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