Nicaragua strives to reclaim its natural resources

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L.A. forum focuses on antiwar work broad panel of speakers addressed a Socialist Action forum theme, "Perspectives for the Anti-intervention Movement The forum, attended by over 40 people, was held the day after the U.S. Senate voted to approve so-called humanitarian aid to the contras in Nicaragua. The escalation of the U.S. war in Central America was at the heart of the discussion.

The speakers were the following: Jacquelyn Flores, representative of Casa Nicaragua; Evelyn Sell, member of the administrative committee of the April 20 Coalition; Victor Rios, representative of the Casa El Salvador Farabundo Marti; Teto Vargas, representative of the Comite de Solidaridad Farabundo Marti; and Carl Finamore, member of Socialist Action and of the steering committee of the San The representatives of the Salvadoran and Nicaraguan revolutionary movements highlighted the brutality of the U.S. war in the region. Jacquelyn Flores, who just returned from Nicaragua, spoke of the constant airbombings on the civilian popuThe Managua work unit planted trees in the area around the lagoon that provides the city with safe drinking water. Over the last several years the water table of the lagoon has been dropping. If it drops below that of nearby Lake Managua, which is badly polluted, the water supply will become contaminated. In order to retard soil erosion we planted trees on a nearby hill where Somoza had the trees cut down for "security" reasons.

We also planted trees around the outskirts of Managua, near the Americanowned Penwalt plant and beyond a cooperative farm that grew cotton. In these areas we were planting trees that would be harvested for firewood and lumber for housing and furniture. The leucaena trees also have leaves that are high in protein and are good forage for cattle.

Regulations and resourcefulness Over the last 25 years, half of all the trees in Central America have been destroyed. In Nicaragua multinational timber companies ravaged the mountain forests through intensive cutting techniques that destroyed magnificent pine forests and reduced the forest cover below thé 30-percent level considered necessary for the country's ecological well-being.

Nicaragua is well suited to agricultural production because of fine volcanic soil. Yet the combination of largescale cotton production and the destruction of the forests means that in some areas of the country 10 centimeters of topsoil disappear every year.

Today IRENA regulates the timber industry. It limits the number of trees that may be cut in each area by the People's Forestry Corporation (CORFOP) or by private lumber companies that still carry out 10-15 percent of the cutting.

Seventy percent of the lumber cut is utilized for national consumption while 30 percent is exported. All exporting is under the control of CORFOP, which means that this valuable source of foreign exchange produces dollars that remain under government control. Nicaragua intends to expand lumber cutting, but under strict regulation.

IRENA has trained a core of 2000 forest inspectors, outlined a reforestation program, mounted an educational campaign on preventing forest fires, and launched a program to teach peasants how to cut and replant trees on a rotational basis.

Each region of the country has its own tree nursery, with a combined current production level of 5 million to 6 million trees a year. We visited the Managua-area nursery, which produces 3.5 million trees a year. The nursery's irrigation system is only a year old. Before electric power was installed water was transported from the nearby river. It is situated on five hectares of land that was expropriated just three years ago.

Because of a growing transportation bottleneck-as trucks are needed for the defense effort and as it becomes more difficult to obtain spare parts and tires that must be imported-many trees are wasted.

On the other hand IRENA attempts to deal with this reality in innovative ways. One area of land not needed for the nursery at this stage of production has been planted with crops. Sold for a low price to IRENA employees, these nathan zation of the timber. IRENA projects studying the more than 4000 trees and tree-like shrubs in order to pinpoint the potential uses of its resources.

In coordination with the Swedish government, and with support from Denmark, IRENA has set up a seed bank and seed library. It has particularly focused on collecting seeds from the various species of pines that grow throughout Nicaragua. These seeds may also become an important export product.

The Nicaraguans are very interested in developing additional export items. While theirs is not a monocrop economy like Cuba, they do have the problem of importing twice as much as they export each year. As a small and dependent country, they recognize their vulnerability.

IRENA also works with other governmental agencies to coordinate protection of the environment. One such agency is the Center for Appropriate Technology Investigation (CITA), a branch of the Nicaraguan Agrarian Reform Institute.

CITA workers teach peasants how to build energy-efficient stoves. Made of mud, sand, and some tubing, the " build, des an half the vend sy conventional stoves.

CITA is also working to develop community self-sufficiency on such projects as harnessing wind energy, producing bio-gas, and transforming coffee capital's raw sewage and industrial wastes. The worst polluter has been the U.S. corporation Penwalt, which from 1978 until recently has dumped between five pounds and 20 pounds of mercury into the lake every day. It has been forced by the Sandinistas to build a mercury-treatment and reprocessing plant that should bring down emissions to nine-tenths of a pound a year.

In 1982 the National Commission on Lake Managua held an international LOS ANGELES-A here on June 7 on the After April 20." lation by the U.S.-backed contras.

Sell and Finamore both underscored antiwar actions and urged participants movement to stop the warmakers. Managua would take $2 billion. Given the severe economic and military problems facing Nicaragua today, it is impossible to undertake such a task.

The U.S. government has been able to pressure West European governments and international banks to back away from helping the Nicaraguans obtain the funding they need. For now, the Nicaraguan government is simply attempting to "hold the line" by enforcing regulations that would prevent the further pollution of the lake.

U.S. war stymies gains The revolution provided the political conditions that assure the implementation of such solutions-solutions that countries with more natural resources but lacking a revolutionary will have not been able to utilize.

Without 40 percent of its national budget going to defend itself from contra attacks, and with generous aid from more developed countries, Nicaragua could undertake these projects at a faster pace.

Many parts of the overall project are on the "back burner" because they are not central to improving the economy of the country. That is, and must be, the central priority.

Lessening the economic grip of dependence by making Nicaragua energy-efficient, for instance, has a very high priority. The country's first geothermal plant is now in operation, and Nicaragua believes it has the capacity to become an energy-exporting nation, producing energy for much of Central America.

But even given the limitations, many experimental projects are undertaken and then expanded. The priority is on maintaining and expanding production, particularly agricultural production, but also on introducing health standards. Thus DDT has been banned. Integrated Pest Management control (IPM)-a way of cutting down on the use of pesticides-was used on half of the cotton crop in 1983-84.

As Ernesto Carc poem, "Ecology":

We shall reclaim lagoons.

We're going to lake of Managua.

Not only humans The whole ecolo revolution is also of mals. the need to help CTIOI lenal wrote the forests, decontaminate the desired liberation. gy wanted it. The Drivers, for nationally coordinated fall build a united mass antiwar

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S. African revolutionary speaks: