Day 241 - 26 Apr 96 - Page 33
1 me that the country has the most unequal system of land
2 distribution in Central America (two per cent of the land
3 owners control over 70 per cent of the land, including
4 almost all of the fertile land, while 85 per cent of its
5 mainly indigenous and small farmer population are living in
6 abject poverty) as well as one of the most serious problems
7 of deforestation and rainforest destruction.
8
9 "These two problems are, of course, interrelated and made
10 worse by the intervention of fast-food giants such as
11 McDonald's in the Guatemalan economy. In a nutshell,
12 here's how the multi-national beef industry is harming
13 Guatemala and its people. Since the rich ranchers and
14 plantation owners monopolise all the good land (leaving
15 most of it idle, or in many cases raising cattle more for
16 status than for actual profitability) the landless poor are
17 forced to till unsuitable highland areas or else migrate to
18 uninhabited (i.e. rainforest) areas where they slash and
19 burn the forest, plant a few crops of corn and beans, and
20 then move on (since rainforest land is poor agricultural
21 land) to cut down more forest.
22
23 "Since 1984 I have observed that after the campesinos
24 abandoned a deforested area the cattle ranchers often move
25 in, making use of the land but enjoying 'plausible
26 deniability' (along with their clients such as McDonald's)
27 that they weren't the ones who cut it down.
28
29 "Although imported beef is only a small portion of the
30 total consumed in the USA (approximately 1 per cent) USA
31 beef imports account for 10 to 15 per cent of all Central
32 American beef production. Central American beef (which
33 becomes anonymous as to its point of origin once it arrives
34 at a US point of entry and is stamped 'US inspected and
35 approved') is used generally for hamburgers and fast-food
36 patties.
37
38 "Contrary to popular myth, Central American beef is not
39 imported by the USA beef cartels because there's a lack of
40 supply (for decades the US has produced a surplus of beef)
41 or because it's cheaper; but rather because the cartels
42 (Cargill, Iowa Beef Processors, Con-Agra) use alternative
43 suppliers (Argentina, Australia and Central America) as
44 'blackmail' to keep the prices which they pay to US family
45 ranchers as low as possible.
46
47 "My first hand experience has shown me that cattle ranching
48 of course is not the only practice which is destroying the
49 Central American rainforest. Unsustainable forestry,
50 corporate banana plantations, other agro-export crops and
51 inappropriate tourism development are just as bad, if not
52 worse, in some instances.
53
54 "Although Costa Rica has a reputation for being
55 ecologically conscious and progressive, my travels
56 throughout the country have shown me that it is suffering
57 from the worst rate of tropical deforestation in the world,
58 which is also the conclusion of a recent study by the World
59 Resources Institute.
60
