AMHERST – Continuing development in Trujillo, Peru, is causing myriad problems for its residents, with trash heaps piled alongside roads damaging the city’s natural beauty, and leading to unsanitary conditions.
“Trujillo is benefiting from, or suffering from, urbanization,” says Julie Marcus, founder and chief operating officer at New England Environmental Inc. in Amherst.
Marcus recently got to see, in person, some of the effects of inappropriate development in the South American city, and the challenges faced, including limited potable drinking water and many people lacking education.
As an environmental professional whose company hosted natives from Peru and Uruguay last May who were participating in a U.S. State Department-sponsored fellowship program, Marcus got to see, during an exchange that is part of the program, how action plans created by these fellows can improve the situation.
“A lot of the action plans are about organizing people to exercise their rights in a democracy,” Marcus said.
Tatiana Garcia Cam, an architect who teaches at a university in Trujillo, is using her experience as a fellow at the Northfield Mountain Recreation and Environmental Center to recruit students to El Porvenir, a district within Trujillo, where they are undertaking planning to ensure open space and beautiful parks replace the dumped garbage.
“Students were able to visit the district, had conversations with the neighbors and witnessed the conditions of the parks and its effects on society,” Garcia Cam said in an email. “They were required to design improvements for the parks, including recreation and community garden space.”
Hers was one of several action plans, based on sustainability and economic development, created following the professional fellowship exchange last year.
The exchange, paid for through a $493,250 grant from the U.S. Department of State’s Bureau for Educational and Cultural Affairs, and obtained by the Institute for Training and Development in Amherst, brought 32 individuals from Trujillo, all of Uruguay and the state of Chiapas, Mexico, to work alongside environmental organizations in the Pioneer Valley.
“The proposal was about bringing different stakeholders together to do hands-on partnerships,” said Mark Protti, executive director of the institute, which put together the proposal with Timothy Randhir, professor of environmental conservation at the University of Massachusetts.
The institute identified countries in the Western Hemisphere that could work with local environmental professionals. The selected representatives had to be under 40 and fluent in English. They spent a week in orientation before joining their hosts for three weeks. The exchange concluded with a week in Washington, where they participated in a Professional Fellows Congress with more than 200 other professionals from across the globe.
At New England Environmental, fellows spent three weeks last May getting to observe the work, including surveying wetlands and identifying risks to habitat.
“For our staff, it was refreshing to explain why this was important for others,” Marcus said.
Two fellows were hosted by the Pioneer Valley Planning Commission last fall.
“A big part of it was the mentoring,” said Catherine Ratte, a principal planner at the agency. “Part of their participation was learning from it.”
Ratte said she appreciated getting to see how their experience locally is now translating into on-the-ground projects in their home countries. “It was a chance for them to share their work,” Ratte said.
An environmental consultant from Uruguay, Federico Baraibar, assisted the regional planning commission in implementing a pay-as-you-throw program for Chicopee residents as that city’s landfill comes to the end of its life.
“He really enhanced our work for the city of Chicopee in that project,” Ratte said.
Baraibar said the focus of his action plan in Uruguay is to increase recycling rates.
“Everything is possible,” Baraibar said. “(You) need to believe in it and push enough with the right people to make things happen – and it’s not about money.”
Garcia Cam said the recent visits from the Americans served as an inspiration for leaders in Peru to learn about her work, including the governor of La Libertad and city officials in Trujillo.
“During their stay, we were introduced to several authorities that I believe otherwise wouldn’t have open(ed) their hearts in such a generous way,” Garcia Cam said.
Marcus and Ratte were accompanied by Marcus’ husband, Mickey, Clif Read, director of the Quabbin Visitors Center for the Department of Conservation and Recreation, and Kim Noyes, head of educational programs at Northfield Mountain Recreation and Environmental Center. During their time in the South American countries, they met with policymakers, gave lectures and were interviewed on local television stations.
But it was getting to see the action plans undertaken that demonstrated the time spent in the Pioneer Valley was paying off.
One project that stood out, Julie Marcus said, was an effort to save the reeds grown in wetlands near the coast of Trujillo, where a new port changed the Pacific Ocean currents. This is causing an extensive loss of beach and dealing a potentially devastating blow to a traditional industry that uses these reeds to build fishing boats.
“Basically, they don’t expect to build the boats anymore,” Marcus said.
“That area is threatened, so it’s exciting to see how they’re saving the reed,” Protti said.
In Montevideo, Uruguay, enforcement of environmental standards is lax, Ratte said, as shown in the wetlands in Santa Lucia that are being damaged by nonpoint source pollution.
“In Uruguay, that’s a big, pressing problem,” Ratte said. “They’re where we were in the 1970s.”
“The thing that struck me about it was the sprawl, which is what we have here, without population growth rate,” Ratte added.
Marcus said the environmental struggle in Uruguay is exacerbated by the contamination of drinking water by phosphorous and nitrogen, caused by the large population of cattle, with many people in Uruguay saying they live in a country with 12 million cows and 3 million people.
Other projects included better solid waste management for the villages near a sugar cane factory, and renewable energy at a corrugated cardboard factory.
Being back in the developing world, where she had previous lived, served as a reminder of what underregulation looks like, Marcus said, adding that she appreciates that these “friend-building activities” are being encouraged by the U.S. government.
“We just feel like this is such a great use of our federal outreach funds,” Marcus said.
Ratte said it’s an ongoing relationship that can be nurtured over time. “Personally, it rejuvenated me for environmental sustainability,” Ratte said.
The action plans by the fellows are given legitimacy because of the exchange program.
“Just the fact that they are participating in a U.S.-sponsored program adds attention and prestige to what they’re doing,” Protti said. “It allows them to do things they otherwise wouldn’t be able to do.”
Scott Merzbach can be reached at smerzbach@gazettenet.com.
