Establishment environmental groups fall out with Martinelli

Greenwashing may no longer be an option

Environmental groups fall out with Martinelli administration
by Eric Jackson

During the Torrijos administration Panama's environmentalist groups time after time split along class lines. Those groups led or financed by rabiblancos or with government or corporate sponsorship tended to support the "yes" campaign in the 2006 canal expansion referendum, while the groups campaigning against hydroelectric dams and other mega-projects that displace poor people from their homes tended to support the "no" side.

Most of the groups that endorsed the "yes" side also backed Law 23, election-year PRD legislation that would have allowed the "environmental protection" right of possession and subsequently free titling for private groups claiming large wilderness areas. Those who were for the "no" side tended to oppose Law 23 because they believed that it would strip the public of its access to beaches and wild areas, and they tend to reject the idea of carbon trading, which is the economic incentive of the wealthier environmentalist groups to claim wilderness areas in the first place --- by promising not to develop a forest, these groups can get money from polluters in industrialized countries that want to continue polluting.

For those who went along with the Torrijos administration --- the environmental record of which is a sordid tale of public corruption, of dives taken by those in charge of defending nature --- there were political patronage jobs with the national government, the Panama Canal Authority and the Panama City municipal administration of Juan Carlos Navarro. There were various forms of retaliation against those who did not go along.

It got so bad, however, that a lot of the more establishment groups could no longer maintain their cooperation with the PRD.

The lawlessness of the Petaquilla gold mine was too flagrant. The move to let Ocean Embassy capture and traffic in the dolphins in Panamanian waters was toxic to anyone trying to maintain an image as a defender of the environment. Urban development policies that allowed historic structures to be demolished in favor of vacant lots for speculation, that increased traffic and population density without regard for vital infrastructures --- and all that for an unsustainable investment bubble that finally burst --- could not be condoned by anyone interested in maintaining a reputation as an environmentalist. The notion that what Panama really needs is an oil pipeline alongside and underneath the body of water that supplies the drinking water of most Panamanians, with a marine loading and unloading terminal just off of Taboga Island, was a non-starter even among activists who might otherwise be eager to sell out. Wee hours legislative moves to end purse seine restriction in Pacific waters and allow commercial fishing in the protected area around Coiba Island became a bit too much to swallow, even for environmental foundations closely allied with the ad agency cartel that was one of the pillars of the Torrijos administration's alliance.

The mayor and housing minister who let the city developers get out of hand would have been in trouble regardless of how the PRD presidential primary went, but when we got Balbina all of the rhetoric about shutting down "vicious websites" and curbing non-governmental organizations solidified a determination among most of Panama's environmentalists that the PRD should not continue in office. Those individuals who had sold out mostly stayed bought, but the environmentalist organizations maintained their silence during the campaign, and their rank and file membership mostly either voted for Martinelli with misgivings or abstained.

The neutralization of the establishment part of the environmentalist movement did not require Martinelli to offer anything, and in his campaign a few words against ANAM (National Environmental Authority) corruption were more than offset by rhetoric about doing away with environmental controls that hamper business. On the environmental issue he won by default, first because everyone knew Balbina's record and second because her rhetoric and life history suggested that she would deal with environmental activists much the way that she dealt with anti-Noriega Civilistas when he was the mayor and Dignity Battalion commander of San Miguelito, or the way that the Torrijos administration dealt with SUNTRACS picketers.

The PRD lost both the national government and the mayor's office in the capital. In the lame duck period there was a move to shift a number of Panama City employees to ANAM and give them civil servant status, but those maneuvers have not prospered.

But Martinelli first floated the name of a young restaurant manager for head of ANAM, causing furious protests from environmentalist groups across the spectrum, and then chose financier Javier Arias instead. Now, after a few months of wait-and-see, the environmentalists who took government jobs under Torrijos have mostly been fired but ANAM has yet to find its functional equilibrium. The Martinelli administration has let it be known that it is not going to stop the strip mines or hydroelectic dams that the activists want stopped. Law 23 and its "environmental possession" scheme that would have bankrolled the would-be carbon traders have been scrapped. Non-governmental organizations have in general been brushed off, with Minister of Government and Justice José Raúl Mulino and others arguing that it was Mr. Martinelli and not "civil society" who was elected to run the government.

So what's a non-militant environmentalist organization to do?

Maybe release a press statement demanding the restoration of Law 23's "environmental possession" (and all those carbon trading opportunities that go with it). ANCON, the Centro de Incidencia Ambiental (CIAM), the Panama Audubon Society, the Nature Conservancy, PROMAR, the Private Reserves Network, and the MarViva, Albatross, Avifauna and Natura foundations did just that.

A few days later, in the wake of a purge that among others removed 11 national department directors at ANAM, most of the aforementioned 10 groups, plus the far less compromised Panamanian Center for Social Studies and Action (CEASPA) and Chiriqui-based Colibri organization, as well as the Almanaque Azul and the Panamanian Association for Sustainable Tourism, leveled another series of blasts at the Martinelli adminstration. In coordinated separate statements they called ANAM "dysfunctional" and urged the president to change course on environmental policies.

The bottom line is that the honeymoon is over between Martinelli and the establishment environmentalist groups. (There never was one in the case of the militants.) Some of the groups that have paid leaders but no members are likely to disappear now that they're starved of government patronage and other income derived from public resources. Some groups will retreat into purely non-controversial activities. Some will more consistently and forthrightly oppose the Martinelli administration on a wide range of issues.

Look for the business of environmental activism to wane and individuals and groups without a lot of money or wealthy backers to assume greater prominence.

Battles over strip mines and hydroelectric dams are the front lines on which the new pecking order in the environmental movement is currently being sorted out. Right now CIAM, which is in former La Prensa publisher Bobby Eisenmann's constellation of groups, would seem to be waxing while groups more traditionally aligned with the PRD like ANCON and the Fundacion Albatross would be waning. The PRD could enter the fray and tip the balance, but the current leadership carries baggage that would limit its credibility in any such effort.

If and when the US Congress takes up the US-Panama free trade agreement differences in social class and ideology will most probably again divide the movement but the balance will have shifted from where it was in 2006. The rabiblanco led or financed groups will support the pact and the corporate mainstream media will pretend that they represent the entire movement, but the strategy of blacking out the militants might not be viable anymore.

And then there's the possibility of a charismatic leader rising to prominence from among the ranks of Panama's environmentalists. If Ricardo Martinelli is not afraid of that, he should be.

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