An interoceanic canal is an anachronistic view of development

Science has never been a priority in our society and as a result there’s a disconnect between the political decision-makers and the scientific community. The canal concession, based on an outdated and absurd concept of economic development, was passed without scientific evaluation. Through ignorance or arrogance, science’s contribution was scorned. It’s another missed opportunity to set ourselves on the road to sustainable development and could lead us to fail as a nation.

Jorge A. Huete Pérez

Nicaragua is recognized as a country of creative people. Intellectuals of the stature of poets Rubén Darío and Ernesto Cardenal and writers Sergio Ramírez and Gioconda Belli have put Nicaragua on the global cultural map. But, while the arts and literature have been cultivated to levels of excellence for decades, the same hasn’t happened with science.

Little encouragement has been given to applying Nicaragua’s creative spirit to scientific research and in fact it’s often undervalued, despite the existence of talented people. The resulting absence of scientific development programs has prevented not only the creation of new knowledge but also the appropriation of universal knowledge.

We have failed to take advantage of the fascination with our exuberant Nature expressed by innumerable world scholars who visit us and discover a geographical wealth of fauna and flora. Nor has our limited endogenous research effort been disseminated to help form schools of thought that would foment interest in science and, making the most of our competitive advantages, result in the technological advances national agroindustry and agriculture need.

Nicaraguan society is largely oblivious to the quality of science taking place in our country. This is particularly marked among our political and business elites, which is dangerous because it hinders our scientists from being incorporated into the amassed global knowledge. Ignorance and lack of appreciation prevent giving more momentum to foreign investment that would translate into technological products that would add value to our exports.

Knowledge makes the difference

Knowledge has become the main driving force of countries’ economic and social development. We live in a knowledge society, a knowledge economy. The ability to transform technical and scientific information into products and services has become the factor that determines a country’s economic progress.

New knowledge, concentrated in new industries and economic areas such as biotechnology, as well as its commercial application, is the catalyst of modern society’s development. If land and raw materials were the most valued resources until recently; those most valued today are scientific and technical knowledge converted into productive processes.

Although the knowledge economy would appear more unquestionably consolidated in industrialized countries, the phenomenon has already gone global. More and more developing countries are spreading knowledge as a crucial goal of economic policy and some regional synergies are already being promoted.

Central America’s disappointing indicators

How well are we doing this in Central America? An initial report on the status of the knowledge economy in Central American countries now exists, prepared in 2012 and sponsored by the German Society for International Cooperation (GIZ). Using the World Bank’s basic methodology, it determined the values of a set of indicators grouped into four basic pillars: the economic and institutional regime, the educational system, the innovation system and information and communication technologies. A comprehensive approach permitted the identification of each country’s strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats in the various aspects affecting the knowledge economy and the consideration of almost 200 indicators facilitated comparison between countries.

Central American rates are disappointing: all parameters showed deplorable backwardness. Serious weaknesses were found in the innovation systems that allow companies, universities and research institutes to use technologies and knowledge created abroad and adapt them to the country’s needs. Other outdated aspects are the economic incentives and the institutional regime, which do not promote the use of knowledge in productive and commercial activities.

The worst output was observed in the education and training system. The study noted some positive experiences, such as the “Education in Research-based Sciences” program sponsored by Nicaragua’s Academy of Sciences and the “Talented Youth” program of El Salvador and Nicaragua. But such programs are insufficient considering the magnitude of the shortfalls.

Nicaragua is weak and uncoordinated

The report about Nicaragua was made public in January of last year. Copies were given to various institutions, among them the Nicaraguan Council of Science and Technology, all with extremely relevant decision-making responsibilities regarding educational and scientific policy to stimulate a knowledge-based economy in the country. Nonetheless, while the study detailed weaknesses to be overcome and specific opportunities to make progress, it was given no follow-up and its findings were merely filed. The same fate befell an earlier assessment done out in 2010 by experts from the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean, which then formulated the country’s first National Science and Technology Plan. Four years on that plan still hasn’t been implemented.

The 2012 study shows our country to be weak, uncoordinated and with considerable difficulties inserting itself into the current knowledge-based economy. This is clearly reflected in the fragilities of our innovation system, the slow incorporation and limited use of information technologies and, above all, our population’s low education levels.

The main obstacle to development

The central weaknesses observed in Nicaragua primarily have to do with its dreadful education quality and scant technological development. Nicaragua has one of the lowest educational rates on the continent and the current educational goals, such as achieving a universal sixth grade level by 2015, aren’t very inspiring within the region’s context. Nicaraguan society has to deal with the educational system’s poor quality because the assessment shows the workforce’s deplorable education levels to be a basic impediment to the country’s insertion into the new global economy and thus the main obstacle to achieving socioeconomic development.

Of course, Nicaragua has made some advances in education in the last three decades, significantly reducing illiteracy and providing better coverage to early childhood and primary education. But while these efforts are important, they are insufficient if we want to reduce poverty and achieve a better quality of life for the impoverished majority since education is critical to increasing a country’s productivity and competitiveness.

Our country’s notable demand for education is based on Nicaragua having one of highest proportions of young people in the region. Almost 50% of our population is under 18 years old and 30% is under 14. Because the current educational system is unable to deal with all of them, many children and adolescents are left outside the system, joining the ranks of what are called “at-risk youth.” Another worrying fact in this context, so marked by inequality and lack of opportunities, is that Nicaragua has the highest percentage of teenage mothers in Latin America. According to the United Nations Population Fund’s 2013 study, almost 30% of Nicaragua’s adolescent girls have given birth before age 18.

Development without science?

Nicaragua’s first National Human Development Plan, drawn up by the government in 2008, was disassociated from scientific-technical development. Not until 2011 did it consider the role of knowledge and innovation as determining factors in economic and social development. How can areas in the plan such as “the economic transformation strategy” or “increase in work and reduction of poverty and inequality” be conceived of without addressing scientific-technical development? Knowing, as we now do, that global economic growth is based on knowledge, how can we expect long-term economic stability without taking this into account?

It’s ridiculous to imagine any development without the collaboration of science given the impact of scientific work in resolving specific health, environmental or agricultural problems. Complaints from the scientific community finally resulted in the incorporation—albeit reluctantly—of a specific focus on science in the plan and the assignment of a more concrete function for universities.

This way we won’t grow

A real national development plan would have to deal with at least two fundamental issues: improving the population’s education levels and fomenting the country’s scientific-technical development.

Although Nicaragua has managed to consolidate its macroeconomic stability, its economic growth in recent years has been limited and due much more to favorable prices for exported raw materials than to improved productivity. Productivity, as we know, can only improve through ongoing training of the workforce and the will to make it acquire new technological knowledge. Nicaraguan society hasn’t sponsored the creation of rewarding jobs and the workforce hasn’t been trained for productive innovation. The lack of skilled human resources impedes the development of innovations that would improve the country’s competitiveness in the global knowledge society.

Its outdated development model, with such limited innovation culture and high dependency on foreign technology, concentrated in low value-added exports and basic manufacturing, has hindered the transformation of the productive structure and the attraction of high-tech investment.

Another reappearance
of the canal dream

Nicaragua’s Grand Interoceanic Canal project is a prime example of the country’s prevailing anachronistic concept of development: opting against all odds for economic growth without sustainable development.
Although with different owners, the canal idea has been presented dozens of times over the centuries and on none of those occasions has it been suggested that the canal be built by Nicaraguans. Nor has its construction been conceived as a way to strengthen national scientific-technical development. Nicaragua’s prestigious economist, Adolfo Acevedo, believes that the project launched by the government in June 2013 will be nothing more than “a private enclave that will perhaps bring the country some income.”

At last, to incorporate a science focus into the public universities, they were recently delegated tasks from the Human Development Plan. With the approval of the canal concession to the Chinese company HKND, the public universities and their research centers have now begun to reorient their work towards this megaproject. The National University Council recommended that they restructure their curricula considering the future demands of the canal, beginning by teaching Chinese.

A serious weakness of this kind of top-down model is that, in addition to subordinating public universities, it seriously limits university autonomy. Removed as the public universities are from the country’s real political and social problems and subverted by the government for some time now, the universities will find it hard to prosper. They’ll have a tough time recovering their historical role as society’s critical conscience. In addition, freedom is the basis of all intellectual activity so only by promoting an environment of freedom can innovation and research be incorporated into university life.

A canal without environmental studies

Despite the economistic focus of the canal project presented by the government, no economic feasibility studies, rational plans or credible figures were provided. The fact that the project has also not been supported with environmental studies has created widespread concern about its potential impact on the country’s biodiversity, natural resources and ecosystems.

By granting the canal concession without the prior environmental impact studies required by law—which is staggering evidence of incompetence and irresponsibility toward the country—the government not only disregarded international standards and the national environmental framework but also ignored warnings by experts about the need to conduct the proper environmental studies prior to its approval.

Throughout the world, scientific methods are used to determine the immediate and future potential impact of mega infrastructure projects. In recent decades, scientific-technical progress has facilitated complex environmental impact assessment (EIA) methodologies to predict the effects any construction work will have on the environment. These are useful and optimal methods because they oblige decision-makers to justify any project with transparent environmental studies before it can proceed.

In Nicaragua, a set of laws regulates the implementation of projects that are potentially damaging to the environment and the population’s quality of life. Since the 1990s, Nicaragua has also been observing national and international standards, which require an EIA to be done, supervised by the Ministry of the Environment and Natural Resources. Now, inconceivably, this obligation was ignored in granting the canal concession to the Chinese entrepreneur Wang Jing.

An outdated idea of development

In today’s global economy it’s not only incredible but also unacceptable to promote projects that don’t provide for environmental sustainability. The canal concession is far removed from a modern concept of sustainability. It is rather part of an outdated development model that devastates natural resources in total disregard of universally accepted environmental standards. This depredating model of appropriating strategic areas to benefit a few companies has decimated our country’s and the world’s natural heritage for centuries.

The lack of information is a grave problem that makes it very difficult to thoroughly analyze the consequences the canal project may have. The only official document we know about is the Canal Act, Law 840, which doesn’t even provide information about a fundamental element: the canal’s route. Such circumstances make it nearly impossible to independently assess the possible environmental and social costs Nicaragua could face. And given the difficulty of assigning monetary values to the project’s complex environmental, social and cultural impacts, an accurate estimate of its real costs and benefits may never be possible.

In any case, if and when more information, both official and independent, does appear, the scientific community should play a prominent role in evaluating the repercussions, aware that the major disasters this project could cause will only become apparent several decades after the work is completed. Even at that, the more immediate environmental, social, political and economic costs will be felt well before any of the alleged benefits.

The experts speak out
about their deep concerns

To contribute to the assessment of the canal project, the Nicaragua Academy of Sciences presented its first considerations in a Message to the Nation shortly before it was approved in parliament (in June 2013).

The Academy appealed for responsible action to ensure a sustainable future environment and recommended extreme caution in the face of irreversible construction works that could compromise the nation’s integrity. It warned of the need for an independent scientific assessment to defend national interests.

It has been wrong and harmful to Nicaragua for the government to leave the environmental assessments to the discretion of the concession owner, given the obvious conflict of interests. However poor we may be, the technical-scientific evaluations, which are the government’s responsibility, should not be delegated to the foreign concessionary given the magnitude of the project.

Endangering the region’s biodiversity

After the canal concession was approved, the Academy of Sciences held three scientific forums in which the voices of national and international experts continued raising deep economic, legal, social and especially environmental concerns, especially about the impact the canal will have on the national biodiversity and on Lake Cocibolca.

Experts have stated that the project threatens to endanger some of our country’s most fragile and valuable land, lake and marine ecosystems. Biodiversity disrupted and displaced by the canal’s infrastructure and the other “associated infrastructures” (oil pipeline, airports, free trade zones, ports…) would be trapped into discrete areas, without mobility corridors. Altering the water resources’ physical-chemical properties would lead to the extinction of many endemic species of fish, such as the valuable and famous cichlids inhabiting the country’s crater lakes, in turn having a devastating impact on other ecosystems in the region. Our unique aquatic fauna (sharks, sawfish, and tarpons) could be affected and their migration patterns, connectivity and ecological dynamics ruined.

Depending on the route chosen, deforestation for the use of the canal or its associated megaprojects would threaten species in danger of extinction such as the jaguar, a mythical and symbolic creature for the ancestral cultures of Meso-america. Furthermore, the drastic changes in land use and the displacement of rural and indigenous populations would put even greater pressure on the surrounding nature reserves.

A false solution to poverty

The potential impacts and the lack of truly sustainable development plans make it imperative to question solutions as false as gambling on the canal as a way to overcome poverty, when it could mean a serious obstacle to sustainable development and the wellbeing of the impoverished majority.

The government presented the canal concession as a megaproject that would reduce unemployment and bring longed-for economic prosperity. The custom of “selling” infrastructure projects as a way to develop and ensure economic growth without mentioning the damage these projects cause is well known. They are packaged for us as poverty-reducing projects although, in the end, the real beneficiaries are just a few businessmen and politicians.

The canal project’s advocates have promised a range of social benefits. Nonetheless, by not putting this project within a vision of sustainable development, and also failing to properly consult the communities that will be affected, these promised benefits will only be palliatives to pacify social protests and would be conditioned by the interests of the private entrepreneurs involved in the project, who typically favor more paternalism and political patronage.

Without consulting
the scientific community

The adoption of the Canal Act lacks scientific-technical evaluation. No national scientist was consulted. Whether through ignorance or arrogance, science’s contribution to making a rational, evidence-based decision was disparaged. This tendency to emphasize the utilitarian aspect and disregard science in decision-making has brought us to where we are today, envisioning the canal as the only possible alternative for Nicaragua and one that must be done at any price.

Approving the canal project with no prior environmental and scientific assessment has revealed that the governmental mindset eschews incorporating scientific criteria in decision-making, particularly decisions related to ensuring our country’s economic development.

While it’s true that Nicaragua’s scientific structures are still fragmented, we’ve seen a growing institutionalization of science in the last 30 years and now have a small critical mass of researchers who can contribute to resolving national problems. This enterprising intellectual potential should be made use of so Nicaragua advances towards the knowledge society and the development of scientific education and culture.

The approval of the canal concession with no scientific basis was received with frustration and disappointment by the nation’s small community of scientists. Their opinions were neither requested nor listened to. Not even the presidential assessor for environmental issues, Jaime Incer Barquero, a recognized biologist and conservationist, was consulted.

A correct decision about the canal project would have required first establishing the anticipated economic objective, comparing it with various economic alternatives, evaluating each of their advantages and limitations, and adopting the most appropriate one. And because the formulation of alternatives depends on human talent, ingenuity and innovation, a definitive rational choice should be based on the findings of studies using a, systematic and exhaustive scientific approach. The strategic scientific information for important decision-making includes tools for predicting problems, whether economic or environmental, assigning them technology foresight functions.

The waters of Cocibolca
ensure the future

Relying on science, Nicaragua could consider other sustainable development options. With respect to a resource as valuable as Lake Cocibolca, some experts, including Salvador Montenegro Guillén, director of the Aquatic Resources Research Center, have proposed that instead of using it as a canal for large ships to cross through, thus spoiling its waters, a more sustainable use would be for human consumption, which is compatible with its use for irrigation and tourism. These experts have explained that selling water to the neighboring countries of El Salvador and Costa Rica would be more profitable than the alleged benefits from the canal.

We already have serious water shortage problems in some areas of our country and the lake and rivers of that basin could be used to ensure the population clean and abundant water. As the Nicaraguan population will continue to grow and be increasingly more urban, the ever greater pressure on natural resources will bring more water and soil pollution and put human health at greater risk, in turn provoking growing social pressures.

The threat of climate change

In anticipation of this serious situation, and at the gates of a global crisis of available natural resources accelerated by climate change, Nicaragua should adopt a firmer stance in defense of nature and protection of its environment. Intelligence counsels doing so now, without waiting for the latent threat of climate change, food insecurity and water shortage to become a dramatic reality.

Tourism already contributes over 5% of Nicaragua’s gross domestic product, proving it to be one of the areas contributing to the country’s economic growth. Ecotourism, so well promoted in Costa Rica, could be another sustainable development alternative in Nicaragua, creating employment and improving the income of today’s extremely vulnerable rural families and indigenous communities. Properly integrating tourism with environmental education and the development of poor communities would reduce emigration of the workforce and lead to the conservation of land and aquatic biological resources.

Our natural heritage is at stake

Immersed in an increasingly interconnected world, Nicaragua has before it the momentous commitment of recognizing science as a determining factor to be included in its political education and its development strategy.

With the canal concession, which reflects an absurd vision of economic development from a scientific perspective because of its lack of long-term sustainability, we see yet another missed opportunity to set ourselves on the road to sustainable development. What’s happened with the canal concession has revealed how decisions—as far-reaching as they are misguided by putting our natural resources at risk—can lead us to fail as a nation.

Nicaragua has an enviable natural heritage and, while we haven’t respected it or used it properly, science shows us that our future as a nation will be determined today more than ever by how rationally, intelligently and carefully we handle this heritage. We need education and science if we are to do it well.

The disconnect between
politicians and scientists

The steamrollered approval of the concession clearly illustrates the absence of collaboration and exchange of information between scientists and politicians. Research about how a project as large as this could damage the environment should be supported by objective findings and scientific considerations. But in Nicaragua scientific assessment remains marginal and very few practical connections exist between scientific research and policy formulation processes.

What we observe in societies where scientific advice is of interest not only to governments but also to society as a whole, facilitating better practices and greater transparency, is a very different reality. Society’s participation in national decisions such as this canal is crucial for democracy. The population must be informed, must apply pressure and must participate in what science brings to informed debate.

Perhaps this debate shouldn’t be about the actual construction of the canal but rather about the fate of the country’s natural heritage. It shouldn’t be about the prosperity Nicaragua will allegedly attain in a hundred years, when it’s assumed we’ll own the canal. The debate should be about the immediate benefits certain privileged groups will attain from plundering the entire nation’s resources. The debate has to do with something more important than just the canal: it is really about the direction Nicaragua will take in the coming years.

Without debate and faced with this obviously predatory canal project, the only option that remains is for national public opinion to mobilize to ensure that such a wrong decision is reversed.

Who will benefit
from the canal?

Although we’re not certain this interoceanic canal will someday be implemented and prosper, the challenge for any enterprise making use of Nicaragua’s natural heritage is that it not just serve the interests of the national oligarchy, today allied to transnational capital, but benefit all of society and truly improve all Nicaraguans’ quality of life.

As conceived, the canal project represents yet another episode in the well-known system of looting, grabbing and plundering the country’s natural resources. Instead of offering a solution, it could bring Nicaragua a whole range of problems: from fracturing national integrity to displacing entire communities, encompassing deforestation and destruction of the agricultural area, the extinction of species, water pollution and a lot more.

In past times, if someone wanted to appropriate land in Latin America it was enough to get the authority to mark a circle on the map. In this century, in a democracy, citizens must be taken into account… and so must science. You don’t have to be superstitious or an expert in conspiracy theory to understand that we only get the same negative outcomes if we use the same questionable methods from those dark times that we want to put behind us. It’s time to recall Einstein’s famous phrase: “Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.”

Dr. Jorge A. Huete-Pérez, a molecular biologist, is founder and director of the Molecular Biology Center at the Central American University (MBC-UCA), Managua, and president of Nicaragua’s Academy of Sciences.

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