Lider Sucre
doesn’t LOOK like a wild and crazy radical. Born into one
of Panama’s aristocratic Creole families, educated at an
elite American university and looking natural in an expensive
blue suit, Sucre heads the wealthiest and least militant of
this country’s environmentalist organizations, the
National Association for the Conservation of Nature (ANCON).
However, if
“radical” is considered in terms of its origin in the
Latin word radix (root), then Lider Sucre got radical with
President Moscoso on the afternoon of April 9, and hardly said
anything.
Such words as
Sucre had to say were mainly by way of introduction. His
important non-verbal gestures were by way of associating with
some establishment-type figures.
The man Sucre
introduced was John Reid, a Harvard-educated economic analyst
from the Conservation Strategy Fund. The cast of characters
around Sucre and Reid included former President Nicky Barletta,
former National Environmental Authority director Mirei Endara
and Panamanian Business Executives Association president John
Bennett.
Using the
methodology that the World Bank uses to analyze road projects
for which funding has been requested, Reid demolished the heart
of President Moscoso’s argument for the controversial
proposed Boquete to Cerro Punta road. Her Excellency has been
playing the economic development versus anti-everything
environmental extremists political card, but Reid set aside all
environmental considerations and considered the road as a
business proposition. “There is a problem of economic
viability,” he said. “There will be more costs than
benefits.”
Figure that the
road will cost, according to the Moscoso administration’s
estimates, $4.6 million to build and $100,000 per year to
maintain. Figure that to fend off environmental criticism, the
government says that it will be an “ecological road,”
only four and one-half meters wide rather than the usual 10.
Figure that only 20 people own property within two kilometers
of the proposed route through Volcan Baru National Park, and
only five property owners who have no road access at all will
get conncted to the motorized world if the project proceeds.
Then, if the traffic and its impact is as low as Mireya
promises, Reid said, it just isn’t worth the cost.
The break-even
point from the economic perspective is 364 vehicles per day the
first year, with a three percent per year increase in traffic
over the next 20 years. However, the demand for the road only
adds up to about 250 vehicles per day.
Reid said that
his study was originally just about the proposed Boquete-Cerro
Punta road, but he also looked at alternatives for building a
road along a more southerly route through areas that are more
heavily populated and already deforested, and the paving of
current gravel roads into the park. Though he didn’t go
into as much detail on the alternatives, he found them
promising enough for further investigation.
One of the
factors that the World Bank considers in such matters, and that
Reid considered, is who will pay the costs of a project. Those
costs would include a diminution of water for irrigation of
farms down the mountain from the road, a decrease in
hydroelectric capacity, a decrease in tourism because the road
would essentially pave the popular Sendero Los Quetzales hiking
trail and an increase in the cost of defending Volcan Baru
National Park from poachers and squatters. “Often in
government projects,” Reid pointed out, “such social
costs mean the poor transferring benefits to the rich.” In
this case he didn’t figure out what benefits any
particular rich people might receive, but found no prospective
benefits for the area’s poorest residents.
Not considered
was the probability of deforestation caused by land invasions
along the road, with its attendant loss of biodiversity,
topsoil and water and air quality. The positive aspects of
economic development along the route, however, were considered
as part of the demand that gets expressed in traffic
figures.
“This
study is very conservative,” Sucre opined. “The
economic aspect is an important part of the debate,”
Endara pointed out.
But the
president sent low-level functionaries to argue, one from the
Ministry of Agricultural Development and two from the Ministry
of the Presidency. They argued that World Bank methods for
determining costs and benefits are flawed. When one of the
Ministry of the Presidency guys pressed the point at length, he
was interrupted by Charlotte Elton, the past president of the
Panama Audubon Society. “Has the government done a study
like this?” she asked. Mireya’s representative hinted
that it had, but when Elton wanted to know where it can be had,
he ducked the question.
Elton having
played the role of fourth grade teacher asking for homework,
and the ministry man having offered the equivalent of a
“my dog ate it” story, Reid stepped in to point out
that “the important thing is to have good information upon
which to discuss a project, but it’s not there.”
Barletta, who
says that in his years in government cost-benefit studies were
done for all major projects, said that he was “totally in
accord” with Reid’s analysis. “I very much
lament that the government has not done this sort of
study.”
APEDE president
Bennett agreed, expressing a preference for road projects where
there is already a lot of traffic and special concern about
water resources. “From Chepo to Chiriqui, there really
aren’t any unpolluted rivers,” he pointed out, adding
that “There are wars around the world about water.”
Fearing another project that will take water resources away and
fail to solve transportation problems, Bennett said “We
have to develop new forms of development.”
And thus the
man in the blue suit got radical, attacking the root of the
president’s argument in favor of a controversial
road.
Also in this
section:
Business & Economy Briefs
Cerro Punta to Boquete
road called a losing business proposition
Costa Rica: Bribri try
their hand at ecotourism
