would generate 8 percent of the country’s export (for about 30 years of production) and create about 2500 jobs in the mill, as well as in local transportation systems.
The World Bank considered it a perfectly suitable project with a long-term development strategy based on foreign investments and export growth; but what were the real reasons behind the choice of locating the pulp mill at the Uruguay River?
Uruguay has been trying to expand its economy through Foreign Direct Investments (FDIs). Thanks to promotional forestry policies, plants can be realized in free-trade zones, where investors do not have to pay taxes on land that has been sold at very low prices in multi-decade contracts. The land in Fray Bentos, where the pulp mills will be built, has only been sold for $20.000 for 30 years, with promises of no taxation, customs duty on machinery and equipment; and massive infrastructural investments by the national government to facilitate the exportation of the pulp. It seems that the government has allowed economic interests to prevail over environmental concerns. Based on eucalyptus monoculture, the pulp and paper industry is a particularly dangerous type of FDI. It provokes irreversible loss of biodiversity, water and air pollution and the displacement of entire communities of people.
The project is also affecting the communities of Gualeguaychu, which are found in the Argentinean territory.
These communities launched elementary, non-violent resistance movements called, Asamblea Ciudadana Ambiental de Gualeguaychù ACAG (Citizens’ Environmental Assembly of Gualeguaychù), to fight a development model that privileges economic growth, at the expense of local communities’ sovereignty over natural resources. The ACAG has questioned the pre-existing socio-economic and political structure. Therefore, its mass mobilization represents a glocalisation process regarding concrete territorialities that claim social delimitation and appropriation of the territory; a more sustainable long-term development; and safeguarding the well-being of future generations.
In spite of domination by authorities – such as violence and blockage of all roads connecting Argentina and Uruguay –, the activism of the ACAG has led to a five-year, non-stop protest, comprising of sit-ins and pacific resistance.
The construction of these two paper mills on the Uruguay River is only one of the many cases that provide evidence that numerous FDI strategies and big industry projects, which are implemented in the name of “development”, are not sustainable for local populations, and can turn into acts of environmental depletion, threatening the socio-economic and ecological well-being of future generations.
Furthermore, in the South , counter-hegemonic grassroots resistance movements are rallying to protect their land, cultural identities and autonomy. These movements therefore play a critical role in the contemporary development scenery, vindicating alternative social and moral frameworks for the global society.
Glocalisation is a relatively recent phenomenon, which calls for a new development strategy, that aims to empower local communities -- linking them to global resources and facilitating initiatives of peace and development—whilst providing opportunities for them to direct positive social change in the areas that directly affect them the most (The Glocalisation Manifesto, 2004). In Gualeguaychù, the civil society, Non Government Organizations, grassroots organizations, and ordinary citizens, play a key role in this glocalisation process; they contribute to produce a bottom-up answer to a globalized economy. As for the Uruguay-Argentina case, the ACAG is still fully engaged in its protest against Botnia in fighting a questionable campaign, based on acts that threaten the well-being of communities and their environment. As a result, the ACAG has had to reduce its activity, to that of a mere distribution of flyers, to sensitize the local population about the environmental impact of the pulp mills. Nevertheless, this matter is still a pertinent one in Argentina and Uruguay, as well as in regional and international spheres. The most important lesson learnt here is that the awareness about “deterritorialisation” is constantly growing among citizens. The cognizance of this “deterritorialisation” or the displacement of communities due to land rights violations, pollution, or the need to migrate in search of wage work, has led to a more informed community. A new form of activism unites different parties that are all affected by the same global changes. This creates more parallelisms and strategic alliances such as those among feminist, ecologist and indigenous movements.
The current environmental destruction, often provoked by askew macro-projects aimed at bringing economic growth to developing countries, have been leaving death and misery in their wake. Environment sustainability must a be primary concern if we are to achieve the UN Millennium Development Goals, as maintaining a stable environment with predictable and sufficient resources, will help to stop hunger and poverty, protect people from natural disasters and epidemics, as well as safeguard the world’s biodiversity. To achieve this goal, structural changes are also needed in the way the development paradigm is interpreted and translated into aid policies, at a local, national, regional, and global level.
Can grassroots social movements play a key role in switching to a more inclusive and democratic development paradigm? There is not a clear answer, but realistically speaking, the potential of social movements should not be over-estimated. Very often, people that live in extreme poverty and social exclusion, find themselves obliged to seek individual survival strategies, such as finding patrons who can help them in exchange of their votes. Most of the world’s citizens are now familiar with the notion that they have “human rights”, but many continue to be deprived of them on a daily basis.
Picture: UN PHOTOS/John Isaac
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