Maria Alejandra Escovar and Alba Ruiz

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Key Words: urban development, environmental injustice, infrastructure, ecosystem restoration

 

Introduction

This case study will use the framework of political ecology to analyse how and why the urban development project of constructing a highway between two coastal cities in Colombia led to the production of certain environmental injustices.

 

The Political Ecology Framework

Swyngedouw, Kaïka and Castro’s (2002) understanding of socio-physical spaces and interactions as being politically charged will be useful in assessing the case-study. We will also use Dobson’s (2003) work to relate the concept of environmental (in)justice to the ensuing distribution of socio-environmental resources and burdens as a result of infrastructure construction projects, such as the one we will analyse here. Finally, Beckerman’s (2006) work reminds us to consider long term impacts of an intervention of this magnitude and how it might affect future generations to whom we have a moral obligation: ensuring socio-environmental conditions necessary to guarantee their capacity to carry out their own projects. With this in mind, we will identify some of the “winners” and “losers” of the analysed project, assessing across different scales what kind of benefits and burdens were produced and how they were distributed.

 

The urban development project: The Swamp and the Highway

The Ciénaga Grande de Santa Marta (CGSM) is a fragile coastal ecosystem around a swamp, constituted mostly of mangrove forests, located in the north of Colombia. This estuarine system is the largest of its kind in the Caribbean area. Coastal lagoons, creeks and mangrove swamps cover approximately 1280 km² in the area (Aguilera, 2011). Four fishing towns on the northern coast of the system and three stilt house villages in the two larger water bodies comprise an approximate total population of 20 000 people of which 3200 are fishermen.

Since 1956, anthropogenic alterations began to alter the hydrological regime of this estuarine ecosystem, primarily because of the construction of a highway along Isla de Salamanca but also because of the development of roads, dikes and berms along the eastern bank of the Magdalena River. The construction of the highway along Isla de Salamanca was a government initiative that was on-going between 1956 and 1960. It intended to consolidate the national market by linking Colombia’s regions with highways connecting the main cities. (Aguilera, 2011; MinAmbiente, 2007). The civil works interrupted all but one of the natural connections between the sea and the local ecosystem as well as most of the ground water flow due to soil sedimentation.

These anthropogenic activities resulted in numerous environmental burdens such as the reduction of mangrove swamps by 65% between 1956 and 1995 due to an increase in the soil’s salinity; degraded water quality and the reduction in fishing production from 27,000 ton/year (1967) to 1,785 ton/year (1987) as well as a reduction in diversity (Aguilera, 2011). Furthermore, the depletion of the estuarine ecosystem led to the decline of the quality of life for human populations in the area. The socio-economic conditions of local communities have been characterized by extreme poverty and governmental insufficiency in the fulfilment of basic needs and services such as drinking water, sanitation, health and education.

 

The Socio-environmental Injustices

We analysed this case from the point of view of its economic, physical and social dimensions in order to define to what extend the construction of the highway was a success and what kind of socio-environmental injustices had emerged. The analysis is done on different scales, from a “national market” outlook to focusing on local swamp communities.

Economic dimension

In 1958, the Colombian central government chose Barranquilla (one of the closest cities to the Ciénaga) as the first industrial free-trade zone, since the recently-built road connected the city to several coastal urban centres. Furthermore, Barranquilla’s port was connected to the central area of the country, where many of the traded products were being produced. The economic growth associated with the increased activities of the Caribbean ports and international trade attracted regional migration and the city’s population rose to more than 3 million inhabitants by 2010. However, the fishing sector productivity was being negatively affected because of the fast depletion of fish and seafood population even though a majority of the inhabitants of the area had depended economically on the activity to make a living. The crisis for fishermen caused a social crisis, which reproduced existing poverty conditions.

Physical dimension

The barrier preventing water exchanges between the swamp and the sea caused a rise in the salinity of the water and a decrease in the biodiversity of the ecosystem (mangroves, crustaceans, fishes, reptiles, birds). Therefore, the development project caused losses of fauna and flora in the swamp and caused system imbalances and increased fragility of this already complex and sensitive ecosystem.

Social dimension

The physical aspects of the project had social impacts, as many local inhabitants depended on fishing as part of their livelihood. The reduction in the buying and selling of fishing products by swamp communities near the Ciénaga reduced their expected level of income. This situation reproduced conditions of poverty and caused the displacement of families to urban centres to work in the tourism sector.  Moreover, there were some changes in these communities’ social organisation. The change in expectations of access to resources and the weak restructuration of social groups based on uncertainty caused the rupture of social networks.

 

Conclusion

Returning now to Beckerman’s (2006) concept of intergenerational justice, we realise the full impact of the road 60 years after it was built- many issues related to its construction are still far from being solved. This shows how engineering approaches that do not take into account socio-environmental factors have long-term impacts.  The importance of assessing these impacts in development projects prior to its implementation cannot be underestimated. Even though the Ciénaga was declared as a protected area and despite the creation of the National Institute of Renewable Natural Resources and Environment in 1968, the restoration of the ecosystem has had several technical and political obstacles and local communities have been excluded from decision-making processes. The analysis of socio-environmental injustices and the application of Dobson’s (2003) framework in our case-study clearly demonstrate that the development of robust infrastructure may result in the uneven distribution of environmental burdens and may put local communities in a situation of increased vulnerability. Moreover, this situation reinforces Swyngedouw, Kaïka and Castro’s (2002) argument that large infrastructure development processes should recognise actors on multiple scales and that interactions between humans and nature are necessarily politically charged.

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CITE THIS ARTICLE

Escovar, M. and Ruiz, A. (2014). Urban development project and environmental injustice: A case study of Barranquilla (Ciénaga Highway, Colombia) | UCL Encyclopaedia of Political Ecology. [online] Available at: https://blogs.ucl.ac.uk/esd/urban-development-project-and-environmental-injustice-a-case-study-of-barranquilla-cienaga-highway-colombia/

 
Bibliography:

Aguilera, M., (ed.), (2011), La economía de las ciénagas del Caribe colombiano, (Bogota: Banco de la República).

Beckerman, W., (2006), ‘The impossibility of a theory of intergenerational justice’ in Tremme, J., C., (ed.), Handbook of Intergenerational Justice, pp. 53–71.

Dobson, A., (2003), ‘Social justice and environmental sustainability : ne’er the twain shall meet?’ In  Agyeman, J., Bullard, R., D., and Evans, B., (eds.), Just Sustainabilities: development in an unequal world, (London: Earthscan), pp. 83–95.

MinAmbiente, (2007), Plan de Manejo: Santuario de flora y fauna de la Ciénaga Grande de Santa Marta. Bogota, Ministerio de Ambiente, Vivienda y Desarrollo Territorial.

Swyngedouw, E., Kaïka, M., and Castro, E., (2002), ‘Urban Water: A Political-Ecology Perspective’, Built Environment, 28 (2), pp.124–137.