Events from June/July 2011
I would love to say that
after that day—when eight people came—the community started
participating more, that the group of workers got bigger, and that
things got easier. Unfortunately, that would be dishonest. Even when
I would take them a small breakfast every day, and a snack for the
afternoon session I had started for those who said they couldn't come
in the morning, seldom did more than four or five people come at a
time. Sometimes I was the only one—those were particularly
depressing days. Even so, the work did continue on, and after about
three weeks the main area of what would eventually be the main garden
was clear (well... seemed to be clear. More on that later...).
As long as I'm being
honest, though (and I try to be as much as possible here), I must
admit it would be unfair to place full blame on the community for the
slow pace of work. As I have stated before, it would be unreasonable
to expect the Wichí to simply trust and have faith in us—or
anyone—given all the failed projects and unfulfilled promises they
have seen and suffered over in the not-too-distant past. But that is
only one of many systemic hurdles and hoops to be jumped over and
through here in Rivadavia. Nothing comes easily.
One of those things I had
thought would be an “easy part” was anything but: the fence.
There are three different kinds of fences that are commonly used in
Rivadavia:
enramado (thorny
branches)
PROS:
Materials are already on-site. Easy to make.
CONS:
Not as durable against animals. Needs frequent maintenance and
repair.
Alambre tejido (wire
fence)
PROS:
Quick and easy assembly.
CONS:
Costly. Prone to destruction by children. Hard to repair.
“San Martín”
(planks stacked next to each
other)
PROS:
Relatively durable. Mostly local material.
CONS:
Time consuming to find and transport planks.
In the
community meeting in the church there had been a general agreement
that the best option would be the “San Martín” fence, which
meant that we would need to A. find or buy posts, B. find or buy
planks, and C. buy the wire.
As a
general principle, ADRA Argentina always looks for local solutions to
local problems, especially in regards to materials. We believe that
it promotes community participation in the project, reduces our
impact on the environment, and, of course, saves us money. Getting
the materials for the fence, however, presented a number of
difficulties.
Posts. The proposal seemed
simple enough: take a chainsaw, cut up some fallen trees, and bring
them to the garden. I started organizing a day with Demetrio to go to
a place about 15 km away where he said there were enough fallen—and
straight-trunked—trees to find a good amount of posts. I also spoke
with our contact in the local government office to see if they would
be able to help me bring the wood back with the municipal tractor and
trailer. Everything was set to go, and then disaster struck. A few
days before the planned trip, Demetrio received a notice of complaint
in the mail threatening to sue him for having cut down trees on that
person's private property last year. The posts we had been thinking
of taking were along the road—supposedly public property—but he
now feared that he would be putting himself in danger, more than he
already was. I, too, worried about his legal quagmire, more so
because of his hot-headed determination to fight the case, which he
assured me he would resolve—with his fists, if need be. I also
realized that our plan might have been too naïve. ADRA couldn't risk
being involved with illegal activities either. We needed a new plan.
The alternative of buying
posts was not at all desirable. Certainly it felt like a waste of
money, given the amount of wood that was readily available for free,
but it was even worse to think that in buying them we would be
creating more demand for cutting down trees. We couldn't let our
commitment to responsible agriculture descend into pithy lip-service.
Indeed, planting trees is one of the primary activities of the
project.
Fortunately, Rivadavia has
not yet been plagued with the aggressive deforestation so tragically
common in other parts of the Salta province. This is mostly because
the poor quality of the roads makes it unprofitable to cut down and
transport large quantities of trees, and because the arid climate is
unfavorable to farming soy beans, the main reason why land is being
cleared elsewhere. Due credit should also be given to the Department
of the Environment of the provincial government for having laws in
place against environmental destruction, and the police for enforcing
them, albeit incompletely. The irony of these laws, however, is that
in attempting to protect the forests that the Wichí need so
desperately to survive, the same Wichí are frequently the first to
be caught in illegal activity, and are the most severely punished.
For example, a criollo
(dominant culture Argentinian) can go fishing in certain places
because he has a fishing license. If the Wichí, to whom a fishing
license is both foreign and costly, go fishing in the same place,
they can be prosecuted. The criollo fishes
for sport, the Wichí so he can feed his family, and yet it is the
Wichí who is far more likely to face legal action. Another example.
A criollo who owns a
large piece of land can cut down trees to sell to carpenters or
artisans and the police will turn a blind eye. If the Wichí cut down
a few trees, however, for much-needed firewood or to make a house,
they are charged with formal complaints or sued. This is what
happened to Demetrio. He cut down 16 trees that he used as poles to
allow for an electrical to run from the road to the community church,
and was subsequently denounced. The criollo threatening
him could cut down hundreds, even thousands of trees a
year on that same
property and not face a single complaint. Even on undesignated public
property, the legal status of most land on which Wichí communities
live on, they could be fined or even prosecuted for hunting, fishing,
or chopping down trees, although fortunately that is far more rare.
Being
here has allowed me to see that although protecting the environment
is crucial both for the survival of our planet and of future
generations, it is not an absolute principle. When environmentalist
policies overlook, even actively work against, the lives of the
current human population, those policies must be modified. When the
enforcement of policy is exaggerated amongst the powerless and lax
amongst the powerful, justice must be reinvented. And if that
modification and reinvention seem to slow in coming, we must have
patience.
Patience is a virtue, and
it is one that I do not possess. I needed posts, and without them I
was already scraping to find things for the workers to do. It was too
risky and impractical to find them and ethically questionable to buy
them. There was one other option available, but it seemed
unattainable. Every day I would pass by the sports complex and see a
pile of about 400 posts that the police had confiscated a few years
ago. They just sat there, taunting me like a Holy Grail. I knew that
somehow I might be able to get a hold of them, but by what avenue was
utterly enigmatic. The police protected them, the municipal
government had the keys to them, and they belonged to the provincial
Department of the Environment.
I went to try to sort out
the inch-thick red tape I was sure it would require cutting through
with the local Justice of the Peace. He said it would be difficult,
but we could present a note to the Department of the Environment,
which would then send an order to the police, who would then borrow
the keys from the municipality. Patience.
So that is what we did.
Beatriz presented the request for the release of the posts, in
conjunction with the provincial institute of indigenous affairs
(IPPIS), and we waited. And waited. And waited some more.
Three weeks had gone by
and it appeared that no progress had been made. IPPIS was swamped
with other tasks and hadn't put pressure on the Department of the
Environment, so Beatriz visited herself to apply some. The news
wasn't good. First, they said they would need to make an in-person
assessment of the posts in question, something they hadn't done in
this region for over seven years. Second, they had to make sure the
wood couldn't be used for something else, especially if it was made
of palo santo—which of
course, it was. We could be kept waiting forever, and even if someday
they assessed it they might still turn us down. That was extremely
frustrating. The Department claims that confiscated materials
can and should be used to give back to the community, but there was
so much bureaucracy it was hard to see how that could ever happen,
even in cases like ours where it could actually produce a real
benefit to people in need.
Apparently, Beatriz is
even less patient than I am. Not content with the dim outlook
presented by the Department's lethargy, she was determined to find a
solution on her own. In the end it was relatively easy. The next time
she was in Rivadavia she simply asked our contact in the local
government to let us borrow the keys to the compound and take out the
posts, assuring him that they could hold her personally responsible
if any legal trouble ensued. He acquiesced, and an hour later we took
out 60 posts in pick-up trucks. At the time I was furious with
Beatriz. How could she put ADRA—and herself—at such a great risk?
Weren't we essentially stealing? What about ethics?
Maybe I was exaggerating a
little bit, but it helped me to compare our situation to what Martin
Luther King Jr. wrote from his Birmingham jail-cell about the true
definition of justice: doing what is right is not always the same as
doing what is lawful. Since there exists certain injustices inherent
to the legal system, sometimes it is right to bend, even break the
rules. We could have done the lawful thing and continued to wait an
eternity for the Department to do their assessment (and we are still
waiting, February 2012), but what would that have meant for the
progress of the project? What if the people began to lose faith in
our ability to help them because we were too slow to act? What if we
had had to buy posts or cut down trees and thereby further damage the
environment? In the end, we had acted upon the principle outlined by
the Department of the Environment, rather than their methodology.
Posts that would have otherwise rotted away went to good use for
people that needed them.
And of course, I couldn't
deny that I was personally extremely pleased to finally have, after
more than two months, the infamous fence-posts.
No comments:
Post a Comment