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ENVIRONMENT-LATIN AMERICA:
A Model That
Isn't Working
Diego Cevallos
MEXICO CITY, (IPS) - The
formulas followed in Latin
America and the Caribbean to
fight environmental damages are
not bringing the hoped-for
results, and the region is
unlikely to meet the commitment
of guaranteeing environmental
sustainability by 2015 or 2020,
one of the eight Millennium
Development Goals (MDGs).
The situation is alarming in
this region that accounts for
nearly half of the world's
tropical jungles and seven of
the 25 ecosystems richest in
biodiversity, according to a new
report, ”Millennium Development
Goals: A Latin American and
Caribbean Perspective” presented
in Chile Friday by the Economic
Commission for Latin America and
the Caribbean (ECLAC).
There have been setbacks in most
of the indicators related to the
environmental sustainability MDG,
which makes compliance with the
goal highly unlikely, says the
report.
The eight MDGs were adopted by
the international community in
2000 with the aim of boosting
development by drastically
reducing poverty and inequality
in the world by 2015, taking
1990 levels as the baseline.
The first MDG is to halve the
proportion of people living in
poverty and suffering from
hunger, and the seventh is
”ensuring environmental
sustainability” by meeting three
specific goals.
The first of these is to
”integrate the principles of
sustainable development into
country policies and programmes
and reverse the loss of
environmental resources,” the
second to ”reduce by half the
proportion of people without
sustainable access to safe
drinking water,” and the third
to ”achieve significant
improvement in the lives of at
least 100 million slum dwellers,
by 2020.”
But Latin America is not making
fast enough progress towards
fulfilling the seventh MDG
because ”economic growth and
environmental deterioration are
still linked in this region,”
Ricardo Sánchez, the director of
the United Nations Environment
Programme's (UNEP) regional
office for Latin America, told
IPS in Mexico.
”Our economies are still based
on the intensive use of natural
resources, and that must clearly
change in order to grow without
continuing to damage the
environment,” said Sánchez.
The ECLAC report, which was
co-authored by UNEP, reveals the
huge gap between reality and the
commitments adopted by
governments in the region.
The forest surface, for
instance, is shrinking fast.
Deforestation, which destroyed
46.7 million hectares of forest
between 1990 and 2000, is
advancing at an annual rate of
0.5 percent in the region,
double the global rate, says the
ECLAC study.
Just two of the 33 countries
studied have made progress in
terms of forest cover, while in
seven there has been no change,
and 24 suffered setbacks.
Forty percent of the planet's
plant and animal species are
found in Latin America and the
Caribbean.
But of the 178 ”ecoregions”
identified in Latin America and
the Caribbean, 77 percent are
endangered, while South America
alone accounts for 47 percent of
the world's illegally captured
animals.
”A major effort is still needed
to revert phenomena like
deforestation and the
degradation of soil and water,”
but above all the region's
development model must be
revised, ”because there are
things that have proven to be
ineffective,” said the regional
director of UNEP, whose Latin
America and Caribbean bureau is
in Mexico.
”The model of greater trade and
a smaller state does not work,”
said Sánchez. ”Although more
trade is needed, it must take
into account the characteristics
of developing countries. A
strong state is also necessary,
to oversee and guarantee
sustainability.”
The environmental panorama
outlined by the report depicts a
region that is destroying its
natural environment.
For example, only eight out of
20 countries studied have made
any progress towards the
efficient use of energy. And in
terms of per capita emissions of
carbon dioxide - the main
greenhouse gas - only four of
the 33 countries in the region
have made advances.
With respect to the oceans and
seas, the outlook is no
different, with overfishing and
degradation of ecosystems the
norm. And in agriculture,
three-quarters of crop diversity
has been lost.
Meanwhile, the report painted a
more uneven panorama with
respect to the goal of making
clean water and sanitation
available to half of the
population lacking access to
these services.
Although it is possible to meet
the access to safe water goal,
that is not the case for
sanitation, a service that
should reach 150 million people
(121 million in urban areas and
29 million in rural areas) by
2015.
In 2002, 84 percent of the
region's urban population had
sewage services, compared to 44
percent of people in rural
areas. That reflected a mere 27
percent advance in rural areas
and 35 percent in urban areas
since 1990, noted ECLAC.
Although the urban sanitation
target has been met by the
countries of the Caribbean, the
situation in Bolivia, Brazil, El
Salvador, Guatemala, Haiti, Peru
and the Dominican Republic
remains worrisome, the report
points out.
The assessment of the progress
made towards the last
sustainability goal,
”significant improvement in the
lives of at least 100 million
slum dwellers,” shows that eight
out of 16 countries studied have
progressed, while eight have
made no progress or have slid
backwards.
In 1990, 35.4 percent of the
urban population of Latin
America was living in
substandard housing, a
proportion that had dropped to
31.9 percent by 2001. But in the
same period the urban population
increased by 79 million, while
the number of people living in
slums rose from 111 to 127
million.
The proportion of slum housing
is especially alarming in
Belize, Bolivia, Guatemala,
Haiti, Nicaragua and Peru,
observes ECLAC, and to a lesser
extent in Argentina, Brazil and
Venezuela, a highly urbanised
country where more than 25
percent of the urban population
lives in shantytowns.
ECLAC expresses particular
concern over the loss of forest
cover and biodiversity, air
pollution, and the growth of
urban slums. It points, on the
other hand, to expanded access
to safe water, although access
to sanitation has not
accompanied that progress.
But the lack of headway in
preserving the environment is
not surprising in a region where
only Chile and Mexico earmark
more than one percent of gross
domestic product (GDP) to
spending on the environment.
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