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Ecuador

Green

A Hot Day Melts It, But Global Warming Could Make Chocolate Vanish For Good

The devastating effects of rising temperatures include denying to people across the world their favorite staple sweet. While 2050 is the date cited for the risk of chocolate disappearing, there are efforts to reverse the effects of climate change on the production of cocoa.

MADRIDClimate change has devastating large-scale effects, including violent floods and intense heat waves, but it also has consequences for our mundane daily routines: that bar of chocolate you enjoy in the afternoon may become a luxury item by 2050. Experts predict we will see a drastic reduction in cocoa production as a result of an increasingly extreme climate.

Cocoa trees thrive under specific conditions: consistent temperatures, high humidity, abundant rainfall and protection from strong winds. These circumstances are only found in tropical rainforests, with the main producers in Côte d'Ivoire, Ghana, Ecuador and Indonesia.

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Indigenous Women Of Ecuador Set Example For Sustainable Agriculture

In southern Ecuador, a women-led agricultural program offers valuable lessons on sustainable farming methods, but also how to end violence.

SARAGURO — Here in this corner of southern Ecuador, life seems to be like a mandala — everything is cleverly used in this ancestral system of circular production. But the women of Saraguro had to fight and resist to make their way of life, protecting the local water and the seeds. When weaving, the women share and take care of each other, also weaving a sense of community.

With the wrinkled tips of her fingers, Mercedes Quizhpe, an indigenous woman from the Kichwa Saraguro people, washes one by one the freshly harvested vegetables from her garden. Standing on a small bench, with her hands plunged into the strong torrent of icy water and the bone-chilling early morning breeze, she checks that each one of her vegetables is ready for fair day. Her actions hold a life of historical resistance, one that prioritizes the care of life through the defense of territory and food sovereignty.

Mercedes' way of life is also one that holds many potential lessons for how to do agriculture and tourism better.

In the province of Loja, work begins before sunrise. At 5:00 a.m., the barking of dogs, the guardians of each house, starts. There is that characteristic smell of damp earth from the morning dew. Sheep bah uninterruptedly through the day. With all this life around, the crowing of early-rising roosters doesn't sound so lonely.

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Adiós Castillo: Why Latin America Is Ready To Close The Era Of "Cheap Populism"

The impeachment and arrest of Peru's Leftist president can be taken as perhaps a conclusive signal to the region that populism — from the Left and Right — may have run out of gas.

Modern populism, or "neo-populism," began in Peru with the election in 1990 of President Alberto Fujimori. The notorious arch-conservative leader, who smashed a Maoist rebellion, was a pioneer of the pseudo-arguments one hears to this day within the anti-political circles of populism. He wanted to forge a direct link with "the people" by simplified policy proposals, whipping up emotions and sidelining public institutions. He promised firm government and an end to corruption, only to turn into another violent and corrupt strongman.

Others of his type — in Venezuela, Colombia, Bolivia and Ecuador — sought to keep power with the help of favorable economic winds, but eventually (virtually) all fell in the same way, like dominos. And now, we've seen it again in Peru, with the ouster and arrest of former President Pedro Castillo.

It's worth recalling that in the first decade of this century, all South American countries of the Andean region were dominated by the populist phenomenon, whether from the Left or Right. Peru and Venezuela succumbed to blatant authoritarianism though Venezuela's Hugo Chávez was the only one to entirely subdue the country's institutions.

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In Brazil, A New Gambit In 5G Battle Between U.S. And China

A recent tender for Brazil's 5G network once again highlighted the growing rivalry between the two superpowers. Now, the Biden administration may even have a formula to free countries of their debt to Beijing.

-Analysis-

LIMA — Competition between countries to acquire and sell cutting-edge technologies could become an intractable feature of the economic rivalry pitting China against the United States. One crucial part of that conflict would be over the fifth generation of communication technologies — known as 5G, which allows information transfers 10 times faster than the current 4G.

We already have examples of how the Superpower rivalry could unfold in Latin America. The most notable case recently (for the size of the market concerned) was the tender put out for Brazil's 5G network. The process had to be postponed due to disagreements between the U.S. and Brazilian governments around a possible role here of the Chinese firm Huawei.

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Geopolitics
Diana Castro Salgado

Latin America Needs New Deal With China, For The Planet's Sake

Pummeled by the pandemic, the fragile economies of Latin America are desperate to recover. But is turning to China for loans and as a market for raw materials the best long-term solution?

-Analysis-

QUITO — The coronavirus pandemic has impacted humanity and all its forms of economic, social and political organization. This is not just a global health crisis, but the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression of the 1930s. And it's happening, furthermore, in one of the hottest years on record.

A year into the pandemic, Latin American countries are not just seeing more poverty, unemployment, insecurity, economic slowdowns and public spending gaps, but also some dire effects of climate change such as floods, droughts and deforestation, among others.

China is an important agent of this aggravated pollution, as its rapid growth over three decades has fueled demand for goods and services to meet its energy demands, provide food security and keep its industrial activity humming.

China's presence in Latin America has hastened environmental degradation.

China only has 7% of all arable lands and 6% of the world's water resources (ECLAC, 2017). Latin America, in contrast, has 24% of all forests and arable land, more than 30% of the world's water resources and extensive oil and mining resources (Isabel Studer, 2019).

Little wonder that China has had an increasingly marked presence in Latin America and the Caribbean, especially in the last decade. That presence has come about through four channels tied to the extraction of raw materials and related industries: trade (based on exchanging raw materials for manufactures), investments (concentrated on extractive sectors like oil, mining, coal and big farming), financing (mostly conditional on payment with oil or use of Chinese firms), and construction of mega-infrastructures (often in environmentally fragile and socially vulnerable territories).

All these activities have hastened environmental degradation through increased pollution and overuse of water resources, deforestation and expansion of farming lands, exhaustion of non-renewable resources, threats to the survival of local communities, and the renewed dependence of Latin American economies on primary or raw materials.

A part of Peru's Amazonian forest devastated by illegal gold mining — Photo : Olivier Donnars

In 2020, measures taken by world governments to curb the spread of COVID-19 gave the planet a breather as fuel use, movement and industrial activity, and their emissions, slowed down. The lull was temporary, however, as large economies like China's are now focused on recovering their pre-pandemic production levels.

Meanwhile, vulnerable Latin American economies trying to revive their economies and meet public spending needs are turning to China for loans, or to renegotiate existing ones. That has meant shelving criticism of environmental problems that have emerged in the pandemic. Examples include the balsa wood frenzy in Amazonian lands, fed by growing Chinese demand (Águilar, 2021), and the presence of Chinese fishing fleets with dragnets in the territorial waters of Chile, Peru, Ecuador and Argentina (GFW, 2020).

But this scenario is also an opportunity to consider the possibility of structural reforms so as to move on from the extractive and unsustainable model that governs Sino-Latin American relations. China's recovery and the renewed impulse given to the Belt and Road initiative will bring new financing packages, infrastructure projects and investments in coming years.

Regional countries are thus at a crossroads in their relations with China. They can keep extracting resources for China, which is the model that marks all aspects of their relations (trade, investment, loans and infracture) and incidentally curtails efforts to build inclusive and sustainable societies. Or they can revise the big economic and financial models that sustain their links and strive to reduce their climate footprints. At this juncture, when entire nations have clearly shown vulnerability to natural events, the second option seems more viable.

Protecting the environment means reflecting on areas like access to drinking water, electricity and food security.

The pandemic has also brought some big steps to defend the environment. In China's case, it made changes last year to its investment strategy with the publication of several, environmentally-minded financing and development guidelines. These include obligating all its banks to use classification mechanisms and filters for projects within the Belt and Road initiative. The aim is to make environmental sustainability a decision-taking criterion in financing projects, both in China and abroad (Sálazar, 2021).

We may add to these the rise of several civic and environmental groups in China that have opened a dialogue with banks and firms.

In Latin America, the Escazú Accord, which regulates people's right to access environmental information and seek environmental justice, recently entered into force as a long-awaited pact to fortify regional environmental governance. It is also an important framework for the development of ties with China.

There are also innovative proposals like debt exchange for natural habitats (biodiversity finance), which China, as one of the world's main creditors, can consider with Latin American states. They can provide it with attractive opportunities to assert itself in the fields of climate and environment, while relieving part of the debt burden weighing on regional states.

Protecting the environment has become essential, and it means reflecting on areas like access to drinking water, electricity and food security. These and other areas are key to assuring a sustainable economic recovery from the pandemic, in a world where more than half of all GDP depends on nature. (F4B, 2020).

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Economy
Mauricio Ríos García

How Dollarization Saved Ecuador's Economy

When Ecuador ditched its currency for the dollar in 2000, it deprived governments the possibility to overspend, and gave ordinary people control of their money.

-OpEd-

LA PAZ — This month marks 20 years since the most successful monetary policy in Ecuador's history: dollarization and the shutting down the Central Bank. While some still criticize the move, and the former president even tried to reverse it, the economic benefits of dollarization are clear. On this anniversary, it's worth looking more closely at what the move has meant for the country.

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Geopolitics
Roberto Pizarro

Uprising In Ecuador: Lenin Moreno And The Price Of Betrayal

Moreno is now reversing course on austerity measures that provoked nearly two weeks of mass protests. But it may be too little too late to salvage his reputation.

-OpEd-

SANTIAGO — A hike in fuel prices proved to be the straw that broke the camel's back in Ecuador. But the root of the problem is President Lenín Moreno's 180-degree shift to the right.

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Geopolitics
Alfonso Reece

The Many Misconceptions About 'Liberalism'

Partisans of political moderation are mistaken if they are looking for the ideals of the European liberal tradition in today's neoliberalism.

-OpEd-

QUITO — I see a growing, and disconcerting tendency to disparage "democracy" among people who declare themselves to be liberals, presumably followers of the European tradition of political moderation. Some even advocate for an authoritarian system and a strong-handed government as a means of imposing "liberalism," reduced here to its economic dimension, or the unfettered free market. They have no qualms about stating their approval of dictators and regimes that imposed liberal or deregulated economies. Among their favorites, one stands out: Chile's late military ruler, General Augusto Pinochet.

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Sources

UNESCO/OneShot Remember Slain Photojournalist Paúl Rivas

Paúl Rivas was a 45 year-old Ecuadorian photographer. He was kidnapped last April and later killed because of his investigations on drug-related border violence for Ecuadorian daily El Comercio.

On the occasion of the "International Day to End Impunity for Crimes against Journalists' and in partnership with UNESCO, OneShot helps keep his story alive.

Slain Photojournalist - UNESCO — © Paúl Rivas / OneShot

In the past twelve years, more than 1,050 journalists have been killed for reporting the news and bringing information to the public. The United Nations proclaimed November 2 as the "International Day to End Impunity for Crimes against Journalists," a date originally chosen to commemorate the 2013 assassination of two French journalists in Mali.

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blog
Bertrand Hauger

Ecuador's Point And Snout

Taking pictures at the vibrant marketplace in Otavalo, Ecuador required more than just pointing and shooting: I also had to avoid getting trodden on by one of the many, many pigs for sale.

Geopolitics
Giacomo Tognini

Cocaine In Galápagos? Cartels Use Ecuador As A Logistics Hub

QUITO — Stashes of cocaine kept in boats and dinghies in the remote Galápagos Islands. Dozens of operatives transporting narcotics on rivers across the border into Colombia. Over the past three years, powerful Mexican drug cartels have systematically moved supplies and operations into Ecuador.

According to Quito-based daily El Comercio, at least four Mexican cartels have operated relatively freely in this South American country, sandwiched between the Andes and the Pacific Ocean, for several years, developing it into a regional logistics hub.

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