Author Archive

Fishers Fight Over Dwindling Catch

Inter Press Service: Boats were tying up at the jetty and there was a bustle of activity as vendors cried their wares, offering shellfish to potential buyers, while young people, sharp knives in hand, filleted sea bass and red snapper. Meanwhile, on the promenade, octogenarian musicians played old-style cumbias and boleros for restaurant patrons. But the lighthearted atmosphere belied a sombre reality here in Puerto de la Libertad, a small town on the Pacific coast in the southwest of El Salvador. Standing next...

Rural Co-ops in Central America Speak Out on Climate Change

Inter Press Service: Brenda Salazar has her sights set on two things: a good organic cacao harvest for the cooperative she belongs to in northern Nicaragua, and for the governments of Central America to heed the ideas of peasant farmers who have organised to fight climate change. "We are feeling the effects of climate change, and it's important for our proposals to be heard," Salazar, a Nicaraguan small farmer, told IPS. She took part in a conference on "building a regional strategy for adaptation to the climate...

Water Bill Stagnates in Congress

Inter Press Service: A bill for protection, recovery and use of water resources in El Salvador, drafted by a platform of about 100 social, religious and academic organisations, has been bogged down in parliament for the past five years in spite of the country's water crisis. "Debate in Congress has been delayed due to lack of political will," Carlos Flores of the Salvadoran Ecological Unit (UNES), one of the civil society organisations belonging to the Water Forum, the umbrella group which presented the draft General...