Professional Documents
Culture Documents
ENVS Seminar
ENVS Seminar
Ariane de Bremond
Roadmap:
Peace, Land, and Trees: a vignette Central problems/questions/methods Two stories: Land reform and peace Social/natural regeneration in El Salvadors ex-conflictive zones What does the story tell us? (findings)
Central problems/Questions:
How did the peace accords and land reform shape access to resources, livelihood options, and processes of land use in resettled communities? How did people reconstitute livelihoods and landscapes? How have meanings of place and identity shaped organizational practices and land use decision-making in El Salvadors ex-conflictive zones? What effects are these organizational practices having on the way land is managed?
Research Design
Qualitative instrumental case study of land reform, postwar transition and environment in El Salvador
Methods
Political ecology: a diverse methodological toolkit
Methods (cont)
in-depth war testimonies (65) structured household interviews (55) in two communities
Collaboration Tenure/Parcel
FIRST STORY: Competing Agrarian Visions the war, the Peace Accords, and land transfer
Historical and institutional context of El Salvadors land transfer program and parcelization process
Land in El Salvadors historical political economy:
Economic modernization through diversification of commercial agricultural sector conservative modernization (1950s) Land pressures mount, efforts at reform are crushed by hardliner elite-military alliances (1960s) Intensifying state-sponsored violence (1970s) Civil war and state-led land reform (1980-1992)
what was not.. Universe of beneficiaries (total number, who would be included, who would not) What land? Land quality/ quantity Where? location of land/settlements: issue of defining conflictive zones and eligible lands
(and so the struggle continued..) Implementing the PTT Slow (PTT took 8 years to implement) Contentious (several times threatened with collapse)
GOES resistance to turning over assets, desire to deny FMLN mln political clout that could be gained through land transfer..
FMLNgaining land for combatants and supporters imperative. Land a key issue in the fight to eliminate socioeconomic injustice and redressing what were considered by many to be economic roots of the conflict. Most fervent supporters and its future political base were poor people residing in rural areas. The FMLN did not believe that amounts and quality would enable sustainable livelihoods.
UN/ Group of Friends: international pressure countered government resistance, intervention at key moments rescued process from failure (October 13th agreements)
Outcomes:
# Properties # People
3,305 (collective titles) 36,000 (Together with 1980s reforms 20% of nations farmlands were transferred) 103,200 * ? What constitutes farmland
Area (ha)
VIII
144
206
5.09
VIII
142
203
2.65
Total
2834
4055
Total
5364
7675
Outcomes:
Finalization of the PTT in 2000- slow implementation had credit limiting effects, drove up land prices, led to abandonment and sale Poor land quality (70% of lands deeded nationally were unsuitable for farming)
SECOND STORY: A forest grows there social and natural rehabilitation in Cinquera
II. To keep the forest that grew: the political project of placemaking
Cinquera municipality-detail
Land use derived from IRS 2002 and Corin 2002 CORIN land cover data (Herrera, 2006)
To keep the forest that grew (cont) The ARDM and Environmental Governance in Cinquera
agency of nature
Land policy: Need is to go beyond issues of access to focus on land use -Successful land policy needs to be informed by culture and environment
People/peasants have strategies for managing/ relating to/ enlisting nature that fail to articulate with state-led and new market-based agrarian reform models Agriculture is inherently an ecological enterprise land expresses biological diversity
Implications:
Thank You
To all of those who helped make this project possible throughout El
Salvador and Professors Stephen Gliessman, S. Ravi Rajan, David Goodman, and Jonathan Fox The Robert and Patricia Switzer Foundation Center for the Studies of Institutions, Population and Environmental Change (CIPEC) Univ. of Indiana The University of California Regents Fellowship The University of California Mentor Fellowship Department of Environmental Studies, CASFS Inter-American Foundation family and fellow graduate students Dedicated to memories of Emilio Larranyega, Mayor of Cinquera and Antonio Alvarez, Equipo Agrario FMLN
Voluntary land sales: PTT relied on new approach of land reform with voluntary and negotiated transactions Land Bank: grants for land purchases through the PTT were organized through a Land Bank established for that purpose. Titling and Administration: (PROSEGUIR) and nationwide program for land regularization, establishment of the CNR. Goal is to improve tenure security, investments in land, land-use planning
Parcelization (PROSEGUIR) division of properties initially deeded under collective titles through the PTT
Methodology
A diverse methodological toolkit Historical approach Ethnography (of practice) in-depth semi-structured household interviews and surveys (55) in two communities/coding Participant observation: (national-level popular, beneficiary and community governance orgs) Tenure/Parcel mapping Interviews/meeting attendance (200+)/focus groups Analysis of PTT land reform data sets98-2000
Implementation breakdown & the October 13th agreements Provided the framework for implementation: (a UN proposal with compromises from both sides)
Amount of land that would be received by each beneficiary determined by the soil type criteria for the previous agrarian reform FMLN agreed to smaller plot size GOES agreed to elimination of ceilings on land credit
Ownership could be individual or associative, a decision to be made by the beneficiaries themselves (proindiviso collective title) Number of beneficiaries determined:
Beneficiary groups FMLN combatants FAES tenedores Total # of people 75,00 15,000 25,000 47,000