Caffeine, Nicotine and
Indigenous Peoples' Rights
in the Copan Valley,
Honduras
© William Loker
Anthropology
CSU, Chico
Introduction
Goal of Research: Understand the
patterns and processes of environmental
change in the Copan Valley over the last
50 years.
Patterns: the actual, empirical changes in
environment that have occurred
Processes: the factors responsible for these
changes
Assumptions
• Agriculture is the activity most
responsible for environmental change in
the Valley because:
• Agriculture directly affects environment
through deforestation, species
replacement, use of inputs, etc.
• Agriculture is primary economic activity
in Valley
Agriculture, Environment,
Society
• Agricultural decision making (which crops
to grow, where and how) is determined
by a wide variety of cultural factors
(social, economic, political)
• Agricultural land use changes in response
to these factors
• Varying agricultural practices have
differing environmental effects
Agriculture, Environment and
Society (continued)
• Understanding environmental change
requires understanding agriculture
• Understanding agriculture requires
understanding cultural context
• Understanding cultural context requires
anthropological fieldwork
Political Economy:
International, National,
Local:
Agriculture
- Agrarian Policy (INA)
- Human Rights (ILO 169)
- Environmental
(COHDEFOR)
- Economic: Markets,
Macroeconomy, Prices
- Other: Presence of NGOs
Varieties, Diversity, Pests
Practices: Labor, Inputs,
Investments
Area/Location: Sensitivity,
Expansion, Contraction, Other
Crops/Animals: Species,
Environment
FLORA: Vegetation C
Fauna: Species, distributi
Macro-Changes:
Social, Cultural,
Demographic:
- Land Tenure
- Income, Capital
- Access to Information
- Cultural Preferences
- Population growth
- Migration
- Social Organization
- Social Structure
- Other
- Greenhouse Effect
- El Niño, La Niña
- Annual Variation
(drought, hurricanes, etc.)
- Other climate change
Soils: fertility, erodibility
Water: quantity, quality
T1 … T2 … Tn
Other Factors:
- Tourism
- Logging
- Urban Growth
- Other
Overview of Agriculture in the
Copan Valley
• Tobacco: boom and bust on the Valley
floor
• Maize: Subsistence crop par excellence
• Coffee: boom and bust in the hills
• Cattle: standby of the rich, hope for the
poor?
Overview of Valley Ecology
• Tropical wet/dry
• Valley long-cleared
for agriculture
• Foothills mosaic of
agriculture, pastures,
secondary forest
• Hillsides pines, oaks,
ag, pastures, fallow
Valley bottom: prime lands
• Flat, alluvial lands
• Easily irrigated
• Historically used for
cash crops, especially
tobacco
• Maize in off-season
Tobacco: boom and bust
• Tobacco: “Patrimony”
of Copan
• Rise and Fall of
Virginia/flue-cured
• Contract farming
• Current cultivation ...
Indigenous People:
from peon to ...
New landholding
class?
Chorti Maya,Hombres de Maiz
• Original Copanecos
• Dispossessed
agricultural labor
• Cultural revitalization
• Ethno-political
movement
• Land recovery!
Chorti: From Land Recovery
to Land Management
• Over 5,000 hectares
of land recovered
• Major questions of
land management
• Goals: economically
viable, socially
equitable, sustainable
land uses
Participatory Mapping and
Planning
• Map lands, inventory
resources
• Assist community in
setting priorities
• Assist community in
implementing
management plan
Coffee: cash crop dynamics
• Second most
valuable commodity
traded internationally
• Honduras, historically
retarded, recent
growth (since 1980s)
• Current (2001) prices
lowest in history
Agroecology of Coffee
• Grown on hillsides
(>800 mts)
• Shade versus sun
grown
• Varying scales
• Conventional vs
organic
• Social
Relations of
Coffee
Production
Processing
coffee: a matter
of scale ….
Organic Coffee:
certification,
production, marketing
Environmental change: what
are we trying to explain? How
do we measure it?
• Deforestation?
Habitat loss? Flora?
Fauna?
• Vegetation cover: an
operational measure
• Aerial photographs:
1955, 1979, 1999
• GIS
Environmental change in
Copan: a work in progress
• Vegetation cover mapped from 1955,
1979 … digitized … analysis underway
• Agriculture is dynamic, landscape is
changing
• Understanding social context is key to
understanding environmental change