El Salvador's environmental crisis

[naaman fletcher]

Boanerge Lovo lives in a subsistence community on Isla de Monte Cristo near the central coast of El Salvador. His community is self-sustaining and relies on fish, crab, and growing cashews for its survival.

Lovo is president of his community development association, a position that carries the responsibility of watching out for the wellbeing of the 27 families in this community.

Along with weather events like floods and hurricanes of increasing extremes that are attributed to climate change, he and two resource rangers in his community do what they can to stop poverty-stricken residents from nearby communities from cutting down trees in their nearby mangrove forest, poaching iguanas and parrots from the same area (which is a UN protected Biosphere), and try to prevent overfishing.

"We’re trying to change their habits and ideas," Lovo told Al Jazeera, "We are working to find what we want to leave for future generations."

http://english.aljazeera.net/indepth/features/2011/02/201122017470922665.html