Farm worker cultivating sugar cane © Progressio

Promoting the rational use and management of natural resources for the benefit of future generations.

Damage to the environment threatens livelihoods and increases vulnerability to natural disasters. Invariably the poor are worst affected. Progressio argues for rational use and local management of natural resources to improve the lives of poor urban and rural communities.

This includes promoting sustainable cultivation practices and resource management techniques, while improving productivity, income and living conditions in small farming communities.

Our work in Latin America and the Caribbean

Damage to the environment threatens livelihoods and increases vulnerability to natural disasters. We work with poor rural communities to promote sustainable agricultural practices and natural resource management, enabling people to grow food to eat and to sell while preserving the environment.

Many Latin American people who rely on the land for their livelihoods are directly affected by climate change, from farmers struggling with variable weather patterns, to the increased vulnerability to natural disasters of poor people living on marginal land. Our development workers support local and regional initiatives that help prepare communities to adapt to current and future changes, protect the environment and preserve their livelihoods.

Poor people are always hardest hit by environmental damage and degradation. We help build the advocacy skills and capacity of local organisations campaigning against illegal logging (which affects local food and water supplies, damages biodiversity and undermines the rights of indigenous and local communities) and for water rights. Guided by the voices of our partner organisations, we back this up with Northern-based advocacy on water and deforestation.

Case study - Central America

Progressio's environmental vulnerability programme in Central America, supported by the Community Fund, aims to strengthen the capacity of civil society organisations to reduce environmental vulnerability in El Salvador, Honduras and Nicaragua. In particular, we seek to empower traditionally marginalised groups such as women, small farmers and indigenous communities. Progressio development workers, working with local partner organisations, have assisted in areas such as the management of soils, agro-ecology and water management.

A major objective of the environmental vulnerability programme is to promote sustainable agriculture. In El Salvador, our local partner FUMA (Fundación Maquilishuatl) is working on the recuperation of Lake Olomega, on which several poor small fishing communities depend for their livelihoods. After years of unsustainable agricultural practices and poor resource management, promoted by the cotton boom, the lake is badly polluted. Fish have disappeared, and people's diets and general health have suffered.

FUMA, with the active participation of local communities, is reforesting large areas next to the lake to avoid sedimentation. It promotes soil conservation techniques that avoid the excessive use of agrochemicals which are then washed into the lake. FUMA is also raising awareness on the importance of environmental sustainability among local residents and schoolchildren.

Our partner Prolansate, an environmental organisation in the Tela Bay area of the Honduran Caribbean coast, is working with primary school teachers and local fishing communities on an environmental education programme. Several teaching modules that could be adopted in the national curriculum have been drafted. An environmental resource centre in the Janet Kawas national park has also been set up. Other positive results of the programme include training of local tourist guides for the national parks.

Progressio's environmental vulnerability programme also aims to strengthen civil society groups tackling environmental issues.

Our partner UNAG (the national union of small farmers and cattle ranchers) in Nicaragua is challenging the government's support for genetically modified crops. It is campaigning against the government's promotion of hybrid seeds. These seeds need expensive agrochemicals and are vulnerable to several plagues to which the native seeds are resistant. UNAG has carried out extensive trials of the new variety seeds, and found them to be inappropriate to small producers on marginal land.

UNAG is also protesting against proposed free trade agreements such as the Central American Free Trade Area (CAFTA), which would devastate peasant production in Nicaragua. Small producers are unable to compete with larger US producers who are subsidised by the US government.

Case study - Peru

Progressio partner organisation Guarango Film and Video collaborated with the people of Choropampa to produce a powerful film exposing the workings of a multi-national mining company.

US-based Newmont Mining Corp's Yanacocha gold mine spilled 151 kilograms of liquid mercury along the main road in Choropampa, causing health problems for more than 1,000 villagers. Victims sought medical attention for ailments including rashes, vomiting, impaired vision, central nervous system disorders, respiratory problems and kidney trouble.

The award winning film, which has been seen in Peru and around the world, has helped to win support for the Choropampa villagers in their efforts to hold Newmont to account for the environmental damage caused by the mercury spillage.

Guarango is soon to release a second film detailing the fight of the people of Tambogrande in Peru against Canada's Manhattan Minerals who want to build an open-pit mine on their land.

The villagers of Tambogrande say that the mine would destroy their livelihoods. Tambogrande lies in the valley of San Lorenzo, Peru's main mango and lime-producing region, where more than 75 per cent of people earn their living from agriculture.

Find out about Progressio's environmental advocacy work at eco-matters.org