Interview with Ricardo Navarro of El Salvador
Bikes Not Bombs ships donated bikes to CESTA (the El Salvadoran Center for Appropriate Technology). Here is an interview with CESTA's director, printed in Red Pepper, April 2007
http://www.redpepper.org.uk/
"From global climate change to pedal-powered garbage carts, thinking globally and acting locally comes readily to El Salvador's Ricardo Navarro." - interview by Nick Wright Ricardo Navarro moves in exalted circles. Sometimes. He recently found himself meeting then-World Bank president, James Wolfensohn, to demand that the bank scale back its investment for fossil fuel exploitation and mining. "The best birthday present President Wolfensohn could give to the world's poor would be to stop bank funding of fossil fuel and mining projects and invest in wind and solar," he said.
A more normal day, however, finds him working as director of the Salvadoran Centre for Appropriate Technology (CESTA). "Appropriate" is the key word. Navarro is an engineer, with an engineer's problem-solving attitude. The distinctive feature of his approach is that the problems he sets himself are conceived of in their full social and political context. And what is appropriate for a struggling country in the global South, like his native El Salvador, is not usually drawn from the model found in highly developed industrial countries like Britain.
To deal with the concrete day-to-day problems of working people in El Salvador is to face problems on a truly global scale. "Impoverished countries in the global South are suffering now while the rich nations cause the problems," says Navarro. "Carbon emissions and global warming are mainly responsible for the changes that take place in the Earth's climate. But the consequences of this are first experienced in the global South, borne by the poor who are least able to cope with its consequences." So-called "unusual" weather events cause massive destruction and death to the poor.
Ricardo Navarro links climate change to free trade. And it is here that his message most challenges the stand of the likes of James Wolfensohn and the World Bank. An unsentimental and hardheaded view of globalisation takes Navarro in exactly the opposition direction to the big international financial institutions and western leaders. The myth and reality of third world debt is turned on its head. The global South, the poor of the world, he says, are indebted to the North. Not surprising, he continues, given the centuries of super exploitation that fuelled the industrial development of Britain and other countries of the North. But when the scale of climate change that comes inevitably with the consumption patterns of the North is factored in it is the countries of the North that owe an ecological debt to the South, Navarro argues. And he emphasises the telling point made in the World Development Movement climate calendar that it was in 1830 that Britain began emitting more carbon dioxide than the current sustainable level. It is a matter of justice and equity, he says.
The analogy Navarro often deploys is of a train going over a cliff: "The poor are at the front already going over the edge, but the rich nations are at the back and must surely follow if climate change is not stopped." He goes further. He argues that the free trade-driven, profit-led consumption economy also isn't appropriate for the global
North. The work of CESTA centres on the promotion of sustainable technologies that make sense in a third world country where shortages are material and where human resources are underused. One project, Ecobici, teaches people how to make and use human-powered machines such as bicycle carts to collect rubbish, pedal-driven corn grinders, air compressors, and water pumps. Bicycle power is an enthusiasm of his, and the centre's workshops make wheelchairs for the impoverished victims of the civil conflicts that recently gripped El Salvador. Another CESTA initiative, Econciencia, is education-based working with academics, community and church activists, trade unionists and students to promote what Navarro calls "rational thought" about sustainability.
One of the most innovative aspects of CESTA's work centres on the perennial problem of waste – and here CESTA is developing strong links with communities and some enterprises to solve waste disposal and recycling problems.
El Salvador remains polluted with chemical and biological traces in areas where the civil conflict was sharpest. For example, napalm bombing disfigured the district of Guazapa. CESTA organised youth teams to revive the damaged environment and construct a memorial to the victims of the war. Thousands of trees have been turned into a "forest of reconciliation".
Navarro has served as president of Friends of the Earth International and won the prestigious Goldman prize, often described as the green equivalent of the Nobel prize. He sees political struggle as entirely consistent with his other work, and in the midst of a campaign to preserve a forested district that secures the water supply for the capital San Salvador he found himself on the receiving end of death threats. The plans of the developers were thwarted and Navarro was invited to run for election. He now sits on the capital's council, where the Farabundo Martí National Liberation Front narrowly won the election.
[Ricardo Navarro was interviewed by Nick Wright on a speaking tour of Britain organised as part of the World Development Movement climate change campaign http://www.wdm.org.uk]
"From global climate change to pedal-powered garbage carts, thinking globally and acting locally comes readily to El Salvador's Ricardo Navarro." - interview by Nick Wright Ricardo Navarro moves in exalted circles. Sometimes. He recently found himself meeting then-World Bank president, James Wolfensohn, to demand that the bank scale back its investment for fossil fuel exploitation and mining. "The best birthday present President Wolfensohn could give to the world's poor would be to stop bank funding of fossil fuel and mining projects and invest in wind and solar," he said.
A more normal day, however, finds him working as director of the Salvadoran Centre for Appropriate Technology (CESTA). "Appropriate" is the key word. Navarro is an engineer, with an engineer's problem-solving attitude. The distinctive feature of his approach is that the problems he sets himself are conceived of in their full social and political context. And what is appropriate for a struggling country in the global South, like his native El Salvador, is not usually drawn from the model found in highly developed industrial countries like Britain.To deal with the concrete day-to-day problems of working people in El Salvador is to face problems on a truly global scale. "Impoverished countries in the global South are suffering now while the rich nations cause the problems," says Navarro. "Carbon emissions and global warming are mainly responsible for the changes that take place in the Earth's climate. But the consequences of this are first experienced in the global South, borne by the poor who are least able to cope with its consequences." So-called "unusual" weather events cause massive destruction and death to the poor.
Ricardo Navarro links climate change to free trade. And it is here that his message most challenges the stand of the likes of James Wolfensohn and the World Bank. An unsentimental and hardheaded view of globalisation takes Navarro in exactly the opposition direction to the big international financial institutions and western leaders. The myth and reality of third world debt is turned on its head. The global South, the poor of the world, he says, are indebted to the North. Not surprising, he continues, given the centuries of super exploitation that fuelled the industrial development of Britain and other countries of the North. But when the scale of climate change that comes inevitably with the consumption patterns of the North is factored in it is the countries of the North that owe an ecological debt to the South, Navarro argues. And he emphasises the telling point made in the World Development Movement climate calendar that it was in 1830 that Britain began emitting more carbon dioxide than the current sustainable level. It is a matter of justice and equity, he says.
The analogy Navarro often deploys is of a train going over a cliff: "The poor are at the front already going over the edge, but the rich nations are at the back and must surely follow if climate change is not stopped." He goes further. He argues that the free trade-driven, profit-led consumption economy also isn't appropriate for the global
North. The work of CESTA centres on the promotion of sustainable technologies that make sense in a third world country where shortages are material and where human resources are underused. One project, Ecobici, teaches people how to make and use human-powered machines such as bicycle carts to collect rubbish, pedal-driven corn grinders, air compressors, and water pumps. Bicycle power is an enthusiasm of his, and the centre's workshops make wheelchairs for the impoverished victims of the civil conflicts that recently gripped El Salvador. Another CESTA initiative, Econciencia, is education-based working with academics, community and church activists, trade unionists and students to promote what Navarro calls "rational thought" about sustainability.
One of the most innovative aspects of CESTA's work centres on the perennial problem of waste – and here CESTA is developing strong links with communities and some enterprises to solve waste disposal and recycling problems.
El Salvador remains polluted with chemical and biological traces in areas where the civil conflict was sharpest. For example, napalm bombing disfigured the district of Guazapa. CESTA organised youth teams to revive the damaged environment and construct a memorial to the victims of the war. Thousands of trees have been turned into a "forest of reconciliation".
Navarro has served as president of Friends of the Earth International and won the prestigious Goldman prize, often described as the green equivalent of the Nobel prize. He sees political struggle as entirely consistent with his other work, and in the midst of a campaign to preserve a forested district that secures the water supply for the capital San Salvador he found himself on the receiving end of death threats. The plans of the developers were thwarted and Navarro was invited to run for election. He now sits on the capital's council, where the Farabundo Martí National Liberation Front narrowly won the election.
[Ricardo Navarro was interviewed by Nick Wright on a speaking tour of Britain organised as part of the World Development Movement climate change campaign http://www.wdm.org.uk]