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An architect who specializes in urban and regional planning, Eduardo Reese is the deputy administrator of the Institute for Housing of the Province of Buenos Aires, Argentina. In previous professional positions he provided technical advice for the master plans of more than 20 cities in Argentina; was secretary of socioeconomic policies at the Ministry of Human Development and Labor of the Province of Buenos Aires; adviser for the Urban Planning Counsel of the City of Buenos Aires; and planning secretary in the City of Avellaneda.
Reese also teaches at the Conurbano Institute at the National University General Sarmiento in Buenos Aires. Currently he is a professor of urban management in the Institute’s B.A. program in urbanism. He also teaches urban development at master’s programs at the School of Architecture, Urbanism and Design of the University of La Plata, as well as at universities in Mar del Plata and Córdoba. In addition, he directs the master planning of the Matanza-Riachuelo watershed in Buenos Aires.
Land Lines: How long have you been involved with the Institute’s Latin America Program?
Eduardo Reese: My relationship dates back to 1997 when we were drafting the plan for the City of Córdoba, which included several large-scale urban projects. We worked to expand the debate about the impacts of these projects on the land market and, consequently, on shaping the city. I continued to participate in various activities, and four years ago I took over the coordination of the annual lectures of the Land Management in Large Urban Projects series, following the death of Mario Lungo, who had led that program for many years.
In 2004, in conjunction with the Conurbano Institute of the National University of General Sarmiento, we conducted a course on Land Markets: Theory and Tools for Policy Management, which was the first one involving a seven-month training program for 50 Argentine students. That educational experience helped create a critical mass of technicians and professionals with an innovative vision toward the management of land policies. The program’s impact has been reflected in urban policy decisions in different municipalities (such as San Fernando and Morón in Greater Buenos Aires); in the Argentine Constitution; in the Urban Reform Movement in 2005; and in academic changes at the Conurbano Institute itself.
Land Lines: What role can large urban projects play in the quality of life of Latin American cities?
Eduardo Reese: Large-scale projects in defined sectors of the city (both central and peripheral areas) have been great protagonists of contemporary urbanism in the past quarter century. Today in Latin America there are many types and sizes of projects, even though more rigorous theoretical thinking is still needed. Important examples are the Bicentennial Portal (Portal del Bicentenario) projects in Santiago de Chile; the Integral Urban Projects (Proyectos Urbanos Integrales) in Medellín, Colombia; urban operations in different cities of Brazil; and the restructuring project in the northwestern sector of San Fernando (Argentina).
Large-scale urban operations as instruments of intervention in the city have been implemented for many decades. In Buenos Aires, for instance, the Avenida de Mayo and the Diagonals, which were planned around 1880, had important impacts on physical space as well as in social, economic, and symbolic aspects. This approach of multiple impacts undoubtedly allowed better assimilation of the Avenida de Mayo, but it also generated a huge debate over who should finance the operation and who would appropriate the land rents generated. Ultimately the Supreme Court ruled that the municipality could not finance the work with the surplus created because the rents belonged entirely to the landowners. For many years this case set a judicial precedent regarding the state’s intervention in the process of valuing land generated by a large-scale public project.
Land Lines: You have a critical view on the widely acclaimed Puerto Madero urban regeneration project in Buenos Aires. What would you do differently in other large redevelopment areas?
Eduardo Reese: Puerto Madero is emblematic of urban projects that promote a model of segregated urban planning and are now being “exported” to other countries as a basic tool to compete for international investment. In this project the state submitted to the market and allowed the construction of an exclusive neighborhood for very high-income sectors. It is a notorious example of public policy explicitly designed to favor the wealthy segments without any recovery of the huge land valuations that were the product of public policy.
Moreover, to guarantee investors an overvaluation of the properties they purchased, the venture has a number of features that cut it off (physically and socially) from the rest of the city, creating even greater value because of its segregation. Puerto Madero has no external wall, as gated condominiums have, but rather multiple implicit, explicit, and symbolic signals that clearly indicate this place is off limits to most of society.
In the end, Puerto Madero is a clear demonstration of the regressive distribution of urban planning and public policy: a trouble-free ghetto for the rich.
Land Lines: As municipalities continue to compete for outside investments, is it possible to reconcile alternative objectives such as social and environmental priorities?
Eduardo Reese: The problem in our cities is not the lack of planning, but the current exclusionary pattern of planning policies. There cannot be one law for the formal city and exceptions for the rest. It is necessary to create a new urban and legal order in Latin America based on the right to the city, the equitable sharing of the benefits of urbanization, and the social function of land ownership.
Land Lines: How does the municipality of San Fernando in the Buenos Aires metropolitan area offers an alternative to this approach?
Eduardo Reese: San Fernando is located some 30 kilometers (km) north of Buenos Aires, with a land area of 23 square km and a population of 156,000 inhabitants. A 5 km long riverside faces the Río Luján and another part of the city faces the mouth of Río de la Plata, where productive nautical activities are concentrated. This privileged location has high property values and all urban services.
The plan and model of urban land management in the city began in 2003 through an agreement between the municipality and the Conurbano Institute. In 2005, a Lincoln Institute training seminar helped broaden the local debate on land management, which led to a series of major decisions:
The urban policy focused on a set of action strategies including (1) ensuring accessibility to new public spaces for recreational, sports and commercial purposes on the riverside, especially for the use and enjoyment of the poor; and (2) the comprehensive regularization of the western sector of the municipality, where most poverty is concentrated.
To implement these strategies it was necessary to increase fiscal resources for public investment in two ways: appropriation of the profitability of land use or municipal land on the riverside through the creation of the Consortium San Fernando Marina Park Company (PNSFSA) and participation of the municipality in the surplus generated from municipal tax reform. (PNSFSA is a company created by the municipality of San Fernando to manage the riverside of the northwest sector of the city, defined as Marina Park.)
The experience of San Fernando is based on a set of management tools within an urban plan focused on the redistribution of income to build a more equitable city. Land is considered a key asset within a wider strategy of local development and, therefore, management relies on a broad mix of planning, administrative, economic, fiscal, and legal instruments aimed at strengthening the role of the public sector. The core axis of policies is the search for equity in the distribution of the costs and benefits of urbanization, within the challenging context of growing pressure on land throughout metropolitan Buenos Aires.
Land Lines: What could or should be changed in the educational system that trains urban planners and managers in Latin America?
Eduardo Reese: First, it is necessary to incorporate a greater understanding of the functioning of land markets in the present context of developing and shaping cities. Second, a more critical analysis is needed of adequate theoretical, methodological and technical instruments to undertake diagnosis and intervention in urban land issues. The 2004 course on Land Markets that I described earlier attempted to develop these kinds of materials to enable students to cover the different scales and dimensions of the problem.
Land Lines: What tensions exist between private and public interests in urban planning?
Eduardo Reese: This is a critical question because the whole history of urban land management has had a common thread: the rights of private ownership of land and the structure of ownership have always come into conflict with urban planning activity, which is a public responsibility. In that sense, there will always be tension between public and private interests in building the city.
In my view, urban projects in Latin America have the responsibility to contribute not only to the creation of new spaces for public use and enjoyment, employment generation and environmental sustainability, but also social inclusion, equity in the access to services and the redistribution of urban rents generated by the project. The four cases on Chile, Colombia, Brazil, and Argentina mentioned earlier show that these benefits are possible in many contexts.
However, instead many urban projects have been justified as necessary to attract investment and/or consumers and to ensure or reinforce the dynamic competitive advantages of the city. These undoubtedly positive goals are sometimes used as a mechanism to legitimize interventions that deepen the serious sociospatial segregation of cities. Such adverse effects of the market are not fatal to the city, but are the outcome of perverse political choices.
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Jay Espy joined the Elmina B. Sewall Foundation as its first executive director in January 2008. Based in Brunswick, Maine, the foundation focuses on the environment, animal welfare, and human well-being, primarily in Maine.
For the prior two decades, Espy served as president of Maine Coast Heritage Trust, a statewide land conservation organization. During his tenure, the Trust accelerated its land protection efforts along Maine’s entire coast by conserving more than 125,000 acres and establishing the Maine Land Trust Network, which helps build capacity of local land trusts throughout Maine. He also led the Trust’s successful Campaign for the Coast, raising more than $100 million for conservation and doubling the amount of protected land on Maine’s coast and islands.
Espy received his A.B. from Bowdoin College and master’s degrees in business and environmental studies from Yale’s School of Management and its School of Forestry and Environmental Studies. He serves on the board of the Maine Philanthropy Center and the Canadian Land Trust Alliance. He is a former chair of the Land Trust Alliance, a national organization serving land trusts throughout the United States. In October 2010 he was named the Kingsbury Browne Fellow for 2010–2011 through a joint program of the Land Trust Alliance and the Lincoln Institute.
Land Lines: How did you first become involved in the field of land conservation?
Jay Espy: Early in my senior year at Bowdoin College a wonderful placement counselor pointed out that some real-world experience might be useful in helping me secure gainful employment. I landed an internship documenting seabirds in Maine’s Casco Bay as part of an oil spill contingency planning project. This experience kindled an intense passion for the Maine coast and set the stage for my professional career. Following a stint working for an environmental consulting firm, graduate study in business, forestry, and environmental science at Yale, and several more internships, I was thrilled to accept an entry-level job at Maine Coast Heritage Trust (MCHT) in Topsham. At the time MCHT was a small statewide land trust and a great “school of hard knocks” for an aspiring 20-something conservationist with virtually no credentials.
Land Lines: What are some of the most significant land conservation projects in which you have been involved?
Jay Espy: In the late 1980s a 12,000-acre parcel of coastal land in far Down East Maine near the Canadian border was put up for sale by a major corporation divesting all of its timberland holdings in the northeastern United States and Maritime Canada. This was the largest remaining undeveloped block of coastal land in Maine, and one of the largest anywhere on the eastern seaboard. MCHT had never before faced such an exciting or daunting challenge.
In partnership with the State of Maine, The Conservation Fund, and the Richard King Mellon Foundation, MCHT led an effort to acquire the property and to work with local and state officials on a plan to conserve the land while incorporating appropriate working forest management, recreational trail development, and affordable housing in the Town of Cutler. Although we didn’t know it at the time, we were doing “community conservation” by engaging a wide range of constituents with varying interests. This project also put MCHT in the business of landscape-scale conservation. Dozens of projects have since been completed in that region, known as Maine’s Bold Coast. More than 20 miles of breathtaking shoreline are now accessible to the public and provide economic opportunities for the community.
I feel privileged to have helped protect many other lands, both large and small. Marshall Island, a 1,000-acre gem 15 miles offshore from the Blue Hill peninsula, was once slated for major development, but now has an extensive coastal trail system developed by MCHT. Aldermere Farm in Camden and Rockport is an iconic saltwater farm. Albert Chatfield began raising Belted Galloway cattle here in the 1950s, and the farm has been home to an award-winning breeding herd ever since. Following donation of the property in 1999, MCHT has greatly expanded farm programs for local youth and the community in general and protected additional nearby lands that are being used to support the growing local food movement.
Land Lines: When did you become aware of the Lincoln Institute’s work in land conservation, and how have you been involved in our programs?
Jay Espy: The timing of my entry into the conservation field was most fortuitous. Within months of joining MCHT, I was invited to a gathering of conservation professionals at the Lincoln Institute, co-hosted by the Land Trust Alliance (then known as the Land Trust Exchange). I had previously met Kingsbury Browne very briefly at a conference in Washington, DC, but at that gathering I had the chance to spend a full day with him and some of the other revered leaders of the modern land conservation movement.
Over the course of many years, the Lincoln Institute became a “watering hole” for conservationists, many of them originally assembled by Kingsbury, and they became valued mentors to me as I learned the trade. The Institute has continued to be a place where creative minds gather to innovate and where cutting-edge research and communication for the broader conservation community are encouraged. I am honored to be part of that legacy as a Kingsbury Browne Fellow.
Land Lines: What do you see as future trends in land conservation?
Jay Espy: The conservation field is growing, changing, and maturing in what I believe is a very healthy way. Not long ago many of us in the field thought land conservation was all about the land. I well remember early land trust brochures full of pictures of beautiful landscapes, but entirely devoid of people. Fortunately, that’s no longer true.
Today, most of us in the movement understand that land conservation is about land and people. It’s about how our communities benefit from healthy ecosystems; how outdoor recreational opportunities close to home combat youth inactivity and obesity; how protected farmland contributes to food security and the availability of nutritious local food; how outdoor spaces incorporating local arts and entertainment contribute to vibrant downtowns; how clean water, forestland, and a host of other sustainably managed natural resources support economic development and jobs; and how well-managed land allows each of us individually and collectively to live richer, fuller lives.
All across the country, the silos that have separated the work of conservation, public health, arts, education, hunger, housing, food production, and economic development are coming down. I’m encouraged by this trend. Our work today will only stand the test of time if it has direct and tangible benefit to people over many decades. Collaborative engagement of those with wide and varied interests seems an essential ingredient in any successful recipe for enduring conservation.
Land Lines: How can the challenges of funding conservation become opportunities?
Jay Espy: We do face many challenges on the funding front. Public funding from traditional federal and state government sources has been declining, private foundations have seen the corpus of their endowments erode, and individual donors have been understandably more conservative with their philanthropic investments as the markets have seesawed. As a result, fewer of the mega-scale land deals requiring tens of millions of dollars that we saw in the late 1990s and early 2000s are being launched today.
That said, there is still a great deal of very important conservation work being funded around the country. Public support for local conservation remains high, with most local bond initiatives continuing to pass by wide margins. Foundation and individual giving for conservation has not tanked as many feared. Funders remain supportive, but have become more discerning. Also, conservation projects that address multiple human interests and engage multiple partners appear to be attracting new, nontraditional sources of support. I recently spoke with a health funder who views securing more land for public recreation as a critical preventative healthcare measure. Funding for farmland conservation has also grown substantially in recent years, fueled in part by the explosive popularity of the local food movement.
Land Lines: Can you share some examples of innovative land conservation successes?
Jay Espy: In a remote area of eastern Maine, the Downeast Lakes Land Trust has been working for more than a decade to protect large swaths of forestland with extensive shore frontage near the community of Grand Lake Stream. These lands and waters have supported the timber and recreation-based economy for more than a century. With the decline in the paper and pulp industry, several large commercial timber holdings have been sold.
Rather than simply wait for the inevitable development of seasonal vacation homes and resulting loss in local culture, the community has worked in remarkable ways to acquire tens of thousands of acres and miles of shore land for use as a revenue-generating forest, wildlife preserve, and remote recreational areas. Local business owners, fishing and hunting guides, representatives from state and federal agencies, members of the Passamaquoddy Indian Tribe, and elected officials from the local to the national levels have all joined forces with the land trust to acquire these properties and manage them for sustainable timber revenue, as well as for other traditional uses, including hunting, fishing, camping, and paddling.
In the central Maine town of Skowhegan, an enterprising young woman has acquired an old county jail, which she is converting into a grain mill. Once operational, the mill will process approximately 600 tons of grain annually, an amount requiring roughly 600 acres of farmland cultivated in grain crops. This area of Maine was once a thriving wheat-growing region, and is purported to have supplied the Union troops with a substantial portion of their bread during the Civil War. Located in the heart of town, the parking lot of the old jail already serves as the site of a successful local farmers market. A commercial kitchen and several food and crafts business are co-locating in the jail, helping to create a “food hub.”
Skowhegan is the county seat of one of the most impoverished counties in Maine. Could the food hub start to change the fortunes of this region? Could a growing demand for grain stem the tide of farmland loss and result in more farmland acres being conserved and cultivated? Signs suggest the answer is to both questions is “yes.” I think what’s happening in Skowhegan is a wonderful example of the new face of conservation. It’s not yet readily recognizable, but I suspect we’ll get to know this community-based approach better in the years ahead.
Land Lines: What are your expectations about the role of conservation in the current volatile economy?
Jay Espy: I’m quite optimistic because adversity has a way of bringing people together. With less, we’re learning how to work collectively to do more. As more people participate in conservation, develop relationships with and around land, and experience the positive impact those relationships bring to their lives, I’m convinced we will see even more widespread, meaningful, and durable conservation achievements. Land, people, and community are all deeply intertwined. Ironically, these trying times may be accelerating the inevitable transformation of conservation into an endeavor that benefits even more people and more aspects of community life.
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Por cada nota periodística sobre turismo que muestra el paraíso caribeño de Barbados, con sus aguas tranquilas besando las playas de fina arena, hay también una noticia inquietante sobre un huracán en ciernes. Las Antillas Menores, un archipiélago de islas pequeñas que forman una media luna en el este del Mar Caribe, han sido siempre particularmente vulnerables, inmersas en las volubles aguas del Océano Atlántico. En 1776, el huracán Pointe-à-Pitre azotó la colonia francesa de Guadalupe y mató a 6.000 personas, resultando ser la tormenta atlántica más mortífera de la historia hasta ese momento. Cuatro años más tarde, el Gran Huracán de 1780 golpeó con más fuerza aún, tocando tierra en Barbados y después haciendo estragos en las islas vecinas, matando a casi 20.000 personas y destruyendo las flotas de Gran Bretaña y Francia en el punto álgido de la Revolución Norteamericana. Dos siglos y docenas de tormentas más tarde, el Huracán Iván, si bien no tan mortífero, devastó Granada en 2004, dejando su parlamento en ruinas y dañando el 85 por ciento de las estructuras de la isla.
En décadas recientes, los cambios climáticos han intensificado las amenazas para la región. Las estrategias empleadas en los EE.UU. cuando el Huracán Katrina o la Supertormenta Sandy no son particularmente relevantes para estas islas frágiles pero dinámicas de las Antillas Menores, desde Puerto Rico en el norte a Trinidad y Tobago en el sur. Con economías dependientes del turismo y una cantidad extremadamente limitada de suelos desarrollables, particularmente en las islas montañosas, este popurrí de países independientes, territorios dependientes y colonias extranjeras comparte un desafío común en el uso de su suelo: cómo manejar los patrones de desarrollo inmobiliario orientados a la costa y al mismo tiempo controlar la amenaza creciente del ascenso del nivel del mar.
Hay una isla en la región que sobresale por su capacidad excepcional para reconocer y prepararse para la crecida de la marea: Barbados, una isla con forma de pera, se ha convertido en un líder del Caribe en gestión integrada de la zona costera, la práctica contemporánea de integración de sectores, niveles de gobierno y disciplinas para administrar la zona costera, tanto en el agua como en tierra firme. El uso de suelos costeros y la gestión medioambiental son siempre temas contenciosos en una pequeña isla. Pero, como señaló una vez el exSecretario General de la ONU, Kofi Annan, en analogía con el boxeo: “Barbados golpea con mucha más fuerza de lo que corresponde a su peso”. A casi 50 años de su independencia, este país isleño ha utilizado una combinación de previsión, respaldo internacional y capacidad local para desarrollar instituciones de planificación y prepararse para un futuro incierto.
Del azúcar a los amantes del sol
Hoy en día, Barbados es famoso como destino turístico internacional de alto nivel, con sus playas de característica arena blanca, agua cálida de color aguamarina y sol abundante a lo largo de sus 100 kilómetros de costa. Casi 300.000 personas viven en esta isla de 430 kilómetros cuadrados; el 44 por ciento de la población vive en zonas urbanas, centradas en Bridgetown, y a lo largo de las costas desarrolladas del sur y el oeste. Con un PIB per cápita de US$23.600 y alfabetismo casi universal, Barbados está en el puesto 38 del mundo, y primero del Caribe, según el Índice de Desarrollo Humano de 2013 del Programa de Desarrollo de las Naciones Unidas. Sobre la base de su arena y oleaje, el 80 por ciento de US$4.400 millones de PIB de Barbados proviene del turismo y las industrias de servicios.
Pero esta evolución ha sido reciente, y forma parte de un patrón similar de desarrollo en todo el Caribe, consecuencia de los movimientos independentistas y la llegada de la aviación comercial. Originalmente habitada por una población nativa amerindia, por primera vez en 1627 se asentaron en Barbados los ingleses, quienes rápidamente la convirtieron en uno de los productores principales de azúcar del mundo. La historia colonial de Barbados es inusual para la región; a diferencia de muchas otras islas del Caribe, colonizadas por múltiples potencias europeas, Barbados permaneció bajo bandera británica hasta su independencia en 1966, adoptando el seudónimo de “Pequeña Inglaterra”.
La economía colonial fue un modelo clásico de comercio para enriquecer a la metrópolis. Los ingleses importaron esclavos africanos para trabajar en las plantaciones de caña de azúcar, refinerías de melaza y destilerías de ron. Como resultado, el 90 por ciento de la población actual de Barbados es de ascendencia africana. Después de la independencia, la cosecha de azúcar, ya empobrecida, que sufría las fluctuaciones comunes de todo monocultivo, se hizo aún menos confiable a medida que la presión para liberalizar el comercio llevó al Reino Unido y más tarde a la Unión Europea a ir reduciendo lentamente los subsidios y precios preferenciales.
Al mismo tiempo, Barbados invirtió con fuerza en sus servicios de turismo, lo cual modificó el foco de su desarrollo. Históricamente, la isla fue en su mayor parte rural, con plantaciones de caña de azúcar en el interior del país, que también era el lugar donde vivían los esclavos y más adelante los aparceros itinerantes que cargaban con casas móviles de madera tipo “chattel”, la arquitectura vernácula de Barbados. En la costa se encuentra Bridgetown, el puerto principal, donde un río navegable desemboca en el mar, y otros pueblos más pequeños y villas de pescadores. Un puerto de aguas profundas excavado en 1961 también sentó las bases para la llegada de cruceros. El número creciente de turistas necesitaba de hoteles, balnearios, restaurantes, tiendas y bares, todos a escasos metros del mar. Este impulso llevó al desarrollo de franjas costeras, entre el aeropuerto y Bridgetown, en la costa sur y a lo largo de la costa oeste, donde las aguas son más calmas y se encuentran los encantadores poblados de Holetown y Speightstown. Para la década de 1990, el Aeropuerto Internacional Grantley Adams de Barbados recibía vuelos regulares de British Airways desde Londres en uno de los pocos jets Concorde supersónicos existentes.
La respuesta local a la crecida de las aguas
Ubicada un poco al este del arco principal de las otras islas del este del Caribe, fuera del cinturón de huracanes del Atlántico, Barbados tiene una ventaja meteorológica. Si bien sigue siendo susceptible a grandes tormentas, experimenta muchos menos huracanes que sus vecinos del noroeste. Sin embargo, cualquier amenaza a las playas y corales que rodean Barbados podría tener consecuencias devastadoras, dada la dependencia económica de la isla de su costa. Su bienestar se ve amenazado por el lento aumento del nivel del mar, asociado a las posibles mareas tormentosas si la isla sufriera incluso sólo tangencialmente un huracán importante. El Grupo Intergubernamental de Expertos sobre el Cambio Climático (IPCC) tiene pruebas concluyentes de que tras un período de varios siglos con casi ningún cambio, se ha producido un aumento en el nivel mundial del mar en el siglo XX, y que esta tendencia se está acelerando en el siglo XXI. En agosto, el IPCC dijo que los niveles del mar podrían crecer más de un metro para el año 2100.
Los pequeños países-isla, que nunca han contribuido significativamente a las emisiones de carbono, sufren un impacto desproporcionado debido al cambio climático mundial producido por la industrialización moderna en el resto del mundo. Los cambios en los patrones climáticos han producido una gran cantidad de tormentas importantes, un aumento de las temperaturas mundiales, y el derretimiento de los hielos polares, contribuyendo al aumento en el nivel del mar. Mientras que los países industrializados más grandes, como los Estados Unidos, China y los países de Europa Occidental, también han sido afectados por el aumento en el nivel del mar, la proporción vulnerable de estos países es minúscula en comparación con las áreas susceptibles de Barbados. La incapacidad del mundo desarrollado para comprender el impacto y las consecuencias de su comportamiento, como lo demuestra la inacción política en temas como los acuerdos de intercambio de créditos de carbono (cap-and-trade), ha forzado a los países en vías de desarrollo a actuar ahora o confrontar un futuro lleno de peligros.
Paradójicamente, el historial imperial de Barbados —con frecuencia una carga en los países poscoloniales— ha sido una ventaja, ya que la isla tiene una historia prolongada e ininterrumpida de planificación urbana y rural al estilo británico. Como el Reino Unido, Barbados está dividida administrativamente en parroquias, y las leyes modernas de desarrollo se basan en la Ley de Planificación Urbana y Rural (Town and Country Planning Act) de Gran Bretaña de 1947. Cuando declaró su independencia, Barbados estableció su propio plan maestro con la Orden de Desarrollo de Planificación Urbana y Rural de 1972. En la actualidad, toda la construcción en la isla es supervisada por la Oficina de Planificación de Desarrollo Urbano y Rural (Town and Country Development Planning Office, o TCDPO), y el jefe de planificación urbana reporta directamente al primer ministro.
El desarrollo inmobiliario de la isla está guiado por el Plan de Desarrollo Físico de 1988. Desde la enmienda al documento de 2003, se ha producido un giro hacia el desarrollo sostenible, no solo como lema, sino como una visión integral del gobierno de la isla. En un discurso dado en una conferencia en 2008, el anterior primer ministro, David Thompson, reseñó algunas de las ideas centrales del plan: proteger los recursos naturales, agrícolas y culturales; promover los centros y corredores de uso mixto para alentar una economía diversificada, mantener el centro de Bridgetown como eje financiero y comercial; y estimular el turismo modernizando las viejas propiedades costeras y desarrollando nuevos emprendimientos. El primer ministro actual, Freundel Stuart, ha continuado con este empuje de sostenibilidad, tal como lo demuestra su participación en paneles de alto nivel en la Conferencia de Desarrollo Sostenible Rio+20 de las Naciones Unidas el año pasado.
Hacia finales de la década de 1970, los dueños de propiedades individuales comenzaron a notar que la erosión costera afectaba sus terrenos. Los medios de comunicación comenzaron a insistir en este tema, de forma concurrente con el impulso del turismo, que se estaba convirtiendo rápidamente en la fuente principal de reservas de divisas extranjeras. Motivado por esta erosión costera —pero también preocupado por eventos catastróficos como huracanes, terremotos, marejadas, erupciones volcánicas y derrames de petróleo— el gobierno de Barbados inició un estudio de diagnóstico de factibilidad en 1981, con financiamiento del Banco Interamericano de Desarrollo (BID), como parte de su Programa de Conservación Costera. El estudio se centró en las costas oeste y sur, ya que estas áreas de la isla tenían el mayor potencial para la infraestructura turística. Al mismo tiempo, el gobierno estableció temporalmente una Unidad de Proyecto de Conservación Costera (Coastal Conservation Project Unit, o CCPU), que super-visó el estudio de factibilidad y llegó a una serie de conclusiones sobre las causas de la erosión costera y el daño a las propiedades de la costa. Por ejemplo, como la calidad del agua en el interior de Barbados era mala, su escurrimiento contaminaba el mar y dañaba los arrecifes de coral. Ciertos fenómenos naturales, como las marejadas provocadas por tormentas y los huracanes erráticos ocasionales, también causaban erosión. A su vez, las estructuras de defensa marina existentes habían sido diseñadas de forma deficiente. El estudio del BID sugirió que la CCPU siguiera vigilando las líneas de la costa, brindara asesoramiento al público sobre temas costeros y actuara de consultora de la TCDPO en cuestiones de desarrollo de la costa.
El nacimiento de la Unidad de Gestión de la Zona Costera
La Unidad de Proyecto de Conservación Costera continuó con su mandato por una década, y el gobierno de Barbados, con financiamiento adicional del BID, se embarcó en otro estudio, que recomendó el establecimiento de una unidad permanente para vigilar la zona costera. La Unidad de Gestión de la Zona Costera (Coastal Zone Management Unit, o CZMU) fue creada en 1996 para regular, hacer recomendaciones y educar a la población de Barbados sobre la gestión costera. La CZMU, que sigue recibiendo una gran parte de su financiamiento del BID, se aloja actualmente en el Ministerio de Medio Ambiente, Recursos Hídricos y Drenaje. Como lo sugiere su título, la CZMU gestiona la zona costera, definida como “la zona de transición donde el suelo se une con el agua, la región influenciada de forma directa por los procesos hidrodinámicos marinos, extendiéndose mar adentro hasta la barrera de la plataforma continental, y mar afuera hasta el primer cambio importante de topografía por encima del alcance del oleaje de tormentas importantes”. Por lo tanto, la unidad supervisa los arrecifes de coral alrededor de Bar-bados y todos los proyectos de ingeniería costera, y funciona como asesor de la TCDPO para el desarrollo costero en tierra firme.
La relación entre la CZMU y la TCDPO está marcada por temas del uso del suelo. Cuando la TCDPO recibe una solicitud para desarrollar la zona costera, se la envía automáticamente a la CZMU para su revisión y comentario. Como la industria turística se concentra principalmente en la zona costera de la isla, gran parte de las solicitudes de desarrollo inmobiliario de Barbados pasan por las manos del CZMU. La unidad inspecciona la solicitud para verificar que los retrocesos son correctos: 30 metros de la cota máxima de agua para los emprendimientos a lo largo de la costa, y 10 metros para aquellos a lo largo de los acantilados, medidos tierra adentro de la cota. Además de verificar los retrocesos, la CZMU analiza los requisitos de drenaje, zonas de amortiguamiento, restricciones de cercas y otras reglamentaciones. La CZMU luego hace recomendaciones a la TCDPO sobre la solicitud.
La Directora en Ejercicio de la CZMU, la Dra. Lorna Inniss, que tiene un PhD. en Oceanografía por la Universidad Estatal de Luisiana, alaba este proceso: “Nuestra colaboración interministerial es extremadamente cercana. Tenemos la capacidad para establecer y mejorar la estructura gubernamental que es inclusiva y consultiva por naturaleza”. El proceso gubernamental es admirable por su cooperación y tendencia a derribar silos; desafortunadamente, las recomendaciones de la CZMU son puramente consultivas y no tienen el poder vinculante necesario para que la TCDPO pueda obligar su cumplimiento. Las reglamentaciones de la zona costera no son retroactivas a las incontables propiedades construidas durante el boom del desarrollo de balnearios, y las sanciones para aquellos que las violan siguen siendo muy bajas. Este proceso es lo más cerca que llega Barbados a la evaluación de impacto medioambiental formalizada del modelo de los EE.UU., pero es un primer paso importante para el Caribe. La CZMU y la TCDPO han tenido más éxito al planificar el desarrollo futuro de bajo impacto a lo largo de la costa este más montañosa, por ejemplo, donde el Plan de Desarrollo Físico contempla la creación de un parque nacional.
La CZMU es más efectiva cuando implementa proyectos de ingeniería costera para proteger la línea de la costa y frenar la erosión de las playas. La técnica de conservación más natural es restaurar las dunas y manglares. La plantación de vegetación en las áreas costeras permite la formación natural de dunas y evita las inundaciones debido a marejadas de tormenta, mientras que los manglares absorben la acción de las olas. La alimentación artificial de la playa es una solución rápida y popular, pero es un arreglo caro y poco efectivo, ya que las corrientes y tormentas pueden erosionar fácilmente las playas rellenadas artificialmente.
La CZMU introduce también salvaguardas en la costa con varias intervenciones físicas, como rompeolas, espigones y malecones. Los rompeolas son estructuras de hormigón, enterradas cerca de la playa, que obligan a las olas a romper más lejos de la costa, para que no golpeen directamente sobre la arena. Los espigones son estructuras de roca que penetran en el mar para inmovilizar los sedimentos. Los malecones son el tipo más grande de inter-vención de la CZMU. Diseñados para proteger las áreas más pobladas, estos proyectos de construcción consisten en rocas grandes dispuestas en forma de escollera o una muralla de contención plana de hormigón que puede crear un espacio público atractivo tanto para turistas como residentes, como el Paseo Richard Haynes, financiado parcialmente por un préstamo del BID. Como estas técnicas pueden exacerbar a veces la erosión y requerir un mantenimiento más caro que las intervenciones naturales, su eficacia a largo plazo es discutida, pero en el corto plazo protegen la línea de la costa y la industria turística.
Dada la vulnerabilidad de la isla a las tormentas, los proyectos de ingeniería pueden ser costosos. Inniss, sin embargo, explica: “Tenemos una política de consulta rigurosa a las partes interesadas, y no es simplemente una formalidad. Nuestra temporada alta es de noviembre a abril; en un proyecto reciente en Holetown, los comerciantes nos dijeron que era fundamental que el trabajo se completara antes de noviembre, así que nos apuramos para hacerlo. Cuando hay un espíritu de cooperación mutua, podemos obtener el apoyo del sector privado”. Con un poco de suerte, la CZMU podrá utilizar el capital político obtenido del sector privado en este tipo de proyectos, para conseguir que las reglamentaciones más estrictas sean vinculantes en el futuro.
Para poder obtener apoyo, la CZMU ha lanzado una campaña de gran envergadura para educar a la población de la isla, que a juicio de Inniss es la razón por la cual la CZMU es exitosa, tanto interna como externamente. “Comienza con un alto nivel nacional de educación y alfabetismo — más del 98 por ciento desde hace décadas”. El exsenador Henry Fraser concuerda con ella: “La gente pregunta por qué las cosas funcionan en Barbados. Principalmente se debe al énfasis puesto en educación desde que nos emancipamos. Y porque es un lugar pequeño y muy religioso, en el que la gente vive cerca, con respeto, tolerancia y una ética de trabajo mayor que en otros lados».
Para profundizar la base educativa del enfoque cooperativo de Barbados sobre la gestión de las zonas costeras, la CZMU distribuye un boletín, mantiene una fuerte presencia en los medios sociales, y produce un programa de televisión educativo que explica la historia geológica de la isla y técnicas para aumentar el nivel de conciencia sobre el aumento del nivel del mar y la importancia de la gestión costera. También patrocina muchas actividades, como el Día Internacional de Limpieza de la Costa, las Caminatas en la Playa a la Puesta del Sol, la Serie de Seminarios de Verano y un programa de residencia de verano para estudiantes del nivel secundario y terciario. También da conferencias para escuelas e instituciones educativas, ONG, organizaciones privadas y el público en general.
Próximos pasos y cooperación global
El BID sigue brindando un respaldo importante a los esfuerzos de Barbados. La ayuda más reciente prestada por el banco de desarrollo al país incluye un préstamo de $30 millones de dólares a 25 años plazo para un Programa de Gestión y Evaluación de Riesgo Costero. Inniss se entusiasma con la confianza implícita en este respaldo financiero, ya que es una señal de que el gobierno cree que la CZMU puede ejecutar un proyecto que generará el valor suficiente como para devolver el dinero prestado. “Será una estrategia de gestión de zona costera integrada, moderna y superior, con la participación de una serie de partes interesadas: el turismo, destilerías de ron, empresas de electricidad, puertos recreativos, navegantes, pescadores comerciales, el puerto, los buzos”, detalla Inniss. “Los dirigentes clave han reconocido que la gestión de la zona costera es importante no solo como un programa medioambiental sino también para hacer crecer la economía de Barbados”. Esperamos que otros países del Caribe hayan tomado nota, puesto que la propia Inniss ha proporcionado asistencia técnica a St. Lucia, Trinidad y Tobago, y St. Vincent y las Granadinas, inspirada a su vez por el modelo de Nueva Zelanda, Hawái y la Administración de Pesca y Océanos de Canadá para implementar estándares internacionales.
Por supuesto, hay todavía lugar para mejorar. Si bien la CZMU trabaja de cerca con la TCPDO en la planificación del uso del suelo, con los parques nacionales marinos para vigilar los ecosistemas, y con los ingenieros civiles del Ministerio de Obras Públicas, la Unidad no está completamente integrada todavía con el Ministerio de Agricultura y Pesca. Por ejemplo, reconoce Inniss: “Sabemos científicamente que el escurrimiento agrícola es el mayor contribuyente a los contaminantes marinos”.
En efecto, en una isla pequeña, el suelo y el agua están intrínsecamente interconectados. Mientras Barbados está cumpliendo su parte en la batalla contra el cambio climático mundial —otro préstamo del BID firmado al mismo tiempo que el financiamiento de la gestión costera establecerá un Fondo de Energía Inteligente para reducir la dependencia de combustibles fósiles— no puede quedarse sentada a esperar que los países más grandes actúen. Mientras que otras islas pequeñas en vías de desarrollo en el Océano Índico y el Océano Pacífico están contemplando la posibilidad de reubicar su población a otros países dentro de algunas décadas, los habitantes de Barbados piensan quedarse y proteger su pequeña porción del Paraíso.
Sobre los autores
Gregory R. Scruggs fue consultor de la Asociación Americana de Planificación para América Latina y el Caribe desde 2010 a 2013. En la actualidad está estudiando una maestría en estudios regionales de América Latina y el Caribe en la Universidad de Columbia. Contacto: gscruggs.apa.consult@gmail.com.
Thomas E. Bassett, asistente senior de programa en la Asociación Americana de Planificación–(APA), trabaja con una beca de la Asociación de Energía y Clima de las Américas para el Departamento de Estado de los EE.UU, así como también a nivel nacional en el Programa de Ayuda a la Comunidad. Contacto: thomas.e.bassett@gmail.com.
Recursos
Bassett, Thomas E. and Gregory R. Scruggs. 2013. Water, Water Everywhere: Sea level Rise and Land Use Planning in Barbados, Trinidad and Tobago, Guyana, and Pará. Lincoln Institute of Land Policy Working Paper WP13TB1. https://www.lincolninst.edu/pubs/dl/2282_1621_Bassett_WP13TB1.pdf.
Belle, N. and B. Bramwell. 2005. Climate change and small island tourism: Policy maker and industry perspectives in Barbados. Journal of Travel Research 44: 32–41.
Dharmartne, G. and A. Brathwaite. 1998. Economic valuation of coastline for tourism in Barbados. Journal of Travel Research 37: 138–144.
Inter-American Development Bank. 2010. Indicators of disaster risk and risk management, Program for Latin America and the Caribbean, Barbados. September. Accessed July 9, 2012. http://idbdocs.iadb.org/wsdocs/getdocument.aspx?docnum=35160015.
Phillips, M. R. and A. L. Jones. 2006. Erosion and tourism infrastructure in the coastal zone: Problems, consequences, and management. Tourism Management 27: 517–52.
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Growing the International Land Conservation Network
Laura Johnson is an attorney and lifelong conservationist with more than 30 years of experience in nonprofit management. She is currently director of the new International Land Conservation Network (ILCN), a visiting fellow at the Lincoln Institute of Land Policy, and chair of the Land Trust Alliance board of directors.
Laura was the president of Mass Audubon from 1999 to 2012. Prior, she worked for 16 years at The Nature Conservancy as a lawyer, Massachusetts state director, and vice president of the northeast region.
Laura received a B.A. in history from Harvard University and a J.D. from New York University Law School. From 2013 to 2014, she was a Bullard Fellow at the Harvard Forest, Harvard University, where she completed a study on private land conservation efforts around the world.
LAND LINES: Your program, the International Land Conservation Network (ILCN), is new this year, but it has some antecedents at the Lincoln Institute. Can you tell us about that history?
LAURA JOHNSON: There are some wonderful connections between the new network and the Lincoln Institute’s past support of the innovative, capacity-building effort devoted to conservation that eventually became the Land Trust Alliance.
In the early 1980s, Kingsbury Browne, a prominent Boston lawyer, decided to take some time away from his law firm, and he used a sabbatical at the Lincoln Institute to explore the needs and opportunities of private land trusts in the United States. Up until that point, there was no nationwide effort to seek out the best examples of land protection activities, to share those ideas and best practices, or even to keep track of what was happening in land conservation around the country. Kingsbury Browne’s study led him, along with several other land trust leaders at the time, to start a new organization called the Land Trust Exchange, which connected the country’s small but growing conservation community through a newsletter and some basic research and training activities. The Lincoln Institute played a crucial role in helping to launch the Exchange, which grew over the years and changed its name to become the Washington, DC–based Land Trust Alliance. There were fewer than 400 U.S. land trusts in 1982 when the Exchange got started; now the Land Trust Alliance serves 1,200 land trusts all over the United States. The Exchange started out with a modest newsletter in the 1980s; now the Alliance provides an online learning center, a full conservation and risk management curriculum, and more than 100 webinars and 300 workshops that served close to 2,000 people in 2014.
LL: Throughout most of your career, you have been deeply engaged in U.S.-based land conservation work. What attracted you to expand your efforts on an international scale?
LJ: When I stepped down from the presidency of Mass Audubon two years ago, I began talking with Jim Levitt, a fellow at the Lincoln Institute, the director of the Program on Conservation Innovation at the Harvard Forest, and a former Mass Audubon board member. It was initially his idea that I explore how conservationists outside the United States were using and adapting conservation tools that had been developed over the years here. Jim had become very involved in private conservation efforts in Chile, and there was an opportunity to strengthen the very new movement there by sharing U.S.-based measures such as conservation easements. At about the same time, Peter Stein received the Kingsbury Browne fellowship and award from the Land Trust Alliance and the Lincoln Institute, which allowed him to explore the breadth of worldwide conservation organizations as well. Through our different projects, Jim, Peter, and I came to the similar conclusion that many people around the globe shared a strong interest in connecting to each other and to U.S. conservationists. This desire for a community of practice seemed like a remarkable opportunity to help build capacity for privately protecting land.
LL: Why is this role the right challenge at the right time for you?
LJ: I have had the incredible good fortune to work with some great organizations and wonderfully talented people. As a young lawyer just starting out at The Nature Conservancy in the 1980s, I was able to grow professionally at a pivotal time for conservation in the United States. Looking at the historic trend lines, the U.S. land conservation movement took off then, and it was very exciting to be a part of that growth. Then when I went to Mass Audubon in 1999, I was able to run the nation’s largest independent state Audubon organization, which provided leadership not just with land conservation, but with environmental education and public policy as well. Now, I have the honor of serving on the board of the Land Trust Alliance, which does such remarkable work here in the United States to enable effective land and resource protection. Along the way, my legal training was certainly useful, but I have also learned a tremendous amount about what makes organizations successful and likely to have a positive impact. I feel very fortunate to have this background and set of experiences, and I want to bring it to bear on the issues facing the international land conservation community.
LL: You’ve mentioned capacity building and creating successful organizations a few times. Can you comment on what that means in the context of land conservation?
LJ: Land conservation organizations need all the elements of any sound nonprofit organization—a clear mission, a compelling vision and strategy, disciplined planning and clear goals, sufficient financial resources, and great people. But working on land protection requires a very long-term outlook. To start with, a land trust needs to have the knowledge and resources to assess what land should be protected—whether the mission is to conserve natural resources or scenic, cultural, or historic values—and what legal and financial tools are best suited to achieving a good outcome. Then it can take years of working with a landowner to get to a point where everyone is ready to agree on a deal. Land trusts need to have people with the training, knowledge, and experience to carry out transactions that are legally, financially, and ethically sound. Once land is protected by a trust, that organization is making a commitment to manage the land it owns or has restrictions on forever. Museums are a good analogy, but instead of Rembrandts and Picassos, land conservation organizations are stewards of invaluable living resources, and the land and water we all depend on to survive.
LL: Why is private land conservation particularly important now? Why do we need an international network?
LJ: We are at a critical juncture as the pressures of climate change, land conversion, and shrinking government resources are making it more challenging than ever to protect land and water for the public benefit. Therefore the mission statement of the new International Land Conservation Network emphasizes connecting organizations and people around the world that are accelerating voluntary private action that protects and stewards land and water resources. Our premise is that building capacity and empowering voluntary private land conservation will strengthen the global land conservation movement and lead to more long-lasting and effective resource protection.
Support for better coordination of international private land conservation is emerging from many sources. For example, the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN) considered the role of private land conservation in the context of global efforts at its November 2014 World Parks Congress held in Sydney, Australia. The Futures of Privately Protected Areas, an IUCN-commissioned report released at that conference, provided a number of recommendations, such as developing relevant training and improving knowledge sharing and information, which are certainly important goals for the new network. We expect to work in collaboration with partners such as the IUCN, and with the existing regional or countrywide networks that are already in existence. And of course we have the very powerful example of the Land Trust Alliance and what it has been able to accomplish over 30 years to build the capacity of land trusts in the United States.
LL: What will you try to accomplish in the first year to address these needs?
LJ: We’ve had to get ourselves organized and deal with basic issues such as our name, visual identity, mission statement, goals, and governance structure. We will be designing and launching a website to serve as the essential repository of case studies, research, best practices, events, and conferences. Eventually, we want to have a continuum of learning available on the website through tools like webinars that address a range of subjects, from legal instruments to organizational best practices. We also want to carry out a census of existing networks and active organizations, to start building a baseline of knowledge about private land protection that will help measure progress over time.
LL: What are the greatest challenges to starting the network?
LJ: There are many. Money is a big one, of course. We’ve received a generous start-up grant from the Packard Foundation, and we have great support from the Lincoln Institute. But we are working hard to identify additional sources of funding, in order to grow the network and increase its impact. And of course we are still proving that the network will provide useful, important, and actionable information and training to meet a tremendous variety of needs within the international land conservation community. We know that we can’t do everything, so we must be strategic and choose activities that will have impact. The global scale also presents a host of cultural and logistical challenges, requiring us to navigate different legal systems, languages, customs, and, last but not least, time zones.
On the positive side, we already have a very committed group of land conservation practitioners who came together at our organizing meeting in September 2014 and enthusiastically signed on to be the “sweat equity”—to provide the network with knowledge, expertise, experience, and wise counsel. It’s already very clear to me that this is a wonderful group of colleagues who are doing interesting and important work around the globe. It will be an adventure—and I know I’ll learn a lot—to grow this new network together.
