Geoscience Reference
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sanitary conditions as a result of improving channels of information
and concern about health, the project also stimulated discussion of
environmental issues, like water quality and sewage disposal and
treatment (Baron and Barkin 2001).
An interesting development emerging from the work on 'lite' pork
was the discovery of the nutritional qualities of verdolaga (purslane in
English), rich in Omega-3, which could be valuable for feeding to hens
to produce “enriched” eggs. The plant can be readily incorporated
into the diet of laying hens, displacing the fatty omega-6 from the egg
yolks, to produce a product that will have less of an impact on the
cholesterol of consumers. This program is a logical follow-on to the hog
project in the central highlands, harnessing a concern for the integrity
of ecosystems in order to introduce a new activity that promises to
generate new sources of income for the participants.
These experiences offer a singular window on the development
process. Rather than concentrating on individuals and their capacities
to participate effectively in regional governance activities, the approach
implemented here joins the search for more productive activities with
strategies for increased collective capacities to implement programs
for the sustainable regional resource management. The communities
are becoming active promoters of community programs that increase
participation in productive diversifi cation. The signifi cant feature
of this process is the relationship between individual initiatives and
collective decisionmaking that sanctions and integrates the activities
into the collective strategy for regional progress.
2) Indigenous societies, pushed into the mountains by successive waves
of productive expansion by conquerors, now fi nd themselves heirs to
valuable resources in the headwaters of river basins, resources required
for urban-industrial development. Along with problems of global
climate change and other ecological phenomena, the lack of water
is becoming particularly serious, leading to a desperate search for
solutions to mitigate the crisis. Many recent proposals for 'sustainable
production', based on individual economic rationality and a liberal
development discourse, advance a 'modern' development strategy in
which corporations and governments alike do not go beyond a process
of 'green washing' corporate activity (Escobar 1995, Leff 1995, Utting
2002). The sustainability discourse frequently camoufl ages a capitalist
rationale and is mixed with a large measure of bio-colonialism, a
strategy in which indigenous and peasant communities in regions of
mega-diversity do not participate, except as ecological informants and
as objects to be rescued.
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