Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
among Ecuadorian NGOs, despite the fact that the employees of WCS
are Ecuadorian. Not all of the groups have done this. For example, in
The Nature Conservancy example cited above, TNC works with an
Ecuadorian organization to carry out the project.
A second criticism in the ecoimperialist vein comes from the indige-
nous groups that believe that foreign organizations are attempting to buy
land to control the water resources and to privatize reserves—literally
an imperialist objective. The Nature Conservancy is the main target of
this claim, though the land-purchase strategy of biodiversity protection
is one that TNC uses in North America, not in Ecuador. The national
coordinating body of Ecuadorian environmental groups does not allow
INGOs into its group.
Type 2: Ecodependent Organizations
These are Ecuadorian groups that are dependent on environmental goods
from abroad to carry out projects focused on biodiversity protection and
sustainable development. More than 50 percent of their budget comes
from other countries. These national-level groups have offi ces in the
capital and their focus is not on a narrow geographic area. Though their
budgets are well above average (of all environmental organizations in
the country) and they are able to maintain full-time staff, their budgets
vary over time, based on whether they have foreign contracts. An example
of an ecodependent organization is Fundación Jatun Sacha (FJS). FJS
works in cooperation with Conservation International to reforest biodi-
versity hotspots, one of Jatun Sacha's internal goals. Over the years, a
number of NGOs of this type have come and gone in boom-and-bust
fashion, as foreign development organizations initiated and then ended
large conservation programs. Many of these national groups started as
purely conservation organizations but have felt the need to add people
into the mix because that is what the foreign donors have added to their
portfolio of projects. In this way, they mirror the ecoimperialists: they
do not have environmental justice as a goal. At this point in time, a rela-
tively small number of groups dominate the national scene.
Organizations whose priorities are not conservation or sustainable
development complain that they have not been able to master “donor
speak” in such a way that they can complete for contracts with these
groups. The ecodependent organizations have well-established relation-
ships with their donor-partners and the donor-partners reinforce the
strength of these groups by funding them over time, which in turn, builds
reputations and begets more funds. For the most part, donors have not
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