After a two month haitus, Perusing has finally returned, with big news to report. The following bi-weekly reoport has details:
Dan Root
INDEV 402 Bi-weekly Report
January 28th, 2013
These past two weeks have resulted
in major changes for the future of my time here in Peru. As I mentioned in previous reports, my
project, Caminando con el Apu Pariacaca has
been plagued with funding issues for the past months. In spite of this, it had been assumed that
the temporarily suspended project would begin again in February. On the Wednesday following my last report,
however, I learned that further financial complications had arisen and the
project would not continue until March at the earliest. After a brief consultation with WUSC, who had
been monitoring my situation, it was decided that I would begin a second placement
with a different organization. Thanks to the support of the local WUSC staff, I
met with my new supervisor at Peru’s Ministry of Environment (MINAM) that
Friday.
While it was unfortunate that I had
to leave Caminando con el Apu Pariacaca before
I could carry to completion several of my allotted tasks, I am glad for the
chance to gain experience working toward sustainable development from a
different perspective. Having left the
manifest uncertainty of the not-for-profit world, I have now been given the
opportunity to learn from professionals in the relative security of the public
sphere of Peru’s political economy, a move that will allow me to experience
development work at both project (GEA) and policy (MINAM) levels.
I have spent my first week at MINAM
becoming acquainted with my new coworkers and tasks. I will be working in the Centro de Documentación Ambiental, (Environmental Information
Center), assisting with various programs that aim to gather and disseminate
disparate series of environmental information, particularly with the
established SINIA (National System of Environmental Information) and the
nascent RETC (Registry of Pollutant Emissions and Transfers). My first week with MINAM also corresponded
with the Ministry’s annual Feria de
Confraternidad, a get-to-know-you fair that allows Ministry employees and
the public to learn about the various projects, programs and policies being
developed by MINAM. It was an important
reminder of the numerous and varied development and sustainability challenges
currently facing Peru.
In our UW coursework, we have often discussed
the relationship between the environment and human well-being, focusing on the
difficult but necessary task of balancing these factors for long-term
sustainability. In Peru, these
challenges are becoming increasing evident as Peruvians continue to lift
themselves out of the poverty of the last decades, only to come face to face
with serious environmental and sustainability issues that threaten to undo overall
improvements to human development, (I’ve written previously about these issues,
which most notably include water scarcity, mining issues, and
deforestation). Fortunately, there seems
to be a growing awareness of the need to foster sustainable development
alternatives, as evidenced by the creation of MINAM in 2008, and by the
proliferation of NGOs (like Grupo GEA) that are working to promote sustainable
development throughout the country. Regardless of current economic and
ecological challenges, many of the Peruvians whom I have met remain optimistic
regarding the sustainability of their future.
This optimism may be warranted, given the fact that WWF Global rates Peru as the only
country in the world to currently reside within what they call the
sustainability “sweetspot”, given their relatively high HDI ranking, and low
national ecological footprint. Given
these facts, Peru is, in many ways, a microcosm of global challenges and
solutions to sustainable development. I
feel fortunate to be a part of the efforts to overcome Peru’s growing
environmental challenges and look forward to observing the ways that private,
government, and civil society actors will work to make Peru a global example
for sustainable development.
Thanks for reading,
Dan
