What is
ENCA?
Environmental
Network for Central America is an organisation of groups and individuals
who share the values of a wide range of community and environmental
organisations in Central America, fighting for environmental protection
and social justice.
Formed in 1988 as the
Environmental Network for Nicaragua (ENN), we were inspired by
the Sandinista Revolution which sought to arrest the environmental
degradation and repression of fifty years of dictatorship, placing
environmental rights within the constitution of the nation and
nationalising all natural resources.
In 1996, with the Sandinistas
defeated in elections in 1990 and 1994, Nicaragua, in common with
the rest of Central America, was again at the mercy of foreign
interests. ENN then broadened its horizons to encompass the rest
of Central America and became ENCA.
Time is running out
for Central America's Natural Resources - under threat from debt
and greed.
- Debt is encouraging more intensive production of cash crops;
the use of pesticides threatens rivers and endangers the health
for many rural workers.
- The fight for land has forced the rural poor to migrate to
cities where there is inadequate water supply or sewerage services.
- Weak environment protection laws allow international companies
to avoid regulation and import contaminated waste from Canada
and the US.
- Large scale projects from the inter-ocean canal to the Pan
American Highway threaten the environment and the rights of
indigenous peoples.
- Wildlife habitats and many rare species are threatened
- Logging and mining concessions for short-term profits and
to service debt repayments leave future generations to pay the
true environmental costs
|