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Victory: Haven for leatherback sea turtles declared off-limits
In two separate rulings in May 2008, the Costa Rican government stood up for endangered leatherback sea turtles against business interests intent on building within their protected habitat.
A relative of dinosaurs, the endangered leatherback sea turtle has continually found its home in Costa Rica under threat. Poor planning and lack of oversight destroyed its nesting beaches in Flamingo and Tamarindo.
This time developers had their eye on the Leatherback National Marine Park (LNMP), home to some of the most important Leatherback nesting beaches in the Eastern Pacific Ocean.
A municipal zoning regulation was enacted that would authorize construction in part of the LNMP. However, AIDA and its local partner CEDARENA, together with the Leatherback Trust, successfully defended the park.
The Constitutional Chamber of the Costa Rican Supreme Court nullified the municipal zoning regulation, safeguarding the Leatherback sea turtles and their nesting beaches. This ruling closely followed another court victory by AIDA, CEDARENA, and Justice for Nature that required the government to expropriate the private lands within the LNMP, otherwise destined to be tourist playgrounds.
The leatherback sea turtle will continue to face threats from tourism development, fishing, egg poaching, and pollution. However, AIDA and its partners have shown that the law can be used to make a powerful difference.
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Some of my most treasured childhood memories happened in or near a river. I can still feel the cold water on my feet, and the current that pulled me smoothly past rocks and branches. I remember vacations with my cousins, throwing ourselves into the river near my aunt and uncle’s country house, leaping from the tops of rocks or swinging from the branches of a tree. I remember summer road trips, driving down seemingly endless bridges over the great rivers of southern Mexico. I’ve always thought of rivers as the veins of our planet. In their waters, the rivers and their tributaries carry nutrients to wetlands, lakes, and the sea. They carry oxygen and host thousands of species. They supply drinking water to millions of people in small towns and big cities. They give us food, entertainment, transportation, and life. Recent natural disasters have reminded us that—despite our best attempts—there are no limits, dams, dikes or pipelines that can control the water. It’s true that, properly implemented, dams can have benefits; but in many cases, particularly those of large-scale development, the damages dams do far outweigh any benefits. There are currently more than 300 large dam projects planned or in construction throughout Latin America. Many of them are underway without adequate social and environmental impacts assessments. The results are displaced communities, destroyed forests, and rivers with no fish. Blocking our veins The water flowing down our rivers is vital to the natural equilibrium of the planet and its climate. It’s like the blood circulating through your body. If your bloodflow were blocked, you’d get cardiovascular disease, maybe even a heart attack. Well, damming rivers is like intentionally blocking your veins and expecting no problems. Only one third of the world’s great rivers remain free-flowing, without dams or canals. Now I’m not a doctor, or a biologist, but I often wonder: are we heading for the collapse of our natural system by blocking, tubing, manipulating, and contaminating the veins of the Earth (which, like us, is a living organism)? And because rotting vegetation in dam reservoirs releases lots of methane (a super-potent greenhouse gas), isn’t the current climate crisis, in part, a response to the blockages in Earth’s circulatory system? A slow death The mouth of the Colorado River opens to the Sea of Cortes, in northeast Mexico. It’s an area historically rich in sea life from the Gulf of California. For eons, the flow of the Colorado brought nutrient-rich sediment to the Sea of Cortes. It kept the coastal estuary rich and healthy, along with the animals that sought shelter there. But that’s not happening anymore. The vaquita, now the world’s rarest marine mammal, teeters on the edge of extinction. Between the Colorado River’s mountain headwaters and the end of its main channel, more than 10 large dams and 80 water diversions have squeezed the river dry. Now the Gulf no longer receives the river’s nutrient-rich waters, harming not just marine life like the vaquita, but also the area’s fishermen. No one mentions that the near disappearance of the vaquita has been caused by habitat destruction due to the upstream dams on the Colorado River. Mexico’s last free-flowing river The San Pedro Mezquital River is the last undammed river in the western Sierra Madre Mountains. The river links the region’s indigenous people. It’s a source of their culture and identity. The river channel, more than 500 kilometers long, connects the forests of the highlands with the wetlands of the coast, opening into Marismas Nacionales, the largest mangrove forest in the Mexican Pacific. Marismas Nacionales, declared a wetland of international importance, is home to more than 12,000 families engaged in fishing, agriculture, and tourism. But this national treasure is at risk due to the government’s plan to build a hydroelectric dam on the San Pedro Mezquital. If the river were blocked, its contribution of nutrients downstream would be drastically reduced. The health of Marismas Nacionales, its rich biodiversity, and the region’s sustainable local economy would all be slowly starved. The reservoir would also destroy at least 14 sites sacred to local indigenous communities. But we’ve still got time to stop this plan and others like it. We can avoid the collapse of the natural world that surrounds us, on our one and only planet. By supporting AIDA, you can help keep Earth’s veins flowing free.
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“We were in the great swamp, the Ciénaga Grande, another of the myths of my childhood.”– Gabriel García Márquez in Living to Tell the Tale, 2002. Today I learned that Colombia—thanks in part to AIDA’s supporters—took an unprecedented step to save an ecosystem central to Colombia’s identy: the Ciénaga Grande de Santa Marta. As a Colombian and an environmental attorney, I’m deeply moved. And so thankful to the hundreds of supporters whose petition signatures helped move the government to action. The government added the Ciénaga Grande to the Montreux Record, a global list of at-risk wetlands. This action will provide Colombia with international technical and financial support needed to save the vital ecosystem. When I heard the good news, I immediately thought of the yellow butterflies of Macondo. And I thought of Colonel Aureliano Buendía, who stood in front of a firing squad remembering the day his grandfather took him to see ice. The imagery of this magical world, masterfully created by Gabriel García Márquez in One Hundred Years of Solitude, was born from the Ciénaga Grande de Santa Marta. In the early 1900’s, after the Thousand Days’ War, Colonel Nicolás Ricardo Márquez, grandfather of Colombia’s Nobel laureate, passed through the Ciénaga to settle near Aracataca. Later, accompanied by his grandfather, the author crossed the Ciénaga Grande various times to visit his parents in Barranquilla. In 1950, he crossed it again with his mother as they were going to sell his grandparents’ house. It was there, in the Ciénaga Grande, that Márquez found the spark that would light one of the classics of modern literature. So it’s no exaggeration to say that without the Ciénaga Grande, we wouldn’t have the yellow butterflies, or Macondo, or Colonel Aureliano Buendía, embedded so deeply into our cultural memory. It was there that the seed of magical realism was planted. That’s why even a cachaca like me—what those who live in the Caribbean call those of us from the country’s interior—who has lived for many years outside her country, identifies so deeply with the Ciénaga Grande. An international treasure For that and so many other reasons, we at AIDA decided to act in defense of the Ciénaga Grande, named a Wetland of International Importance under the Ramsar Convention. It’s home to Colombia’s largest coastal lagoon, which connects the fresh waters of the mighty Magdalena River with the salt water of the Caribbean Sea. The area is home to many species of mangrove, as well as tropical and riparian forests. It shelters raccoons, howler monkeys, manatees, red herons, ducks, and migrating birds. The Ciénaga Grande also hosts one of the largest artisanal fisheries in Colombia, which supports hundreds of families throughout the area. As a coastal wetland, it’s essential for climate regulation, absorption of pollution from the atmosphere, and flood control. But the Ciénaga Grande is gravely threatened. The spread of mass agriculture and livestock farming, along with large-scale infrastructure projects, has led to deforestation and water diversion. The animals and fish and people of the area are suffering as a result. That’s why I’ve joined the efforts to conserve the Ciénaga Grande, and why every person in Colombia, in the region, and in the world, should do the same. Hope for a healthier tomorrow The addition of the Ciénaga Grande to the Montreux Record fills me with hope. Although it’s shameful such an important ecosystem is in such bad shape, having the government recognize that fact and ask for help is an important advance. Thanks to all the caring activists who’ve joined the cause, my colleagues and I are inspired to do everything we can to ensure that the Ciénaga Grande recovers its vitality. We expect the government will do the same. After all, what would Colombia, Latin America, and the world be without the yellow butterflies of Macondo, and without the magic of nature to envelope us and gives us life?
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A succession of unusually strong hurricanes have struck the Americas over the last several weeks. The nearly unprecedented power of Harvey and Irma submerged cities, damaged homes and took lives, and several smaller hurricanes followed on their tails. Just how did these storms get so strong? Climate change is a big part of the problem. Hurricanes Harvey and Irma are prime examples of what a routine storm fed with enough fuel can do: they caused floods and landslides, destroyed neighborhoods, claimed lives and left thousands of victims in their wake. The fuel in both their cases was climate change—transforming already strong natural events into relentless storm surges. Warmer than average air temperatures produced greater humidity, feeding the hurricanes and making them ever more intense and violent. Changes to our climate have also sped up the warming of the world’s coldest regions, causing glaciers to melt and sea levels to rise. Higher sea levels plus increased ocean temperatures equals more fuel for hurricane season. Hurricanes, however, are not isolated phenomena. Year after year, Latin America faces a series of natural catastrophes that are getting stronger, and causing far greater damage, due to climate change. A vulnerable region Extreme weather events, the water crisis, natural disasters, and coping with the impacts of climate change will have the greatest impact globally, according to the World Economic Forum’s Global Risk Report 2017. Across Latin America, these risks reared their heads in force this year. Severe and catastrophic natural events have changed landscapes, claimed lives and displaced hundreds of thousands of people: In Mexico this month, hurricane Katia has caused floods and landslides, damaged infrastructure, and deaths. Mexico is one of the nations most affected by the impacts of climate change due to its location between oceans—which leaves it exposed to storms, floods and hurricanes—and its high level of poverty. In Northeast Peru last March, devastating rains after a period of severe drought caused mudslides, floods, and the mass destruction of homes and infrastructure. The storm left more than 90 dead, 110,000 victims, and 150,000 people diplaced. In Colombia in April, a sudden avalanche of mud and water caused by heavy rains devastated the town of Mocoa, in the department of Putumayo. In Chile, a period of intense drought caused wildfires that burned more than 500 thousand hectares and virtually destroyed the center and south of the country. Aggravated by climate change, El Niño gravely impacted the Central American Dry Corridor last year. A lack of rain, which began mid-2014 and lasted an unusually long time, provoked wildfire, the loss of crops, and the death of livestock in El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua, Costa Rica and Panama. So how do we stop the fire? The wave of severe weather events across the region and the world should be seen as a call to action. Governments and citizens alike must unite to seek solutions and reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Governments around the world should unite their efforts to: Reduce short-lived climate pollutants, gases that remain a short time in the atmosphere and whose reduction would allow results in less time. Plan and adequately manage territory, indentifying the most vulnerable places and building strategic and flexible infrastructure that would lesson the impacts of extreme weather events. Preserve natural environments that fulfill vital climate functions, such as forests and mangroves that capture carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, or coral reefs, which act as natural barriers against storms and hurricanes. Disburse the economic resources destined to combatting climate change based on needs identified by the communities themselves, who are often not appropriately consulted, thereby wasting local knowledge that could lead to better decisions. We can all contribute to the struggle. Daily actions such as responsible consumption of water and energy, using your car less, recycling, and changing harmful consumption habits can make a big difference. At AIDA, we work with governments, organizations and communities across Latin America to promote development that is compatible with the challenges posed by climate change. Learn more about how we’re confronting climate change and how we can all do it better in our webinar on September 29!
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