Environmental Problems Arising from National Revolutions in the Third World: The Case of Nicaragua

Abstract

Symptoms of imperialism's legacy abound in Nicaragua. First, and perhaps foremost for the short term, is the lack of a significant cash base. Clearly a big cash flow guarantees nothing with regard to development, but the lack of even a trickle can have profound effects since possibilities for initiating projects and programs are severely curtailed. From an environmental point of view this can be disastrous. For example, in 1987 the state forestry company signed a contract with several logging companies based in Costa Rica to cut significant areas of old-growth rainforest along the Rio San Juan. The argument was that Nicaragua, in its cash-flow crisis, could not afford the luxury of preserving the rainforest for posterity, or even for future higher cash returns. In the absence of the cash-flow crisis the issue may never have surfaced in the first place, given the Sandinistas' general attitude toward conservation. Fortunately in this case the issue was brought to the attention of the public by ABEN, the Nicaraguan Association of Ecologists and Biologists, and the contract was eventually blocked. Indeed, it is nothing short of amazing that the contract could have been blocked, given the dire straits of the economy and the immediate cash-flow that would have resulted from the sale, and certainly is evidence of the strength of environmentalism in the country. It is clear that the ten years of Contra war exacerbated the problem of a depressed economy considerably. But it is likely that even if the Contra war had never been initiated in the first place, the economic pressures evoked by the depressed economy which resulted from the permanent state of underdevelopment imposed by imperialism would have elicited similar environmentally destructive practices. While ABEN and other environmentally-conscious revolutionaries within Nicaragua will be ever vigilant to avert projects that tend to harm the environment and thus threaten the long term development of Nicaragua, the pressures on economic planners to write off environmental damage as an externality, a trick they learned some time ago from examples to the north, will remain as long as the cash-flow problem exists. But the lack of cash, that is, simply being poor, is not the only legacy of imperialism. So the story goes, when Somoza visited Costa Rica sometime in the 50s, Costa Rican president Jos6 Figueres showed him several new programs designed to boost Costa Rica's educational system.