GEO/215 Version 2 / 6
Grounds for Hope
Speakers: Narrator, Jeronimo Navarro, Humberto Anzueto, Renee Lopes, Washing Woman, Miguel Paz, Lazaro Perez, Don Leonardo Barrios, Martin Sanchez, Cristina Pacheco, Baldemar Zacarias
[Background music]
Narrator The Tajumulco and Tacana volcanoes soar high above the coffee plantations that cover the hillsides on the border of Guatemala and Mexico.
[Background music]
Narrator At 4,400 meters, Tacana is the highest volcano in Central America.
[Music]
Narrator These two volcanoes were at the heart of the watershed system that is almost a million years old. This system is now under threat by the increasing levels of water pollution from the coffee industry, as well as erosion, deforestation, and pollution caused by hillside communities. But it is coffee farmers themselves who are now leading the way in trying to turn around the fortunes of this threatened ecosystem.
[Music]
Narrator This is the town of Ixchiguan, an indigenous farming community.
[Music]
Narrator It's high, 3,500 meters above sea level. Traditionally, families are large, and the high population density puts added pressure on the environment. Temperatures up here drop dramatically at night, and trees are felled for firewood. Mountainsides that once were forests are now stripped bare.
[Pause]
Narrator The barren land is then further damaged by the widespread grazing of sheep herds.
Regular heavy rainfall at this high altitude has led to increasing risk of mudslides.
The rain water simply slides off the surface down the mountainside. Jeronimo Navarro is the mayor of Ixchiguan and recognizes the dangers this poses to communities down below.
[Foreign language]
Jeronimo Because we are right to the very top here, the situation also affects the communities below us. Climate change has meant that we now see extremely heavy rain on a regular basis in one afternoon, which the soil is unable to cope with.
[Foreign language]
[Music]
Narrator This erosion can have catastrophic consequences. In the first few days of October 2005, Tropical Storm Stan hit the region. Flood and mudslides caused over 2,000 deaths and damage estimated at some 2 billion dollars.
[Music]
Narrator Water cascaded down the eroded mountain side, unimpeded by the sponge effect of trees and roots. It destroyed roads, bridges, and water supply systems, and with them, crops and livelihoods.
[Pause]
Narrator Today, northern Guatemala is slowly rebuilding itself. But some houses are once again being built in the path of any future flooding. The government says it's aware of the dangers.
[Foreign language]
Humberto Here in San Marcos, there was a certain amount of resistance from the local population to organize themselves in terms of projects relating to disaster prevention, and also, the reduction of our negative impact to on the environment. What Hurricane Stan did was showed us also quite clearly that in this part of the world, we had managed our natural resources badly. And because of that, we had fallen victim to this disaster.
Narrator Humanity first fell in love with coffee back in the 9th century, in the high lands of Ethiopia. Today, coffee is the second most valuable globally traded commodity after petroleum. It is estimated that 500 billion cups are consumed ever year around the world.
[Pause]
Narrator It's produced by over 20 million farmers worldwide. More than half of the world's coffee farms, 5.8 million hectares, are found here in Central America. And it is this industry so vital to the economy of the region that is now leading the way in transforming how water and other natural resources are used on these volcanoes. A bit further down the mountainside, between 1,000 to 2,000 meters, are the coffee plantations so vital to this region.
[Music]
Narrator It's shortly after dawn, and coffee workers in Guatemala are heading to the fields. It's harvest time. For over 100 years, coffee has been at the core of Guatemala's economy. And today, it generates one-third of the country's foreign currency. These pickers are part of the La Igualdad Farming Community in the shadow of Tacana Volcano. Each day during harvest, the farm produces between 2 and 7,000 kilos of coffee. Profits are shared out between its 150 owner-producers. La Igualdad is spearheading the way coffee farms are now using their most precious resource; water. It used to take 3 million liters of water
to produce the farm's annual harvest of 70,000 kilograms of coffee. But in a remarkable turnaround, La Igualdad now uses only 225,000 liters, a saving of nearly 93%.
[Foreign language]
Renee Farms used to behave very irresponsibly in terms of the environment.
[Foreign language]
Renee We have tried to look at ways of turning this around. This is why we are now working using a totally organic process This means that we are all now responsible for looking after our environment.
Narrator They have achieved this turnaround by changing the way they use water, recycling it throughout the entire process. One kilo of coffee is produced by fermenting about 5 kilos of beans in fresh water, a process that generates enormous quantities of a highly polluted acidic coffee waste water. Farms like La Igualdad have traditionally dumped this toxic waste water into pulp residues, straight back into the rivers. Not anymore. Now in La Igualdad, before water is returned to the river, it is store in holding tanks to be thoroughly purified. The toxins that contaminate the water are further reduced by growing organic coffee. Conventional coffee is grown with more pesticides than any other agricultural crop. Organic coffee is produced under strict international guidelines without pesticides or fertilizers. The growing global demand for organic and fair-trade coffee, where producers are guaranteed returns as cooperative members, is helping these farmers and their environment.
[Foreign language]
Renee We are seeing from the company who buy off us that we have a strong market in Japan, and yes, the prices are acceptable. But we don't just farm this way with the aim of making money, but also with the aim of saving our environment.
Narrator La Igualdad hopes to be 100% organic by 2010. There's more to be done.
Just over a third of their coffee beans are organic. Guatemala produces almost 10% of the world's organic coffee, the second highest after its neighbor, Mexico. But the pressures of the coffee industry on the water table only tell part of the story in this region.
[Pause]
Narrator From the top to the bottom of the mountain, people throw their rubbish into the rivers.
But 2,000 meters above sea level, this is the town of Caserio las Pilas. Here, rubbish is thrown directly into the water. Children swim nearby as their mothers wash clothes.
[Foreign language]
W Woman Everything is thrown in the river upstream, including rubbish, and all of that comes down to us here. The water is very contaminated because of everything that is discharged in it.
But because this is the only river nearby, we have no other choice but to wash our clothes here.
[Foreign language]
Narrator Today, community leaders are trying to change people's attitudes. Miguel Paz represents villages bordering this, the river Gramal.
[Foreign language]
Miguel We are trying to educate the population in order to improve the quality of our water, and thus, improve our lives.
Narrator To illustrate how serious the problem is, community leaders take a sample of water from this part of the river and compare it to a purer sample taken near its source.
[Foreign language]
Miguel We don't have any way to take our rubbish. We create our own rubbish and throw it wherever we can. There is nowhere specific to take it.
[Foreign language]
[Music]
Narrator Farming communities in river catchment areas are now organizing themselves in an attempt to find solutions to tackle some of these problems. A tree nursery in Tacana was started in May 2007. To date, 13,660 trees had been planted with the aim of replacing those chopped down for firewood. Project leader Lazaro Peres, hopes to increase this number to between 30 to 40,000 trees in 2008.
Lazaro [Foreign Language] We've come around to the idea of having a small tree planting nursery to grow trees, of both our farms, but also for communal areas. This is our aim because we need trees for firewood up here for our families. Tree planting now is for the mid and long term so that our children have wood in the future.
Narrator Fields are plowed into terraces in an attempt to control the flow of flood waters, with farmers attempting to find ways of transforming traditional techniques. But the water all heads in one direction; down. And it is at the bottom of these volcanoes where communities are suffering the consequences of erosion, deforestation, and pollution created further upstream, and tropical storm Stan wreaked havoc amongst communities here. This is the fishing village of Caserillo Fargos, a community of 850 people.
[Foreign language]
Don Leonardo Barrios and other villages believe Hurricane Stan was an accident waiting to happen, and could happen again. On the outskirts of the village, Leonardo shows where species of water lilies have choked a river tributary.
[Foreign language]
Don Leonardo This plant is dangerous for our community. The waters that reach us at the bottom of the mountain are incredibly polluted with high amounts of phosphorus, fertilizers, calcium, and such like. This plant grows because of this and is blocking the river. The water cannot get out. The water should reach the main river to the sea, but the plant blocks it. The danger is that this leads to flooding which has happened before with Hurricanes Mitch and Stan.
[Foreign language]
Narrator Leonardo remembers only too well the sudden flooding of the River Suchiate which ran by his house. He and his eight family members managed to escape in time, only to watch their house and all their belongings be washed away in the torrent.
[Foreign language]
Don Leonardo The water started coming in at 3:00 p.m. It was a Thursday, I think. We had to leave because we could see that the water is coming up so quickly. It wasn't easy to lose our house.
[Pause]
[Music]
Narrator Nearby, a mangrove project insures that any future storm damage from the sea is reduced by the buffering effect of the mangrove trees.
[Music]
Narrator What's more, the trees are homed to a large variety of fish and prawns, supporting local fishing communities. Martin Sanchez works for INAB, the national forestry institute.
[Foreign language]
Martin They act as filters for the all the pollutants caused by urban centers and industry
that are brought down from further upstream. They're also extremely important, as was seen by the recent Hurricanes Mitch and Stan, because they were able to absorb large quantities of water.
Narrator There are approximately 17,500 hectares of planted mangroves in Guatemala. This particular forest is vast, 140 square kilometers. The widespread damage caused by Hurricane Stan has insured the long term survival of the mangrove project. Without them, damage along the coastline would have been much worse.
[Foreign language]
Martin What we are aiming for is to have areas where the mangroves can be managed,
areas like this that are stable for growth, and also areas where men's hands cannot touch the established mangroves.
Narrator The mangroves extend over the border into Mexico. Just up the coast on the Mexican side of the border, the battle against pollution is far from won. Here, the Cahoacan River that has flowed from the volcano summit meets the sea. Fishermen ply their trade on a beach strewn with garbage. Cristina Pacheco monitors the pollution levels on this beach.
[Foreign language]
Cristina I've been thinking, “What is the right question here? Is it, where are we going to put all these rubbish? Or is it, why don't we stop using so much rubbish?”
[Foreign language]
Cristina We do not need to use one plastic bottle that takes decades to be destroyed naturally
in order to drink half a liter of water. We have to change the principles of consumption that we currently have. We have to consume in an intelligent manner.
[Pause]
Narrator Here, as in Guatemala, the impact all this has on the water table is leading local residents to search for solutions. Once again, coffee is a big player in this region. Mexico produces 20.5% of the world's organic coffee, making it the world's principal supplier. Here in Chiapas, it's so-called shade coffee. The beans are picked amidst the leaves of fruit trees planted to stop erosion. This also favors a development of rich and complex flavors. Shade trees also fix nutrients in the soil. As well as binding the soil, the trees also provided economic benefits to farmers.
[Foreign language]
Baldemar The advantage of having other produce other than coffee is that we do not depend solely throughout the year on coffee production alone, which is harvested once a year. Having other products, other plantations, other produce, gives us some alternative.
[Background music]
Narrator All across this watershed, there are projects to try and turn around the devastation this region has experienced. Many of the people who live here realized they have a hard task ahead.
[Foreign language]
Renee We understand that we are at a critical stage in terms of global warming, and we,
farmers and producers, are the ones who should ensure that we look after our environment from now on.
[Music]
Narrator To find out more, or comment, visit tv.org/earthreport.
[Music]
[Silence]
[End of audio]
From “Grounds for Hope” [Television series episode], in Earth Report, 2008, United Kingdom: TVE. Copyright 1995–2012 by Pearson Education, Inc., publishing as Pearson Prentice Hall. Adapted with permission.