ENVS Seminar

8/2/2019 ENVS Seminar

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Regenerating Conflicted Landscapes:

Land, Environmental Governance, and Resettlementin Post-war El Salvador

Ariane de BremondUniversity of California, Santa Cruz/The Heinz Center


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Roadmap:

Two stories:Land reform and peaceSocial/natural regeneration in El Salvadors

ex-conflictive zones

Central problems/questions/methods

What does the storytell us? (findings)

Why does it matter?(implications)

Peace, Land, and Trees: a vignette


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Photo: AFP/Getty Images


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How did the peace accords and land reform shape access to

resources, livelihood options, and processes of land use inresettled communities?

How did people reconstitute livelihoods and landscapes?

Central problems/Questions:

How have meanings of place and identity shapedorganizational practices and land use decision-making in ElSalvadors ex-conflictive zones?

What effects are these organizational practices having onthe way land is managed?


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Research Design Qualitative instrumental case study of land reform, post-war transition and environment in El Salvador

Two embedded subcases: Cinquera and La Montaona


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Methods Political ecology: a diverse methodological toolkit

Historical approach

Ethnography (of practice)


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Methods (cont) in-depth war testimonies (65) structured household interviews(55) in two

communities


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Focus groupsTenure/Parcel mapping Collaboration with biologists


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FIRST STORY: Competing Agrarian Visions the war,

the Peace Accords, and land transfer


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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 commercialagricultural 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)


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The land program: a (partial) blueprint

what wasdecided at the negotiating table

Voluntary sales: Private lands to be acquired by the government andtransferred through the land bank to beneficiaries

Transactions at market prices

Beneficiaries would repay government loans

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


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(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 politicalclout 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 andredressing what were considered by many to be economic roots of theconflict. Most fervent supporters and its future political base were poorpeople residing in rural areas. The FMLN did not believe that amounts andquality would enable sustainable livelihoods.

UN/ Group of Friends: international pressure countered governmentresistance, intervention at key moments rescued process from failure(October 13th agreements)


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Land Transfer Totals

# Properties 3,305 (collective titles)

# People 36,000

Area (ha) 103,200

(Together with 1980s reforms

20% of nations farmlands were

transferred)

* ? What constitutes farmland

Outcomes:


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Source: Instituto de Libertad y Progreso, Proyecto PROSEGUIR, 2001.

Land Quality of PTT lands in Departments of Cabaas and Chalatenango

CABAAS CHALATENANGO

Class Ha Mz % Class Ha Mz %

I 0 0 0 I 0 0 0II 89 127 3.14 II 200 287 3.74

III 117 168 4.16 III 187 268 3.5

IV 326 466 11.51 IV 932 1333 17.37

V 4 6 0.15 V 41 58 0.76

VI 486 696 17.16 VI 982 1406 18.31

VII 1665 2383 58.76 VII 2877 4117 53.64

VIII 144 206 5.09 VIII 142 203 2.65

Total 2834 4055 Total 5364 7675


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Outcomes:

Finalization of the PTT in 2000- slow implementation had credit limitingeffects, drove up land prices, led to abandonment and sale

Poor land quality (70% of lands deeded nationally were unsuitable forfarming)

1996 Parcelization through PROSEGUIR- disrupted cooperative

production relationships in some places; resulted in break up of many ARcoops

One of the first of a generationof titling that included women

Together with 1980s reform

resulted in transfer of 1/5 nations

farmland

Forgiveness of agrarian debt


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SECOND STORY: A forest grows there socialand natural rehabilitation in Cinquera


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II. To keep the forest that grew:the political project of placemaking


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Five Municipalities comprisingthe Montaa de Cinquera

Forest Area

From:de Bremond, 2006 (figures courtesy of E. Ellis)

Cinquera municipality-detail


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Land use derived from IRS 2002

and Corin 2002 CORIN landcover data (Herrera, 2006)


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To keep the forest that grew (cont) The ARDM and

Environmental Governance in Cinquera


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Challenges/Opportunities of community forest governancein Cinquera

Agroecology andAgroforestry aslivelihood strategies

Shared histories andcompeting agrarianvisions withinCinquera and region

The limits ofconservation as alivelihood strategy


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agency of nature


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agency of people influenced byhistories, culture


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Skills of war deployedfor making peace.


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Competing agrarian visions.


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Enrollment, enlistment, collaboration in making anenvironmental project

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Land policy:Implications:

Need is to go beyond issues ofaccessto

focus on land use -Successful land policyneeds to be informed by culture andenvironment

Agriculture is inherently anecological enterprise landexpresses biologicaldiversity

People/peasants havestrategies for managing/relating to/ enlistingnature that fail toarticulate with state-ledand new market-basedagrarian reform models

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Violence/conflict-environment linkages:

Implications:

how people makepeaceBoth environmental change (natures agency) and waralso shaped the paths that people and/or theirorganizations would take in terms of livelihood

strategies and land use decision-making in unexpectedways.


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Thank YouTo all of those who helped make this project possible throughout El

Salvador andProfessors Stephen Gliessman, S. Ravi Rajan, David Goodman, andJonathan Fox

The Robert and Patricia Switzer Foundation

Center for the Studies of Institutions, Population and EnvironmentalChange (CIPEC) Univ. of Indiana

The University of California Regents Fellowship

The University of California Mentor Fellowship

Department of Environmental Studies, CASFSInter-American Foundation

family and fellow graduate students

Dedicated to memories of Emilio Larranyega, Mayor of Cinquera and

Antonio Alvarez, Equipo Agrario FMLN


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El Salvador a state market hybrid


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El Salvador: a state-market hybrid

Voluntary land sales:PTT relied on new approach of land reform withvoluntary 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 forland regularization, establishment of the CNR. Goal is to improve tenuresecurity, investments in land, land-use planning

Parcelization (PROSEGUIR) division of properties initially deededunder collective titles through the PTT

(State-sponsored-w/ funding from US-but with new characteristics):

h


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The Postwar Resettlement of Agrarian Landscapes in El

Salvador

The Politics of Land Policy

Political Economy/Ecologies of Peace, Land Transfer, andPost-War Transition.

Visions of Livelihoods, Land, and Nature in Post-warAgrarian Reinsertion

War, Identity, and Environmental Governance in Re-formed

Landscapes

Conclusions: Expanding the view of peace: agro-environmental land reform and governance

Thesis project overview

h d l


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Methodology A diverse methodological toolkit

Historical approach

Ethnography (of practice)

in-depth semi-structured household interviews and

surveys (55) in two communities/codingParticipant 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


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Implementation breakdown & the October 13thagreements

Provided the framework for implementation: (a UN proposal withcompromises from both sides)

Amount of land that would be received by each beneficiary determined bythe soil type criteria for the previous agrarian reformFMLN agreed to smaller plot sizeGOES agreed to elimination of ceilings on land credit

Ownership could be individual or associative, a decision to be madeby the beneficiaries themselves (proindivisocollective title)

Number of beneficiaries determined:

Beneficiary groups # of people

FMLN combatants 75,00

FAES 15,000

tenedores 25,000

Documents

ENVS Seminar