[A-List] Ecuador: dilemmas of development

["Michael Keaney" <michael.keaney@xxxxxx>]

Ecotourism Is All Very Well, but $3 a Day Isn't
By EDMUND L. ANDREWS
New York Times, November 13 2002

JUNÍN, Ecuador - Even now, many people in this remote patch of Andean cloud
forest celebrate the day in 1997 when they burned down the mining camp and
ran its owners out of town.

"We had tried for months to get them to listen to our concerns about things
like contaminated water," said Alirio Ramírez. "Once we had a pile of ashes,
the mining guys were suddenly interested in talking. But by that point, the
time for negotiations was over."

Today, this village of 46 families is trying to reinvent itself as a shrine
to ecotourism. But a growing number of villagers are questioning whether
they took a wrong turn.

True, a new bamboo lodging house now charges foreign travelers $28 a night
each for a bed, three meals and guided tours of the forest.

Village leaders boast of being able to find 40 kinds of orchids, rare
varieties of hummingbirds and toucans and at least the tracks of jaguars,
pumas, tapirs and bears. Environmental guides now list the mist-shrouded
forests around here as an official "hot zone" of intense biodiversity.

But for all the effort to develop a new economy, Junín and other villages in
this region remain impoverished and isolated.

Junín is part of a parish of 18,000 people scattered across several dozen
communities in northern Ecuador. The village is cradled in a valley and
surrounded by forests. The river here is clean and cold and remains the main
source of drinking water. Most people live either directly or indirectly
from small farming - bananas, aloe, miniature oranges and cabulla, a
cactuslike plant that produces fiber used in baskets.

The town has no electricity, telephones or running water - not even postal
service. The mud road to the nearest town is so primitive that even
four-wheel-drive trucks get bogged down in the rainy season.

"The ecologists love the nature here and they love the fact that it's so
remote," said Tarquino Vallejos, who owns a small farm just outside of town.
"But the fact is that not one child in the community can go to secondary
school. We don't have a school past sixth grade, and nobody here has enough
money to send their child to another city."

Only about three families here earn a living through ecotourism; the rest
live largely through subsistence farming.

While many people have deep fears about the impact of mining, many in the
region argue that miners would be forced to provide roads, electricity and
other services simply to conduct business.

"The mining company had promised to build us a good road and a real medical
center," said Garzón Vallejos, a farmer in the nearby town of García Morena.
"We don't have any of that now."

After five, largely fruitless years of trying to establish alternatives
sources of growth, the frustration of people is becoming evident.

Ernesto Meza, who is 32 and unemployed, looks back on the destruction of the
mining camp - owned by a subsidiary of Mitsubishi Industries of Japan - with
a twinge of remorse. "The work we had back then was hard and dangerous, and
I didn't like it," he said. "But the pay was three times the normal rate.

The jobs were backbreaking, mostly tied to hauling rock and equipment up and
down the mountain slope. Sludgy black water, mixed with chemicals, gurgled
up from exploratory drilling holes and found its way into the river.

More alarming, an environmental impact study by the Japanese government
suggested that the river would have to be dammed and many families
relocated.

At least as the story is now told, about 60 villagers entered the mining
camp on a day when it was deserted in 1997. To avoid being accused of theft,
they took all the equipment on mules to municipal authorities.

They then set fire to the tents and shelters, jubilantly declaring their
intention to find healthier sources of economic growth. Mitsubishi, which
was evaluating the reserves of copper and molybdenum but had not begun
active mining, decided to flee rather than fight.

Decoin, a local environmental group founded by a Cuban expatriate named
Carlos Zorilla, raised money from American and European environmentalists to
enable the community to buy about 5,000 acres of land and set up an
environmental preserve.

Mr. Zorilla also organized a "fair trade" coffee-growing association that
markets coffee at above-market prices to consumers in the United States and
Europe who want to support small farmers. But progress has been slow,
hampered by a lack of money to buy basic equipment and by plunging world
coffee prices.

A much bigger problem is the absence of good roads, a huge obstacle for
farmers trying to get their products to market. Junín's inaccessibility is
also a problem for promoters of ecotourism. At least eight punishing hours
outside of Quito, Junín can attract only a trickle of hardened travelers,
people who are not picky about amenities like running water and electricity.
But new roads would most likely attract more settlers and more clear-cutting
for farms and businesses, diminishing the area's appeal to tourists.

Farmers like Mr. Vallejos, on the other hand, are convinced that mining
would bring roads, electricity and new opportunities.

"There is nothing wrong with ecotourism, but it isn't enough," he said. "The
average worker here earns about $3 a day, and many of those people have to
support families with six or even 10 children. I wish the ecologists would
come and work for me for $3 a day, and see how much they like it."