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Environmental Politics in
Latin America

Since colonial times the position of the social, political and economic elites
in Latin America has been intimately connected to their control over natural
resources. Consequently, struggles to protect the environment from exploitation
and contamination have been related to marginalized groups’ struggles against
local, national and transnational elites. The recent rise of progressive, left-
leaning governments—often supported by groups struggling for environmental
justice—has challenged the established elites and raised expectations about new
regimes for natural resource management.
Based on case studies in eight Latin American countries (Argentina, Brazil,
Chile, Ecuador, Colombia, Bolivia, El Salvador and Guatemala), this book inves-
tigates the extent to which there have been elite shifts, how new governments
have related to old elites, and how that has impacted on environmental gov-
ernance and the management of natural resources. It examines the rise of new
cadres of technocrats and the old economic and political elites’ struggle to remain
influential. The book also discusses the challenges faced in trying to overcome
structural inequalities to ensure a more sustainable and equitable governance of
natural resources.
This timely book will be of great interest to researchers and masters students
in development studies, environmental management and governance, geogra-
phy, political science and Latin American area studies.

Benedicte Bull is a Professor at the Centre for Development and the Environment,
University of Oslo, Norway.

Mariel Aguilar-Støen is Associate Professor at the Centre for Development and

the Environment, University of Oslo, Norway.
Routledge Studies in Sustainable Development

This series uniquely brings together original and cutting-edge research on sus-
tainable development. The books in this series tackle difficult and important
issues in sustainable development including: values and ethics; sustainability
in higher education; climate compatible development; resilience; capitalism
and de-growth; sustainable urban development; gender and participation; and
well-being.
Drawing on a wide range of disciplines, the series promotes interdisciplinary
research for an international readership. The series was recommended in The
Guardian’s suggested reads on development and the environment.

Institutional and Social Innovation for Sustainable Urban Development

Edited by Harald A. Mieg and Klaus Töpfer

The Sustainable University

Progress and prospects
Edited by Stephen Sterling, Larch Maxey and Heather Luna

Sustainable Development in Amazonia

Paradise in the making
Kei Otsuki

Measuring and Evaluating Sustainability

Ethics in sustainability indexes
Sarah E. Fredericks

Values in Sustainable Development

Edited by Jack Appleton

Climate-Resilient Development
Participatory solutions from developing countries
Edited by Astrid Carrapatoso and Edith Kürzinger

Theatre for Women’s Participation in Sustainable Development

Beth Osnes
Urban Waste and Sanitation Services for Sustainable Development
Harnessing social and technical diversity in East Africa
Bas van Vliet, Joost van Buuren and Shaaban Mgana

Sustainable Capitalism and the Pursuit of Well-Being

Neil E. Harrison

Implementing Sustainability in Higher Education

Matthias Barth

Emerging Economies and Challenges to Sustainability

Theories, strategies, local realities
Edited by Arve Hansen and Ulrikke Wethal

Environmental Politics in Latin America

Elite dynamics, the left tide and sustainable development
Edited by Benedicte Bull and Mariel Aguilar-Støen

Transformative Sustainable Development

Participation, reflection and change
Kei Otsuki

Theories of Sustainable Development

Edited by Judith C. Enders and Moritz Remig
“The importance of elite politics to environmental governance is undeniable and
yet the actual operations of this politics and the shifting constitution of elites
have received far too little attention in studies of environmental governance in
Latin America and beyond. This book provides a trove of valuable insights into
the ways in which elites affect Latin American environments and the political
possibilities for more equitable and sustainable relationships between society and
natural resources. A super contribution.”
Anthony Bebbington, Clark University, USA

“With the arrival of new left-wing governments to Latin America, and as

elites shift in the region, this book offers an original look at their performance.
Featuring several case studies, the chapters in this book simultaneously assess dif-
ferent economic sectors and countries governed by different versions of the Latin
American left, both in terms of political power over society and over nature.”
Eduardo Gudynas, Latin American Centre for Social Ecology, Uruguay
Environmental Politics
in Latin America
Elite dynamics, the left tide
and sustainable development

Edited by Benedicte Bull

and Mariel Aguilar-Støen

Routledge
Taylor&Francis Group earthscan
LONDON AND NEW YORK from Routledge
First published 2015
by Routledge
2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN
and by Routledge
711 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10017
Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business
© 2015 Benedicte Bull and Mariel Aguilar-Støen
The right of the editors to be identified as the authors of the editorial material,
and of the authors for their individual chapters, has been asserted in accordance
with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or
utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now
known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any
information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the
publishers.
Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered
trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent
to infringe.
British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Environmental politics in Latin America : elite dynamics, the left tide and
sustainable development / edited by Benedicte Bull and Mariel Aguilar-Støen.
pages cm. -- (Routledge studies in sustainable development)
1. Environmental policy--Latin America--Case studies. 2. Natural
resources--Government policy--Latin America--Case studies. 3. Sustainable
development--Latin America--Case studies. 4. Elite (Social sciences)--Latin
America--Case studies. I. Bull, Benedicte, 1969- editor of compilation. II.
Aguilar-Støen, Mariel, editor of compilation.
GE190.L29E68 2014
333.7098--dc23
2014020184

ISBN: 978-1-138-79026-1 (hbk)

ISBN: 978-1-315-76427-6 (ebk)

Typeset in Goudy
by GreenGate Publishing Services, Tonbridge, Kent
Contents

List of figures ix
List of tables x
Notes on contributors xi
Acknowledgements xiii
Abbreviations xv

1 Environmental governance and sustainable development

in Latin America 1
BENEDICTE BULL AND MARIEL AGUILAR-STØEN

2 Elites, classes and environmental governance: conceptual

and theoretical challenges 15
BENEDICTE BULL

PART 1
Agriculture and biotechnology

3 El Salvador: the challenge to entrenched elites and the difficult

road to a sustainable development model 33
BENEDICTE BULL, NELSON CUÉLLAR AND SUSAN KANDEL

4 Bolivia: emerging and traditional elites and the governance

of the soy sector 51
MARTE HØIBY AND JOAQUÍN ZENTENO HOPP

5 Argentina: government–agribusiness elite dynamics and its

consequences for environmental governance 71
JOAQUÍN ZENTENO HOPP, EIVIND HANCHE-OLSEN AND HÉCTOR SEJENOVICH

6 Ecuador: changing biosafety frames and new political forces in

Correa’s government 92
PABLO ANDRADE AND JOAQUÍN ZENTENO HOPP
viii Contents
PART 2
Mining

7 New elites around South America’s strategic resources 113

BARBARA HOGENBOOM

8 Staying the same: transnational elites, mining and environmental

governance in Guatemala 131
MARIEL AGUILAR-STØEN

9 Elite views about water and energy consumption in mining

in Argentina, Chile, Colombia and Ecuador 150
CRISTIÁN PARKER G.

PART 3
Forestry

10 REDD+ and forest governance in Latin America: the role of

science–policy networks 171
MARIEL AGUILAR-STØEN AND CECILIE HIRSCH

11 State governments and forest policy: a new elite in the

Brazilian Amazon? 190
FABIANO TONI, LARISSA C. L. VILLARROEL AND BRUNO TAITSON BUENO

12 Conclusion: with or against elites? How to move towards

more sustainable environmental governance in Latin America 206
BENEDICTE BULL AND MARIEL AGUILAR-STØEN

Index 214
Figures

4.1 Evolution of soy production and area in Santa Cruz,

Bolivia, 1990–2013 52
4.2 Visual representation of the elites studied in this chapter
and their resources 53
4.3 Percentage area of cultivated soy in Bolivia by nationality or origin 57
4.4 Percentage distribution of different types of soy planted in Bolivia,
1995–2013 61
4.5 Evolution of the deforestation rate of different economic and
social groups in Bolivia 65
5.1 Evolution of soy production and area of expansion of soy production
in Argentina 72
5.2 Evolution of GM soy and conventional soy in Argentina 73
5.3 Elites formed by the combination of different groups belonging to
different agricultural sectors related to the soy industry in Argentina 74
5.4 Companies dedicated to soybean oil production and exportation,
presented as a percentage of the whole sector 76
5.5 Associations of political importance for GM soy production in
Argentina and their relation to different elites 79
5.6 Evolution of the consumption of glyphosate in Argentina 81
5.7 Evolution of the international soybean price 82
5.8 Distribution of cumulative benefits generated by GM soy,
1996–2010 84
6.1 Evolution of economic sectors in Ecuador, 2006–12 94
6.2 Evolution of Ecuadorian environmental NGO income sources
from international aid and the Ecuadorian State, 2005–12 99
6.3 SENPLADES officials 2014 102
9.1 Diagram of strategic actors of various elites and their involvement
in megaprojects in the mining sector 152
9.2 Elite opinions about technology and biodiversity 159
9.3 Elite visions about the environmental future of their countries 160
Tables

3.1 Export/import, investment flows and GDP growth 2000–10 39

3.2 Poverty levels (percentage of people living on less than
US$2 a day) 40
4.1 World Health Organization classifications of pesticides by
hazard in percentage 66
6.1 Some of the young professionals under 40 years old holding
key positions in the Correa government in January 2014 101
8.1 Mining licenses (approved and pending) by department
and region 137
8.2 Procedures for license application and environmental studies 138
9.1 Discursive models by occupation category (relative frequencies) 157
Contributors

Mariel Aguilar-Støen is Associate Professor at the Centre for Development

and the Environment (SUM), University of Oslo, Norway. Her research
interests focus on environmental governance in the Latin America region,
particularly as related to monetized approaches for forest conservation, min-
ing conflicts and land tenure.
Pablo Andrade is a Professor at Universidad Andina Simon Bolivar, Ecuador. His
work focuses on development studies and political economy, with emphasis
on the political economy of state formation and on the governance of natu-
ral resources in the Andean Region.
Benedicte Bull is a Professor at the Centre for Development and the Environment
(SUM), University of Oslo, Norway, and Director of the Norwegian Network
for Latin America Research (NorLARNet). Her main research areas are
Latin American politics, political economy and development, with a par-
ticular focus on Central America and issues of elites and inequality.
Nelson Cuéllar is a Senior Researcher and Deputy Director of PRISMA, El
Salvador. His work includes such issues as territorial dynamics, climate
change, REDD+, territorial rights and governance and compensation for
ecosystem services.
Eivind Hanche-Olsen was a Research Affiliate at the Centre for Development
and the Environment (SUM), University of Oslo, during the time of this
research. He is now a school teacher at Eidebakken Skole.
Cecilie Hirsch is a PhD fellow at the Centre for Development and the
Environment (SUM), University of Oslo, and a PhD candidate at the
Norwegian University of Life Sciences (NMBU), Norway. Her research
interests include environmental governance, climate change and forest poli-
cies and social movements in Latin America, particularly Bolivia.
Barbara Hogenboom is an Associate Professor in Political Science at the
Centre for Latin American Research and Documentation (CEDLA), the
Netherlands. Her main fields of interest are contemporary politics and the
governance of development and the environment, studied from the angle of
international political economy.
xii Contributors
Marte Høiby was a Research Affiliate at the Centre for Development and the
Environment (SUM), University of Oslo, Norway, during the time of this
research. She is now a research assistant at Oslo University College. Her
research interests include media and climate change, and globalization and
the security of journalists working in conflict zones.
Susan Kandel is the Executive Director of PRISMA, El Salvador. Her research
interests include territorial dynamics and governance, climate change,
migration and rural livelihoods, compensation for ecosystem services and
institutions for natural resource management.
Cristián Parker G. is Director of the Master’s program in Social Sciences and
Civil Society at the Universidad de Santiago de Chile. His research interests
focus on development sociology and religious and cultural sociology.
Héctor Sejenovich is a Senior Researcher at the Gino Germani Research
Institute, Buenos Aires, Argentina. Since 1968 he has worked in teaching
and counseling, and research about environmental governance and related
issues in almost all Latin American countries and in several prestigious inter-
national organizations.
Bruno Taitson Bueno is a PhD candidate in Sustainable Development at the
University of Brasilia, Brazil. His interests include environmental poli-
cies, sustainable development, international relations and international
journalism.
Fabiano Toni is a Professor and Graduate Coordinator at the Center for
Sustainable Development, University of Brasília, Brazil, where he teaches
environmental governance. His research interests include decentralization
of forest policies and the impacts of climate policies on land use, with a focus
on the Brazilian Amazonia and Cerrado.
Larissa C. L. Villarroel works at the Brazilian Ministry of Environment. Her
interests include environmental policies, climate change and sustainable
development.
Joaquín Zenteno Hopp is a Junior Researcher at the Centre for Development and
the Environment (SUM), University of Oslo, Norway. His research interests
include environmental governance and the use of modern biotechnology.
Acknowledgements

This book is the result of the four-year collaborative research project

Environmental Governance in Latin America and the Caribbean (ENGOV),
led by the Centre for Latin America Research and Documentation (CEDLA) in
Amsterdam, The Netherlands and funded by the Framework Program 7 of the
European Union. One of this book’s editors, Benedicte Bull, was the leader of
the “work package” on “Elites, institutions and environmental governance” and
this book presents the results of the work conducted for that part of the project.
Being a part of a large research project such as ENGOV, which included col-
laboration between six Latin American universities and four European universities,
has been challenging as well as rewarding. The researchers involved came to the
project with different perspectives, backgrounds, political inclinations as well as
views on what research and science is and what it can achieve in society. That has
led to long discussions conducted in meetings across the region: from Chile and
Argentina, to Ecuador, Brazil and Mexico. It has been especially challenging to
reach a common understanding of what elites are and why to study elites in a region
where a long-standing commitment to the poor and marginalized in social sciences
(that we share) has led many to ignore the need to study the attitudes and actions
of elites. We would like to thank every one of those who have contributed to those
discussions and thus to make this volume what it is. In addition to those who are
contributing to this book, we would like to thank: David Barkin, Mina Kleiche,
Mariana Walters, Joan Martínez-Allier, Carlos Larrea, Gloria Baigorrotegui,
Fernando Estensorro and Thomas Ludewigs. We would furthermore like to thank
in particular the CEDLA team of Fabio de Castro, Michiel Baud and Leontine
Cremers, who not only have contributed to the discussions, but also logistically
managed to coordinate so many different scholars with even more different back-
grounds and experiences. Barbara Hogenboom, who has also contributed to this
book, deserves a very special mention for her endless patience with the groups’
inquiries. We would also like to thank the ENGOV-project’s reference group, a
remarkable group of experts that have contributed very constructively to our discus-
sions: Eduardo Silva, Anthony Bebbington, Barbara Goebbels and Leticia Merino.
We would also like to express our gratitude to the European Union’s Framework
Program 7, for its generous support, without which this project would never have
been undertaken.
xiv Acknowledgements
Further, we would like to thank our home institution, the Centre for
Development and the Environment (SUM) and the University of Oslo, in par-
ticular Marie Thörnfeld, who, with an impressive persistence, has managed to
fit the bureaucratic requirements of the University of Oslo with those of the
European Union. Line Sundt Næsse also played an important role in that regard
at the beginning of the project, and Joaquín Zenteno has in addition to contrib-
uting strongly to three of the book’s chapters made an indispensable contribution
to the filling in of all the required forms from the EU. Finally, our director Kristi-
Anne Stølen and our Head of Office Gitte Egenberg showed, as they have always
done in the past, a remarkable commitment to support our work and ideas. Thank
you all!
In the final stage of the process, Armando de la Madrid deserves special thanks
for translating parts of the book from Spanish and for editing English as well as
our multiple species of Spanglish into a publishable product.
Benedicte would like to thank Osvaldo for taking care of the whole family
while she spent her days doing research and discussing finding with ENGOV col-
leagues in distant parts of the world.
Finally, we would like to thank all the informants—whether elites or those
struggling for respect for their cultures, natural resources and lands—for their
patience with our queries. We hope we have conveyed your viewpoints, whether
we share them or not, with respect.
Abbreviations

AADEAA Environmental Lawyers Association of Argentina

AAPRESID Asociación Argentina de Productores en Siembra Directa/
Argentinean No-Till Farm Association
ADS Agency for Sustainable Development
ALBA Alianza Bolivariana para los Pueblos de Nuestra América/
Bolivarian Alliance for the Peoples of Our America
ANAPO Asociación de Productores de Oleaginosas y Trigo/Oilseed and
Wheat Producers Association
ANEP Asociación Nacional de la Empresa Privada/National
Association of Private Enterprises
ARENA Aliança Republicana Nacionalista/Nationalist Republican Alliance
ASA Asociación Semilleros Argentinos/Argentine Seed Association
BINGO big international non-governmental organization
CACIF Comité Coordinador de Asociaciones Agrícolas, Comerciales,
Industriales y Financieras/Coordinating Committee of
Agriculture, Commercial, Industrial and Financial Associations
CAFTA-DR Central America and Dominican Republic Free Trade
Agreement
CCBA Climate Community and Biodiversity Alliance
CD Cambio Democrático/Democratic Change
CDB China Development Bank
CELAC Comunidad de Estados Latinoamericanos y Caribeños/
Community of Latin American and Caribbean States
CES Consejo Económico y Social/Economic and Social Council
CGN Compañía Guatemalteca de Níquel/Guatemalan Nickel
Company
CI Conservation International
CIFOR Center for International Forestry Research
COCODE local development community councils
CODIDENA Diocese Commission for the Defence of Nature
COENA Consejo Ejecutivo Nacional/National Executive Council
COICA Coordinadora de las Organizaciones Indígenas de la Cuenca
Amazónica/Coordinator of Indigenous Organizations of the
Amazon River Basin
xvi Abbreviations
CONABIA Comisión Nacional Asesora de Biotecnología Agropecuaria/
National Advisory Commission on Agricultural
Biotechnology
CONICET Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas/
National Scientific and Technical Research Council, Argentina
CONINAGRO Confederación Intercooperativa Agropecuaria/Inter-Cooperative
Agrarian Confederation
CONTAG Confederação Nacional dos Trabalhadores na Agricultura/
National Confederation of Rural Workers
COP 15 15th Conference of the Parties of the United Nations
Framework Convention on Climate Change
CRA Confederaciones Rurales Argentinas/Argentinean Rural
Confederations
CSR Corporate Social Responsibility
ECLAC Economic Comission of Lation America and the Caribbean
EMAPA Empresa de Apoyo a la Producción de Alimentos/Enterprise for
the Support of Food Production
ENGOV Environmental Governance in Latin America and the
Caribbean
ESIA Environmental and Social Impact Assessments
EU European Union
FAA Federación Agraria Argentina/Agrarian Federation of Argentina
FAB Foro Argentino de Biotecnología/Argentine Forum for
Biotechnology
FAS Fundação Amazônia Sustentável/Sustainable Amazon
Foundation
FCPF Forestry Carbon Partnership Facility
FLACSO Facultad Latinoamericana de Ciencias Sociales/Latin American
Faculty of Social Sciences
FMLN Frente Farabundi Martí para la Liberación Nacional/Farabundo
Martí National Liberation Front
FPIC Free, Prior and Informed Consultation
FUSADES Fundación Salvadoreña para el Desarrollo Económico y
Social/Salvadoran Foundation for Economic and Social
Development
GANA Gran Alianza por la Unidad Nacional/Grand Alliance for
National Unity
GCFT Governors’ Climate and Forest Taskforce
GDP Gross Domestic Product
GEF Global Environment Facility
GenØk Senter for biosikkerhet/Centre for Biosafety
GHG greenhouse gas
GIZ Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit/German
International Cooperation Agency (formerly GTZ)
GM genetically modified
 Abbreviations xvii
GMO genetically modified organism
GRIF Guyana REDD Investment Fund
IBAMA Instituto Brasileiro do Meio Ambiente e dos Recursos Naturais
Renováveis/Brazilian Institute of Environment and Renewable
Natural Resources
IBCE Instituto Boliviano de Comercio Exterior/Bolivian Institute for
Commercial Exports
IDB Inter American Development Bank
ILO International Labor Organization
IMAC Instituto de Meio Ambiente do Acre/Acre Environmental
Institute
IMF International Monetary Fund
INE National Bureau of Statistics
INTA Instituto Nacional de Tecnología Agropecuaria/National Institute
for Agricultural Tecnology
ITEAM Amazonas Land Tenure Institute
IUCN International Union for Conservation of Nature
LCDS Low Carbon Development Strategy
MAM Movimiento Amigos de Mauricio/Friends of Mauricio (Funes)
Movement
MARN Ministerio de Ambiente y Recursos Naturales/Ministry of the
Environment and Natural Resources
MAS Movimiento al Socialismo/Movement towards Socialism
MDB Movimento Democrático Brasileiro/Brazilian Democratic
Movement
MEM Ministerio de Energía y Minas/Ministry of Energy and Mines
MERCOSUR Mercado Común del Sur/Southern Common Market
MINAGRI Ministerio de Agricultura, Ganadería y Pesca/Ministry of
Agriculture, Livestock and Fishery
MNC multinational company
MoU memorandum of understanding
NGO non-governmental organization
PA protected area
PAF Plan for Family Agriculture
PAIS Patria Ativa I Soberana/Proud and Sovereign Homeland
PAPXIGUA Parlamento del Pueblo Xinka de Guatemala/Parliament of the
Xinka People of Guatemala
PDS Partido Democrático Social/Social Democratic Party
PDVSA Petróleos de Venezuela S.A./Venezuelan Petroleum Inc
PFG Partnership for Growth
PMDB Partido do Movimento Democrático Brasileiro/Brazilian
Democratic Movement Party
PNBV Plan Nacional para el Buen Vivir/National Plan for the Good Life
PP-G7 O Programa Piloto para a Proteção das Florestas Tropicais do
Brasil/Brazilian Pilot Program to Conserve the Rainforest
xviii Abbreviations
PREP Programa Nacional de Restauración de Ecosistemas y Paisajes/
National Program for the Restoration of Ecosystems and Rural
Landscapes
PSDB Partido da Social Democracia Brasileira/Brazilian Social
Democratic Party
PT Partido dos Trabalhadores/Workers’ Party
RDS Reserva de Desenvolvimento Sustentável/Sustainable
Development Reserve
REDD Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and forest
Degradation
REDU Red Ecuatoriana de Universidades y Escuelas Politécnicas para
Investigación y Posgrados/Ecuadorian Network of Universities
and Polytechnic Schools for Research and Graduate Studies
RFS Rainforest Standard
SENESCYT Secretaria Nacional de Educación Superior, Ciencia, Tecnología e
Innovación/National Secretariat of Higher Education, Science,
Technology and Innovation
SENPLADES Secretaría Nacional de Planificación y Desarrollo/National
Secretariat of Planning and Development
SNUC Sistema Nacional de Unidades de Conservação/National System
of Protected Areas
SRA Sociedad Rural Argentina/Rural Society of Argentina
TNC transnational company
UDP Unidad Democrática y Popular/Democratic and Popular Unity
UFM Universidad Francisco Marroquín/Francisco Marroquín
University
UNASUR Unión de Naciones Suramericanas/Union of South American
Nations
UNDP United Nations Development Programme
UNFCCC United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change
VCS Verified Carbon Standards
WB World Bank
WCS Wildlife Conservation Society
WCSD World Council for Sustainable Development
ZEE Zoneamento Ecológico-Econômico/Ecological–Economic Zoning
ZFV Zona Franca Verde/Green Free Trade Zone
1 Environmental governance
and sustainable development
in Latin America
Benedicte Bull and Mariel Aguilar-Støen

Elites and natural resources in Latin America:

the main arguments
Since colonial times, the differentiation of the social, political and economic
elites from the rest of the population in Latin America has been built, in part,
on the control over natural resources that the elite has secured through history.
Securing control over land, minerals, water, oil, gas and forests has been equally
as important as their control over labor in order to be able to dominate societies
and state apparatus, as for example shown by Coronil (1997) accounting for the
role of oil in the evolution of the Venezuelan state. A further historical char-
acteristic of Latin America is that this elite control has been intimately linked
to the insertion of Latin America into the global economy as exporters of raw
materials, and to the elite’s cultural, ethnic and economic ties to foreign coun-
tries, companies and organizations, as well as to the racialized patterns of social
domination prevalent in most Latin American countries (Quijano, 2000).
Consequently, socio-environmental conflicts in Latin America often involve
disputes over the distribution of economic resources and goods, access to and
control over natural resources, as well as representation and subjective mean-
ings (Escobar, 2011). They are often traversed by political, social, ethnic and
economic claims; they have involved struggles against local, national and trans-
national elites by indigenous peoples, small farmers and other marginalized groups
as well as middle-class actors sympathizing with their cause (Carruthers, 2008).
There also exists an elitist environmental movement in Latin America, and
it has exerted considerable influence on environmental policy making and in
the framing of environmental problems in the region. This elitist environmental
movement has often had an urban base and has been inspired by global con-
servationist movements and ideas. This is reflected for instance in the early
instauration of natural parks and other forms of “fortress conservation” in the
region, the development of market-based incentives for water and forest con-
servation and the institutionalization of environmental management. The ideas
and initiatives have been brought to the national agenda by non-governmental
organizations (NGOs), academic and official research institutes, or policy mak-
ers often linked to international organizations and more attuned to international
intellectual currents than to the needs of the local populations (see e.g. Mumme
2 Benedicte Bull and Mariel Aguilar-Støen
et al., 1988; Nugent, 2002). Consequently, this form of conservation has been
criticized for failing to understand environmental issues in the context of the
creation of livelihoods for marginalized groups (Holmes, 2010). In fact, this type
of conservation has often been opposed by local populations dependent on the
use of biological reserves for small-scale agriculture and grasslands.
Recently, Latin America has seen new groups rise to political power and old
economic elites being challenged by multifaceted economic and political pro-
cesses. Many of the left-leaning governments that came to power in this period
were supported by indigenous organizations, peasants associations and other
movements pursuing environmental justice and a more equitable and sustainable
use of natural resources. Thus, there were great expectations regarding their will-
ingness and ability to shift development strategies towards more sustainable and
equitable policies that pay more attention to the concerns of local populations and
indigenous peoples than to the exigencies of global capital and domestic elites.
However, apparent contradictions in policies related to environmental gov-
ernance soon appeared in many countries: in Bolivia the government of the
Movement Towards Socialism (MAS) led by indigenous labor unionist, Evo
Morales, launched plans to construct highways through indigenous territo-
ries and protected areas (PAs) while pursuing the good life in harmony with
“Pachamama” in official discourse; in Brazil the expansion of hydroelectric dams
threatened biodiversity and indigenous livelihoods at the same time as the gov-
ernment made major efforts to reduce deforestation; and in Ecuador mining
concessions expanded while efforts were made to restrict oil extraction. Thus,
doubts arose about the sustainability of the development strategies pursued dur-
ing Latin America’s “pink tide” (Gudynas, 2010).
The purpose of this book is to better understand the dynamics of environmen-
tal politics of the so-called pink-tide governments in Latin America. The starting
point is a view of the government as a body that controls a certain set of resources,
including economic and political resources. However, it is not omnipotent. In
most of Latin America governments have relatively weak state apparatuses at
hand to implement their will, and much of societies’ economic, political, coer-
cive, knowledge and organizational resources are controlled by elites—national
and international—that do not necessarily share the government’s agenda. Thus,
we approach the question of how to understand the dynamics of environmental
politics from an elite perspective. We ask: To what extent has the “pink tide”
involved a shift of elites? To what extent has that contributed to more sustain-
able policies and to what extent has it led to the opposite? How do the new
governmental elites relate to old elites? Do they accommodate their interests?
Do they pursue alliances with them? Do they try to undermine them? Do they
compete with them? To what extent have new economic, knowledge or political
elites emerged as a result of the rise of the center-left governments? Do they share
the same visions of development and the environment or do they diverge? And
how do they relate to non-elites or subaltern groups?
This book is the result of a four-year joint research project on environmen-
tal governance in Latin America and the Caribbean funded by the European
 Environmental governance and sustainable development 3
Union’s FP7. Our strategy for researching the contradictions and dynamics of
environmental governance in this project has been to study the governance of
economic sectors of major importance in a number of different countries. As
a result, in this book we deliver case studies of the soy sector in Bolivia and
Argentina, agriculture in El Salvador, mining in Chile, Argentina, Colombia,
Ecuador and Guatemala, biotechnology in Ecuador, and forestry in Brazil. In
addition, the book includes two chapters that cover several cases and coun-
tries: one on the new elites arising in connection with the global “Reducing
Emissions from Deforestation and forest Degradation” (REDD) program and one
on shifting elites in the mining sector in several Andean countries. Although
we explore different countries and sectors, across the cases, the focus is on how
the incorporation of environment issues in the governance of economic activ-
ity depends on which groups that have come to power, how they relate to elites
outside their own political projects and how they relate to subalterns.
The main argument of this book is that the new, leftist governments overall
were faced with many constraints as they in fact controlled limited resources
resulting from weak state institutions and strong societal elites. In that situa-
tion they had the choice of attempting to strengthen the states (depending on
state revenues), grooming new elites, allying with outside elites (economic elites,
international elites, knowledge elites, etc.) or confronting competing elites. All of
these strategies had environmental implications. Moreover, the degree to which
environmental considerations and governance mechanisms were incorporated in
their development strategies depended not only on their own development pri-
orities but also on their success in enrolling or competing with alternative elites.
In what remains of this chapter, we will first give an introduction to the so-called
“pink tide” in Latin America. Thereafter we will discuss the concepts of envi-
ronmental governance and sustainable development as a basis for what follows
in the subsequent chapters, before we detail our main argument and provide an
overview of the book.

The “pink tide” in Latin America

Over the last ten years a number of governments that define themselves as
belonging to the center-left entered power in Latin America. Out of 49 presi-
dential elections in Latin America in the 2003–13 period, 22 were won by
center-left candidates, and with the exception of Mexico and Colombia, all the
large economies in Latin America were governed by center-left governments in
most of this period.
However, there were significant differences among the center-left govern-
ments in Latin America. Early attempts to classify them in distinct categories
of moderate and radical or contestatory1 regimes (see e.g. Castañeda, 2006;
Weyland, 2010) have been widely rejected (Beasley-Murray et al., 2010; Cameron
and Hershberg, 2010; Lievesley and Ludlam, 2009; Levitsky and Roberts, 2011),
because it became evident that there were significant differences in policy style
and content among these governments. Yet a main distinction may be drawn
4 Benedicte Bull and Mariel Aguilar-Støen
between those who sought gradual socio-structural change (i.e. greater equal-
ity) within the framework of a liberal democracy, existing institutions and the
market economy, and those who have sought alternatives for political economic
inclusion that go beyond liberal democracy and a market economy, requiring
constitutional and institutional changes.
In attempting to explain such differences, most authors have focused on
the type of social movements or political parties from which they emerge. For
example, Roberts and Levitsky distinguish between leftist regimes based on their
concentration of power and degree to which they are based on an established
party or a new political movement (Levitsky and Roberts, 2011). Beyond that,
the center-left governments were based on highly diverse coalitions, with groups
ranging from indigenous movements (as in Ecuador and Bolivia), and labor
unions (as in Brazil, Argentina and Bolivia), to peasant and landless movements
(as in Brazil and the Lugo government in Paraguay), and broad democracy move-
ments (as in Chile and Brazil). Environmental issues played very different roles in
the different cases. It was an integral part of the discourse of change in the cases
of Bolivia and Ecuador, and a major issue for important actors in the government
coalition in El Salvador and Brazil. In other cases, it has entered the stage at later
points (such as in the case of Chile, where particularly socialist Michelle in her
second presidential period (2014–18) will have to pay major attention to envi-
ronmental issues).
It is difficult to characterize the diversity of development strategies that have
resulted from the center-left governments in simple phrases. However, they may
be considered as varieties of a regional developmental nationalism. This is char-
acterized by an increasing direct state engagement in developmental policies,
and increasing economic nationalism, but embedded in regional integration and
open to trade and investments from abroad (Bull, 2015). While this has been
pursued with the aim of filling state coffers to enable distribution and poverty
reduction (among other aims), in many cases it has happened at the expense of
relations with local populations and environmental considerations, as we will
discuss in the chapters that follow.
However, whereas many authors have emphasized the support coalitions of
different governments to explain their policies, much less attention has been paid
to the obstacles that the regimes have met in power, and thus many studies have
erroneously conflated a political phenomenon with the policy output (Luna,
2010, p. 29). The dilemmas and challenges that leftist governments encounter
faced with opposition from socio-economic elites that control the means of pro-
duction have provoked splits within the left for more than a century in Latin
America as well as Europe. As will be further elaborated in Chapter 2, histori-
cally resource limitations and the opposition from socio-economic and political
elites have presented particular obstacles to Latin American governments aiming
for structural change (Weyland, 2010, p. 6). As shown by Buxton in the case of
Venezuela, the choice of a certain strategy may not only be a result of ideologies
and a pleasing support coalition, but equally of the elites’ opening or blocking
the possibility for dialogue and reaching agreements (Buxton, 2009). Indeed,
 Environmental governance and sustainable development 5
although the composition, ideology and strategy of the political movement in
power is important for understanding the direction of the policy-making process
and the policies proposed, the outcome cannot be understood without taking
into account the interaction with the former elites and the institutional frame-
work that they have left in place.

Environmental governance
Environmental governance is a concept that has gained much currency among
scholars from a range of disciplines including geographers, sociologists, environ-
mental managers and development scholars to analyze how decisions about the
environment and nature are made (Bridge and Perreault, 2009). It involves a
focus on systems of governing, means for the allocation of resources and the exer-
cise of control and coordination in which state and non-state actors play various
roles (Bulkeley, 2005).
The concept environmental governance emerged in the neoliberal era (Baud
et al., 2011) and signaled an analytical focus that moved beyond the state. The
perceived obsolescence of state-oriented analyses of environmental policies as
a governmental affair had both empirical and ideological reasons. Thus, Lemos
and Agrawal (2006) argue that environmental governance is used to analyze
the globalization of environmental policy-making; the decentralization of envi-
ronmental management; the role of market- and agent-focused incentives as
regulatory mechanisms; and the challenges involved in the cross-scalar nature of
environmental problems (Lemos and Agrawal, 2006).
As it has become associated with neoliberalism and a focus on management
issues rather than power and inequalities, environmental governance has been
criticized for engendering analyses “that flatten uneven relations of power, and
which mask competing claims to, and about the environment” (Bridge and
Perreault, 2009, p. 492).
We understand environmental governance in a broader sense, as the set of
mechanisms, formal and informal institutions and practices by way of which
social order is produced through controlling that which is related to the envi-
ronment and natural resources. In other words, we are not only interested in
the “management of nature” but in how, through governing nature and natural
resources, the conditions of what is possible for actors in a given context, are
established.
As such, environmental governance stands in no contrast to an approach
based on political ecology for which inequalities and power are key concepts. In
our use of the term, studying environmental governance deals with analyzing the
re-scaling of environmental decision making; commodity chain coordination;
the role of institutions in environmental policy making; the role of different non-
state actors and their participation in socio-environmental conflicts; as well as
the role of the state in environmental regulation within the context of capitalist
accumulation and the commodification of nature and to explore the production
of socio-environmental order (Bridge and Perreault, 2009).
6 Benedicte Bull and Mariel Aguilar-Støen
While political ecology tends to “privilege the rights and concerns (often
livelihood-based) of the poor over those of powerful political and economic
elites” (Bryant and Jarosz, 2004, p. 808) and thus tends to blackbox2 elites,
environmental governance studies have also largely failed to study elites in
any detail. A focus on the role of elites in environmental governance is found
almost exclusively in studies dealing with international trade regimes or inter-
national environmental treaties (Cashore, 2002; Levy and Newell, 2002, 2005;
McCarthy, 2004), and these studies are limited to the business elites although,
more recently the role of other actors, that we define as elites, has also been
included in analysis of environmental governance (see Bock, 2014). Our con-
tribution in this book is that through various case studies we set out to analyze
the role of different and various types of elites (see Chapter 2) in national or
regional contexts on the production of social order through the environment
and natural resources.
Our understanding of environmental governance allows us to weave together
the economic and the political in environmental decision making. We also focus
on the relationship between institutions and social action. This means that
we highlight the role of, and interactions between, state and non-state actors
(NGOs, social movements, private corporations), and between elite and non-
elite actors in allocating and regulating the environment and resources. In doing
so, we shift the understanding of power in environmental decision making away
from a state-centric perspective. Rather, we see power as social boundaries that
define the fields of action for all actors, and define what is possible for the self
and for others (Hayward, 1998). The mechanisms of power consist in laws, rules,
norms, customs, social identities and standards that constrain and enable inter-
and intra-subjective actions; we focus on “whether the social boundaries defining
key practices and institutions produce entrenched differences in the field of what
is possible for different actors” (Hayward, 1998). Institutional arrangements,
organizations and the relationships involved in environmental governance
embody political and economic power, acting through the control of the envi-
ronment. In our analysis we seek to shed light on power dynamics involved in
environmental decision making and to trace back the origins of such dynamics
and their implications for sustainable development. By analyzing different cases,
we hope to demonstrate that the relationships involved in environmental gov-
ernance also have historical and structural determinants.
In this sense, we find it problematic to assume a definition of elite that is blind
to the complex, dynamic and at times conflictive relationship between different
groups of actors controlling key resources (see Chapter 2). Given the current
situation in Latin America, in which groups that have been on the barricades to
oppose the elites in power, find themselves in power, we cannot assume that elites
will always essentially be mainly a part of the cause of inequality and environ-
mental degradation. Moreover, the fate of agendas for environmental protection
and more sustainable production patterns of other actors, such as social move-
ments, depends not only on their own ability to mobilize and articulate their
demands, but crucially also on the elite’s reaction to them. This situation urges
Another random document with
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maybe come along and jump the claim, and my Pat won’t get her
gold mine. I guess it’s all right. But I didn’t think the Big Director
would do this!”
 CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
MONTY MEETS PATRICIA
Monty had made up his mind to go on to Los Angeles and see for
himself why Patricia would not answer his telegram, when he
received the word that she was coming from Kansas City. He swore
a good deal over the delay that would hold him inactive in town. To
fill in the time he wrote a long letter to the sheriff in Tonopah, stating
all the facts in the case so far as he knew them. He hoped that the
sheriff was already on his way to Johnnywater, though Monty could
not have told just what he expected the sheriff to accomplish when
he arrived there.
He tried to trace James Blaine Hawkins, but only succeeded in
learning from a garage man that Hawkins had come in off the desert
at least three weeks before, cursed the roads and the country in
general and had left for Los Angeles. Or at least that was the
destination he had named.
Even Monty could find no evidence in that of Hawkins’ guilt. His
restless pacing up and down the three short blocks that comprised
the main business street of the town got on the nerves of the men
who knew him. His concern over Gary Marshall gradually infected
the minds of others; so that news of a murder committed in
Johnnywater Cañon was wired to the city papers, and the Chief of
Police in Los Angeles was advised also by wire to trace James
Blaine Hawkins if possible.
Old cuts of Gary Marshall were hastily dug up in newspaper
offices and his picture run on the first page. A reporter who knew him
well wrote a particularly dramatic special article, which was copied
more or less badly by many of the papers. Cohen got to hear of it,
and his publicity agents played up the story magnificently, not
because Cohen wished to immortalize one of his younger leading
men who was out of the game, but because it made splendid indirect
advertising for Cohen.
 Monty, of course, never dreamed that he had done all this. He
was sincerely grieving over Gary, whose grave he thought he had
discovered by the bushy juniper. The mere fact that James Blaine
Hawkins had appeared in Las Vegas approximately three weeks
before did not convince him that Gary had not been murdered. He
believed that Hawkins had lain in wait for Gary and had killed him on
his return from Kawich. The grave might easily be that old.
Of course there was a weak point in that argument. In fact,
Monty’s state of mind was such that he failed to see the fatally weak
point until the day of Patricia’s arrival. When he did see it he
abandoned the theory in disgust, threw out his hands expressively,
and declared that he didn’t give a damn just how the crime had been
committed, or when. Without a doubt his friend, Gary Marshall, had
been killed, and Monty swore he would never rest until the murderer
had paid the price. The weak point, which was the well-fed comfort
of the pigs and Jazz, he did not attempt to explain away. Perhaps
James Blaine Hawkins had not gone to Los Angeles at all. Perhaps
he was still out there at Johnnywater, and Monty had failed to
discover him.
He was in that frame of mind when he met the six o’clock train
that brought Patricia. Naturally, he had no means of identifying her.
But he followed a tired-looking girl with a small black handbag to one
of the hotels and inspected the register just as she turned away from
the desk. Then he took off his hat, extended his hand and told her
who he was.
Patricia was all for starting for Johnnywater that night. Monty gave
her one long look and told her bluntly that it simply couldn’t be done;
that no one could travel the road at night. His eyes were very blue
and convincing, and his southern drawl branded the lie as truth.
Wherefore, Patricia rested that night in a bed that remained
stationary, and by morning Monty was better satisfied with her
appearance and believed that she would stand the trip all right.
“I reckon maybe yuh-all better find some woman to go on out,
Miss Connolly,” Monty suggested while they breakfasted.
“I can’t see why that should be necessary, Mr. Girard,” Patricia
replied in her primmest office tone. “I am perfectly able to take care
of myself, I should think.”
 “You’ll be the only woman in the country for about sixty-five or
seventy miles,” Monty warned her diffidently. “Uh course there
couldn’t anything happen to yuh-all—but I expect the sheriff and
maybe one or two more will be down from Tonopah when we get
there, and I thought maybe yuh-all might like to have some other
woman along for company.”
He dipped three spoons of sugar into his coffee and looked at
Patricia with a sympathetic look in his eyes.
“I was thinkin’ last night, Miss Connolly, that I dunno as there’s
much use of your going out there at all. Yuh-all couldn’t do a thing,
and it’s liable to be mighty unpleasant. When I sent that wire to yuh-
all, I never thought a word about yuh-all comin’ to Johnnywater.
What I wanted was to get a line on this man, Hawkins. I thought
maybe yuh-all could tell me something about him.”
Patricia glanced unseeingly around the insufferably hot little café.
She was not conscious of the room at all. She was thinking of Gary
and trying to force herself to a calmness that could speak of him
without betraying her feelings.
“I don’t know anything about Mr. Hawkins, other than that I
arranged with him to run the ranch on shares,” she said, and the
effort she was making made her voice sound very cold and
impersonal. “I certainly did not know that Mr. Marshall was at
Johnnywater, or I should not have sent Mr. Hawkins over. I had
asked Mr. Marshall first to take charge of the ranch, and Mr. Marshall
had refused, on the ground that he did not wish to give up his work in
motion pictures. Are you sure that he came over here and was at
Johnnywater when Mr. Hawkins arrived?” Patricia did not know it, but
her voice sounded as coldly accusing as if she were a prosecuting
attorney trying to make a prisoner give damaging testimony against
himself. Her manner bred a slight resentment in Monty, so that he
forgot his diffidence.
“I hauled Gary Marshall out to Johnnywater myself, over six
weeks ago,” he told her bluntly. “He hunted me up and acted like he
wanted to scrap with me because he thought I’d helped to cheat yuh-
all. He was going to sell the place for yuh-all if he could—and I sure
approved of the idea. It ain’t any place for a lady to own. A man
could go there and live like a hermit and make a bare living, but yuh-
all couldn’t divide the profits and break even. I dunno as there’d be
any profits to divide, after a feller’d paid for his grub and clothes.
“Gary saw it right away, and I was to bring him back to town in a
couple of days; but I had an accident to my car so I couldn’t come in.
I reckon Gary meant to write anyway and tell yuh-all where he was.
But he never had a chance to send out a letter.”
Patricia dipped a spoon into her cereal and left it there. “Even so, I
don’t believe Gary disappeared very mysteriously,” she said, her chin
squaring itself. “He probably got tired of staying there and went back
to Los Angeles by way of Tonopah. However, I shall drive out and
see the ranch, now that I’m here. I’m very sorry you have been put to
so much trouble, Mr. Girard. I really think Mr. Marshall should have
left some word for you before he left. But then,” she added with
some bitterness, “he didn’t seem to think it necessary to let me know
he was coming over here. And we have telephones in Los Angeles,
Mr. Girard.”
Monty’s eyes were very blue and steady when he looked at her
across the table. He set down his cup and leaned forward a little.
“If yuh spoke to Gary in that tone of voice, Miss Connolly,” he
drawled, “I reckon he wouldn’t feel much like usin’ the telephone
before he left town. Gary’s as nice a boy as I ever met in my life.”
Patricia bit her under lip, and a tinge of red crept up over her
cheek bones to the dark circles beneath her eyes, that told a tale of
sleepless nights which Patricia herself would have denied.
The remainder of the breakfast was a silent meal, with only such
speech as was necessary and pertained to the trip before them.
Monty advised the taking out of certain supplies and assisted
Patricia in making up a list of common comforts which could be
carried in a touring car.
He left her at the hotel while he attended to the details of getting
under way, and when he returned it was with a Ford and driver, and
many parcels stacked in the tonneau. Patricia’s suit case was
wedged between the front fender and the tucked-up hood of the
motor, and a bundle of new bedding was jammed down upon the
other side in like manner. Patricia herself was wedged into the rear
seat beside the parcels and packages of food. Her black traveling
bag Monty deposited between his feet in front with the driver.
At the last moment, while the driver was cranking the motor,
Monty reached backward with a small package in his hand.
“Put on these sun goggles,” he said. “Your eyes will be a fright if
you ride all day against this wind without any protection.”
“Thank you very much, Mr. Girard,” said Patricia with a surprising
meekness—for her. What is more, she put on the hideous amber
glasses; though she hated the jaundiced look they gave to the world.
Patricia had a good deal to think about during that interminable,
jolting ride. She was given ample opportunity for the thinking, since
Monty Girard never spoke to her except to inquire now and then if
she were comfortable.
 CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
GARY ROBS THE PINTO CAT OF HER DINNER
That same morning Gary finished his third candle and tried his
best to make one swallow of water, held long in his parched mouth,
suffice for two hours.
He could no longer lift the single-jack to the height of his shoulder,
much less strike a blow upon the rock. He leaned against the
bowlder and struck a few feeble blows with the head of the longer of
the two drills; but the steel bounced back futilely, and the exertion
tired him so that he was forced to desist after a few minutes of heart-
breaking effort.
He sat down with his back against the wall where the sunlight
could find him and give a little cheer to his prison, and fingered his
fourth candle longingly. He licked his cracked lips and lifted the
canteen, his emaciated fingers fumbling the screw-top thirstily. He
tried to reason sensibly with himself that only a cowardly reluctance
to meet death—which was the inevitable goal of life—held him
fighting there in that narrow dungeon, scheming to add a few more
tortured hours to his life.
He told himself angrily that he was merely holding up the action of
the story, and that the scene should be cut right there. In other
words, there was absolutely no hope of his ever getting out of there,
alive or dead. Steve Carson, he mumbled, had been lucky. He had at
least taken his exit quickly.
“But I ain’t licked yet,” he croaked, with a cracked laugh. “There’s
a lot of fight in me yet. Never had any use for a quitter. Steve Carson
wouldn’t have quit—only he got beaned with the first rock and
couldn’t fight. I’m not hurt—yet. Trained down pretty fine, is all. When
I’m a ghost, maybe I’ll come back and tell fat ladies with Ouija
boards in their laps how to reduce. Great scheme. I’ll do that little
thing. But I ain’t whipped yet—not until I’ve tried out my jackknife on
that damned rock. Have a drink, old son. And then get to work! What
the hell are you loafing for?”
He lifted the lightened canteen, his arms shaking with weakness,
and took another drink of water. Then, carefully screwing on the top
of the canteen, he set it down gently against the wall and reached
wearily into his pocket. The blade of his knife had never been so
hard to open; but he accomplished it and pulled himself laboriously
to his feet. Steadying himself with one hand against the malapi
bowlder that shut him in, he went to the opening—widened now so
that he could thrust forth his arm to the shoulder—and began
carefully chipping at a seam in the rock with the largest blade of his
jackknife.
He really did not expect to free himself by that means; nor by any
other. Since he began to weaken he had come to accept his fate with
such calmness as his pride in playing the game could muster. But he
could not sit idle and wait for death to creep upon him. Nor could he
hurry it, which he held to be a coward’s trick. He still believed that
the “Big Director” should be obeyed. It was too late now to ask for
another part in the picture. He had been cast for this rôle and he
would play it to the final scene.
So he stood hacking and prying with his knife blade, stopping now
and then to stare out into the hot sunshine. He could even see a
wisp of cloud drift across the bit of blue sky revealed to him through
the narrow rock window of his prison. The sight made him grit his
teeth. He was so close to that free, sun-drenched world, and he was
yet so utterly helpless!
He was standing so, resting from his unavailing task, when the
spotted cat hopped upon the bowlder where every day she sat to be
stroked by Gary’s hand. Gary’s eyes narrowed and he licked his lips
avidly. Faith was carrying a wild dove that she had caught and
brought to the bowlder where she might feast in pleasant company.
“Thanks, old girl,” he said grimly; and stretching out his arm,
snatched the bird greedily from Faith’s mouth. “Some service! Now
beat it and go catch a rabbit; a big one. Catch two rabbits!”
He slid down to a sitting position and began plucking the limp
body of the dove, his fingers trembling with eagerness. The “third
hunger” was upon him—that torment of craving which men who have
been entombed in mines speak of with lowered voices—if they live to
tell about it. Gary longed to tear the bird with his teeth, just as it was.
But he would not yield an inch from his idea of the proper way to
play the game. He therefore plucked the dove almost clean of
feathers, and lighting his one precious remaining candle, he turned
the small, plump body over the candle flame, singeing it before he
held the flame to its breast.
The instant that portion was seared and partially broiled, Gary set
his handsome white teeth into it and chewed the morsel slowly while
he broiled another bite. His impulse—rather, the agonized craving of
his whole famished body—was to tear the body asunder with his
teeth and devour it like an animal. But he steeled himself to self-
control; just as he had held himself sternly in hand down in the cabin
when loneliness and that weird, felt presence plucked at his courage.
He would have grudged the melting of even the half-inch of tallow
it required to broil the bird so that he could eat it and retain his self-
respect; but the succulent flesh was too delicious. He could not think
of anything but the ecstasy of eating.
He crunched the bones in his teeth, pulping them slowly,
extracting the last particle of flavor and nourishment. When he had
finished there remained but the head and the feet—and he flung
them through the opening lest he should be tempted to devour them
also. After that he indulged himself in a sip of water, stretched
himself full length upon the rock floor, and descended blissfully into
the oblivion of deep slumber.
 CHAPTER THIRTY
“SOMEBODY HOLLERED UP ON THE BLUFF”
The left front tire of the town Ford persisted in going flat with a
slow valve leak. The driver, a heedless young fellow, had neglected
to bring extra valves; so that the tire needed pumping every ten
miles or such a matter. Then the Ford began heating on the long,
uphill pull between the Pintwater Mountains and the Spotted Range,
and some time was lost during the heat of the day because of the
necessity for cooling the motor. Delays such as these eat away the
hours on a long trip; wherefore it was nearly dusk when Patricia got
her first glimpse of Johnnywater Cañon.
Up in the crosscut, Gary heard the rumbling throb of the motor,
and shouted until he was exhausted. Which did not take long, even
with the nourishment of the broiled dove to refresh his failing
strength.
He consoled himself afterward with the thought that it was James
Blaine Hawkins come sneaking back, and that he would like nothing
better than to find Gary hopelessly caged in the crosscut. Gary was
rather glad that James Blaine Hawkins had failed to hear him shout.
At any rate, the secret of Patricia’s mine was safe from him, and
Gary would be spared the misery of being taunted by Hawkins. It
was a crazy notion, for it was not at all likely that even James Blaine
Hawkins would have let him die so grisly a death. But Gary was
harboring strange notions at times during the last forty-eight hours.
And the body of one wild dove was pitifully inadequate for the needs
of a starving man.
Monty had not meant to be cruel. Now that he was on the spot, he
tried his best to soften the shock of what he knew Patricia must
discover. That morning he had purposely avoided speaking of his
reasons for fearing the worst. Then Patricia’s manner—assumed
merely to hide her real emotion—had chilled Monty to silence on the
whole subject. With the driver present they had not discussed the
matter at all during the trip, so that Patricia was still ignorant of what
Monty believed to be the real, tragic state of affairs.
Monty looked up from lighting a fire in the stove and saw Patricia
go over to Gary’s coat and smooth it caressingly with her hand. Then
and there he forgave Patricia for her tone at breakfast. She took
Gary’s hat from the cupboard and held it in her hands, her eyes
questioning Monty.
“Gary was saving that hat till he went to town again,” Monty
informed her in his gentle drawl. “He was wearing an old hat of
Waddell’s, and some old clothes Waddell left here when he pulled
out. You see now, Miss Connolly, one reason why I don’t believe
Gary went to Tonopah. His suit case is there, too, under the bunk.
But don’t yuh-all worry—we’ll find him.”
He turned back to his fire-building, and Patricia sat down on the
edge of the bunk and stared wide-eyed around the cabin.
So this was why she had failed to hear from Gary in all these
weeks! He had come over here to Johnnywater after all, because
she wished it. She had never dreamed the place would be so lonely.
And Gary had lived here all alone!
“Is this all there is to the house—just this one room?” she asked
Monty abruptly, in her prim, colorless tone.
“Yes, ma’am, this is the size of it,” Monty replied cheerfully. “Folks
don’t generally waste much time on buildin’ fancy houses, out here.
Most generally they’re mighty thankful if the walls keep out the wind
and the roof don’t leak. If it’s dry and warm, they don’t care if it ain’t
stylish.”
“Is this the way Gary left it?” she asked next, glancing down at the
rough board floor that gave evidence of having been lately scrubbed.
“Yes, ma’am, except for the dust on things. Gary Marshall was a
right neat housekeeper, Miss Connolly.”
“Was?” Patricia stood up and came toward him. “Do you think he’s
—what makes you say was?”
Monty hedged. “Well, he ain’t been keepin’ house here for a week,
anyway. It’s a week ago yesterday I rode over here from my camp.
Things are just as they was then.”
 “You have something else on your mind, Mr. Girard. What was it
that made you wire about foul play? I’ll have to know anyway, and I
wish you’d tell me now, before that boy comes in from fussing with
the car.”
Monty was filling the coffeepot. He set it on the hottest part of the
stove and turned toward her commiseratingly.
“I reckon I had better tell yuh-all,” he said gently. “The thing that
scared me was that this man, Hawkins, come here and made his
brags about how he got the best of yuh-all in that agreement. Him
and Gary had some words over it, the way I got it, and they like to
have had a fight—only Hawkins didn’t have the nerve. He beat it out
of here and Gary rode over to my place that same day and was tellin’
me about it.
“I told him then to look out for Hawkins. He sounded to me like a
bad man to have trouble with; or dealin’s of any kind. That was three
weeks ago, Miss Connolly—four weeks now, it is. I was away for
three weeks, and when I got back I rode over here and found the
place deserted. Gary’s hawse was in the corral and the two pigs was
shut up in the pen, so it looked like he ought to be around
somewheres close. Only he wasn’t. I hunts the place over, from one
end to the other. But there wasn’t no sign of him, except——”
“Except what? I want to know all that you know about it, Mr.
Girard.”
Monty hesitated, and when he spoke his reluctance was perfectly
apparent to Patricia.
“Well, there’s something else I didn’t like the looks of. Up the
creek here a piece, there’s a grave that wasn’t there the last time I
was over here. I’m pretty sure about that, because I recollect I led
my hawse down to the creek right about there, to water him. It’s
about straight down from the corral, and I’d have noticed it.”
“I don’t believe a word of it—that it has anything to do with Gary!”
cried Patricia vehemently, and she went over and pressed her face
against Gary’s coat.
Monty took a step toward her but reconsidered and went on with
his preparations for supper. Instinctively he felt that he would do
Patricia the greatest possible service if he made her physically
comfortable and refrained from intruding upon the sacred ground of
her thoughts concerning Gary.
The boy who had driven the car out came in, and Monty sent him
to the creek for a bucket of fresh water. The boy came back with the
water and a look of concern on his face.
“I thought I heard somebody holler, up on the bluff,” he said to
Monty. “Do you think we’d better go see——?”
Monty shook his head at him, checking the sentence. But Patricia
had turned quickly and caught him at it. She came forward anxiously.
“Certainly we ought to go and see!” she said with characteristic
decision. “It’s probably Mr. Marshall. He may be hurt, up there.” She
started for the door, but Monty took one long step and laid a
detaining hand upon her arm.
“That Voice has been hollerin’ off and on for five years,” he told
her gravely. “I’ve heard it myself more than once. Gary used to hear
it—often. Yuh can’t get an Injun past the mouth of the cañon on
account of it. It was that Voice hollerin’ that made Waddell sell out
and quit the country.”
Patricia looked at him uncomprehendingly. “What is it?” she
demanded. “I don’t understand what you mean.”
“Neither can anybody else understand it—that I ever heard of,”
Monty retorted dryly, and gently urged her toward the one
homemade chair. “Supper’s about ready, Miss Connolly. I guess
you’re pretty hungry, after that long ride.” Then he added in his
convincing drawl—which this time was absolutely sincere—“I love
Gary Marshall like I would my own brother, Miss Connolly. Yuh-all
needn’t think I’d leave a stone unturned to find him. But that Voice—
it ain’t anything human. It—it scares folks, but nobody has ever been
able to locate it. You can’t pay any attention to it. You set up here to
the table and let me pour yuh-all a cup of coffee. And here’s some
bacon and some fresh eggs I fried for yuh-all. And that bread was
warm when I bought it off the baker this morning.”
Patricia’s lips quivered, but she did her best to steady them. And
because she appreciated Monty’s kindness and his chivalrous
attempts to serve her in the best way he knew, she ate as much of
the supper as she could possibly swallow, and discovered that she
was hungry enough to relish the fried eggs and bacon, though she
was not in the habit of eating either.
The boy—Monty called him Joe—gave Patricia the creeps with his
wide-eyed uneasiness; staring from one to the other and suspending
mastication now and then while he listened frankly for the Voice.
Patricia tried not to notice him and was grateful to Monty for his
continuous stream of inconsequential talk on any subject that came
into his mind, except the one subject that filled the minds of both.
The boy, Joe, helped Monty afterward with the dishes, Patricia
having been commanded to rest; a command impossible for her to
obey, though she sat quiet with her hands clasped tightly in her lap.
Too tightly, Monty thought, whenever he looked her way.
Monty was a painstaking young man, and he had learned from
long experience in the wilderness to provide for possible
emergencies as well as present needs. He wiped out the dishpan,
hung it on its nail and spread the dishcloth over it, and then took a
small, round box from his pocket. He opened it and took out a tablet
with his thumb and finger. He dropped the tablet into a jelly glass—
the same which Gary had used to hold his gold dust—and added a
little water. He stood watching it, shaking it gently until the tablet was
dissolved.
“We-all are going to spread our bed out in the grove, Miss
Connolly,” he drawled easily, approaching Patricia with the glass. “I
reckoned likely yuh-all would be mighty tired to-night, and maybe
kinda nervous and upset. So I asked the doctor what I could bring
along that would give yuh-all a night’s rest without doin’ any harm.
He sent this out and said it would quiet your nerves so yuh-all could
sleep. Don’t be afraid of it—I made sure it wasn’t anything harmful.”
Patricia looked at him for a minute, then put out her hand for the
glass and drank the contents to the last dregs.
“Thank you very much, Mr. Girard,” she said simply. “I was
wondering how I’d get through this night.”
 CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
“GOD WOULDN’T LET ANYTHING HAPPEN TO
GARY!”
Having slept well during the night—thanks to Monty’s forethought
in bringing a sedative—Patricia woke while the sun was just gilding
the top of the butte. The cañon and the grove were still in shadow,
and a mocking bird was singing in the top of the piñon beside the
cabin. Patricia dressed hurriedly, and tidied the blankets in the bunk.
She pulled open the door, gazing upon her possessions with none of
that pleasurable thrill she had always pictured as accompanying her
first fair sight of Johnnywater.
She did not believe that harm had befallen Gary. Things couldn’t
happen to Gary Marshall. Not for one moment, she told herself
resolutely, had she believed it. Yet the mystery of his absence
nagged at her like a gadfly.
Fifty feet or so away, partially hidden by a young juniper, Patricia
could discern the white tarp that covered the bed where Monty
Girard and Joe were still asleep. She stepped down off the doorsill
and made her way quietly to the creek, and knelt on a stone and
laved her face and hands in the cool water.
Standing again and gazing up through the fringe of tree tops at
the towering, sun-washed butte, Patricia told herself that now she
knew what people meant when they spoke of air like wine. She could
feel the sparkle, the heady stimulation of this rare atmosphere
untainted by the grime, the noise, the million conflicting vibrations
created by the world of men. After her sleep she simply could not
believe that any misfortune could have befallen her Gary, whose ring
she wore on her third finger, whose kisses were the last that had
touched her lips, whose face, whose voice, whose thousand
endearing little ways she carried deep in her heart.
“The God that made all this wouldn’t let anything happen to Gary!”
she whispered fiercely, and drew fresh courage from the utterance.
 The mottled cat appeared, coming from the bushes across the tiny
stream. It halted and looked at her surprisedly and gave an inquiring
meow. Patricia stooped and held out her hands, calling softly. She
liked cats.
“Come, kitty, kitty—you pretty thing!”
Faith regarded her measuringly, then hopped across the creek on
two stones and rubbed against Patricia’s knees, purring and mewing
amiably by turns. Patricia took the cat in her arms and stroked its
sleek fur caressingly, and Faith radiated friendliness.
Patricia made her way through the grove, glimpsed the corral and
went toward it, her big eyes taking in everything which Gary may
have touched or handled. Standing by the corral, she looked out
toward the creek, seeking the bushy juniper of which Monty had
spoken. Carrying the cat still in her arms she started forward through
the tall weeds and bushes, burrs sticking to her skirt and clinging to
her silken stockings.
Abruptly Faith gave a wriggle and a jump, landed on all four feet
two yards in advance of Patricia, and started off at an angle up the
creek, looking back frequently and giving a sharp, insistent meow.
Patricia hesitated, watching the cat curiously. She had heard often
enough of dogs who led people to a certain spot when some one the
dog loved was in trouble. She had never, so far as she could
remember, heard of a cat doing the same thing; but Patricia owned a
brain that refused to think in grooves fixed by the opinions of others.
“I can’t see any reason why cats can’t lead people the same as
dogs,” she told herself after a moment’s consideration, and forthwith
turned and followed Faith.
Just at first she was inclined to believe that the cat was walking at
random; but later she decided that Monty Girard had been slightly
inaccurate in his statement regarding the exact location of the juniper
beside the creek. The mottled cat led her straight to the grave and
stopped there, sniffing at the dirt and patting it daintily with her paws.
Monty was frying bacon with a great sizzling and sputtering on a
hot stove when Patricia entered the cabin. Her cheeks showed more
color than had been seen in them for weeks. Her eyes were clear
and met Monty’s inquiring look with their old, characteristic
directness.
“Have a good sleep?” he asked with that excessive cheerfulness
which is seldom genuine. Monty himself had not slept until dawn was
breaking.
“Fine, thank you,” Patricia answered more cordially than she had
yet spoken to Monty. “Mr. Girard, this may not be a pleasant subject
before breakfast, but it’s on my mind.” She paused, looking at Monty
inquiringly.
“Shoot,” Monty invited calmly. “My mind’s plumb full of unpleasant
things, and talking about them can’t make it any worse, Miss
Connolly.”
“Well, then, I’ve been up to that grave. And it wasn’t made by any
murderer. I somehow know it wasn’t. A murderer would have been in
a hurry, and I should think he’d try to hide it—and he wouldn’t pick
the prettiest spot he could find. And I know perfectly well, Mr. Girard,
that if I had killed a man, I wouldn’t spat the dirt down over his grave
and make it as nice and even as that grave is up there. And
somebody picked some flowers and laid them at the head, Mr.
Girard. They had wilted—and I don’t suppose you noticed them.
“Besides,” she finished, after an unconscious pause that seemed
to sum up her reasoning and lend weight to the argument, “the cat
knows all about it. She tried as hard as ever she could to tell me. I—
this may sound foolish, but I can’t help believing it—I think the cat
was there looking on, and I’m pretty sure it was some one the cat
knew and liked.”
Monty poured coffee all over Patricia’s plate, his hand shook so.
“Gary kinda made a pal uh that cat,” he blurted, before he realized
what meaning Patricia must read into the sentence.
“The cat was here when Gary arrived, I suppose,” Patricia retorted
sharply, squaring her chin. “I can’t imagine him bringing a cat with
him.”
A look of relief flashed into Monty’s face. “That cat’s been here on
the place for about eight years, as close as I can figure. Steve
Carson got it from a woman in Vegas when it was a kitten, and
packed it out here in a nose bag hung on his burro’s pack. Him and
the cat wasn’t ever more than three feet apart. There’s been
something queer about that cat, ever since Steve came up missing.”
Monty started for the door, having it in his mind to call the boy to
breakfast. But a look in Patricia’s eyes stopped him, and he turned
back and sat down opposite her at the table.
“I’d let that boy sleep—all day if he wants to,” Patricia remarked.
“He’ll do enough talking about us and our affairs, as it is. I wish you’d
tell me about this Steve Carson. I never heard of him before.”
Whereupon Monty related the mysteriously gruesome story to
Patricia, who listened so absorbedly that she neglected a very good
breakfast. Afterward she announced that she would wash the dishes
and keep breakfast warm for Joe, who appeared to be afflicted with
a mild form of sleeping sickness, since Monty yelled at him three
times at a distance of no more than ten feet, and elicited no
response save a grunt and a hitch of the shoulders under the
blankets. Monty left him alone, after that, and started off on another
exhaustive search of the cañon, tactfully leaving Patricia to herself.
Patricia was grateful for the temporary solitude. Never in her life
had she been so full of conflicting thoughts and emotions. Her forced
resentment against Gary had suffered a complete collapse; the
revulsion of feeling was overwhelming. It seemed to Patricia that her
very longing for him should bring him back.
She pulled his suit case from under the bunk, touching lock and
clasps and the smooth leather caressingly with her fingers. Its
substantial elegance spoke intimately to her of Gary’s unfailing good
taste in choosing his personal belongings. The square-blocked
initials, “G. E. M.” (Gary Elbert Marshall, at which Patricia had often
laughed teasingly), brought a lump into her throat. But Patricia
boasted that she was not the weepy type of female. She would not
yield now to tears.
She almost believed it was accident that raised the lid. For a
moment she hesitated, not liking to pry into the little intimacies of
Gary’s possessions. But she saw her picture looking up from under a
silk shirt still folded as it had come from the laundry, and the sight of
her own pictured eyes and smiling lips gave her a reassuring sense
of belonging there.
 It was inevitable that she should find the “Dear Pat:” letters;
unfolded, the pages stacked like a manuscript, and tucked flat on the
bottom under the clothing.
Patricia caught her breath. Here, perhaps, was the key to the
whole mystery. She lifted out the pages with trembling eagerness
and set her lips upon the bold scribbling she knew so well. She
closed the suit case hastily, pushed it out of sight beneath the bunk
and hurried out of the cabin, clasping the letters passionately to her
breast. She wanted to be alone, to read them slowly, gloatingly,
where no human eye could look upon her face.
She went down to the creek, crossed it and climbed a short
distance up the bluff, to where a huge bowlder shaded a smaller one
beside it. There, with the butte staring down inscrutably upon her,
she began to read.
 CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
“IT’S THE VOICE! IT AIN’T HUMAN!”
Gary had been imprisoned in the crosscut eight days, counting the
time until noon. He had stretched his lunch to the third day; human
endurance could not compass a longer abstinence than that, so long
as the smallest crumb remained. He had drunk perhaps a quart of
water from the canteen he had carried up the bluff the day before the
catastrophe, and had left the canteen there, expecting to use it for
drilling. With a fresh canteen filled that morning at the creek, he had
something over three gallons to begin with. Wherefore the tortures of
thirst had not yet assailed him, though he had from the first hour held
himself rigidly to the smallest ration he thought he could endure and
keep his reason.
Through all the dragging hours, fighting indomitably against
despair when hope seemed but a form of madness, he had never
once yielded to temptation and taken more during any one day than
he had fixed as the amount that must suffice.
He had almost resigned himself to death. And then Faith,
unwittingly playing providence, had roused a fighting demon within
him. The wild dove had won back a little of his failing strength just
when a matter of hours would have pushed him over the edge into
lassitude, that lethargy which is nature’s anesthetic when the end
approaches, and the final coma which eases a soul across the
border.
While Patricia slept exhaustedly in the cabin below, Gary babbled
of many things in the crosscut. He awoke, believing he had dreamed
that an automobile drove into the cañon the evening before.
Nevertheless he decided that, since there was no hope of cutting
away the granite wall with his knife, or of lifting the bowlder, Atlas-
like, on his shoulders and heaving it out of the incline shaft, he might
as well use what strength and breath he had in shouting.