One of the walkways built by the community of Santa Rosa de Aguán to connect the local houses with the beach to preserve the sand dunes. Credit: Thelma Mejía/IPS

By Thelma Mejía
SANTA ROSA DE AGUÁN, Honduras , Mar 26 2014 (IPS)

At the mouth of the Aguán river on the Caribbean coast of Honduras, a Garífuna community living in a natural paradise that was devastated 15 years ago by Hurricane Mitch has set an example of adaptation to climate change.

“We don’t want to make the sea angry again, we don’t want a repeat of what happened with Mitch, which destroyed so many houses in the town – nearly all of the ones along the seashore,” community leader Claudina Gamboa, 35, told IPS.

Around the coastal town of Santa Rosa de Aguán, the stunning landscape is almost as pristine as when the first Garífunas came to Honduras in the 18th century.

To reach Santa Rosa de Aguán, founded in 1886 and home to just over 3,000 people, IPS drove by car for 12 hours from Tegucigalpa through five of this Central American country’s 18 departments or provinces, until reaching the village of Dos Bocas, 567 km northeast of the capital.

From this village on the mainland, a small boat runs to Santa Rosa de Aguán, located on the sand in the delta of the Aguán river, whose name in the Garífuna language means “abundant waters.”

Half of the trip is on roads in terrible conditions, which become unnerving when it gets dark. But after crossing the river late at night, under a starry sky with a sea breeze caressing the skin, the journey finally comes to a peaceful end.

A three-year project to help the sand dunes recover, which was completed in 2013, was carried out by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) through the Global Environment Facility’s (GEF) Small Grants Programme, with additional support from the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC).

The project sought to generate conditions that would enable the local community to adapt to the risks of climate change and protect the natural ecosystem of the dunes.

The initiative enlisted 40 local volunteers, almost all of them women, who went door to door to raise awareness on the importance of protecting the environment and to educate people about the risks posed by climate change.

“They called them crazy, and thought the people working on that were stupid, but I asked them ‘don’t stop, just keep doing it.’ Now there is greater awareness and people have seen the winds aren’t hitting so hard,” Atanasia Ruíz, a former deputy mayor of the town (2008-2014) and a survivor of Hurricane Mitch, told IPS.

She and Gamboa said the women played an essential role in raising awareness on climate change, and added that thanks to their efforts, the project left an imprint on the white sand and the local inhabitants.

People in the community now understand the importance of protecting the coastal system and preserving the dunes, and have learned to organise behind that goal, Gamboa said. “It’s really touching to see the old women from our town picking up garbage for recycling,” she said.

The sand dunes act as natural protective barriers that keep the wind or waves from smashing into the town during storms.

“When the sea got mad, it made us pay. When Mitch hit, everything here was flattened, it was just horrible,” Gamboa said.

Some people left town, she said, “because we were told that we couldn’t live here, that it was too vulnerable and that the sea would always flood us because there was no way to keep it out.

“But many of us stayed, and with the knowledge they gave us, we know how to protect ourselves and our town,” she said, proudly pointing out how the vegetation has begun to grow in the dunes.

In late October 1998, Hurricane Mitch left 11,000 dead and 8,000 missing in Honduras, while causing enormous economic losses and damage to infrastructure.

Santa Rosa de Aguán was hit especially hard, with storm surges up to five metres high. The bodies of more than 40 people from the town were found, while others went missing.

The effort to recover the sand dunes along the coast included the construction of wide wooden walkways to protect the sand.

In addition, the remains of cinder block houses destroyed by Mitch were finally removed, to prevent them from inhibiting the natural formation of dunes.

The project also introduced recycling, to clear garbage from the beach and the sandy unpaved streets of this town, where visitors are greeted with “buiti achuluruni”, which means “welcome” in the Garífuna language.

Lícida Nicolasa Gómez is an 18-year-old member of the Garífuna community who prefers to be called “Alondra”, her nickname since childhood.

“I loved it when they invited me to the dunes and recycling project, because we were deforesting the dunes, hurting them, destroying the vegetation, but we’re not doing that anymore,” she said.

“We even made a mural on one of the walls of the community centre, to remember what kind of town we wanted,” she added, with a broad smile.

The mural of scraps of plastic and other recyclable materials made on the community centre wall by the people of Santa Rosa de Aguán to celebrate their way of life and the beauty of Garífuna women, and remind the town of the need to mitigate climate change. Credit: Thelma Mejía/IPS

The mural includes scraps of plastic, metal, tiles and bottle tops. It reflects the beauty of the Garífunas, showing people fishing, crops of mandioc and plantain, and the sea and bright sun, while reflecting the desire to live in harmony with the environment.

The sand dunes are up to five metres high in this small town at the mouth of a river that runs through the country’s tropical rainforest.

Hugo Galeano, from GEF’s Small Grants Programme, told IPS that Santa Rosa de Aguán became even more vulnerable after Hurricane Mitch, which affected the local livelihoods based on fishing, farming and livestock.

For this community built between the river and the sea, flooding is one of the main threats to survival, said the representative of the GEF programme.

Ricardo Norales, 80, told IPS that, although the sand dunes and vegetation are growing, “the location of our community means we are still exposed to inclement weather.

“With the project, we saw how the wind and the sea don’t penetrate our homes as much anymore. But we need this kind of aid to be more sustainable,” he said.

The history of Santa Rosa de Aguán is marked by the impact of tropical storms and hurricanes, which have hit the town directly or indirectly many times since it was founded.

But the sand dunes are once again taking shape along the shoreline, where the community has built walkways to the sea.

Local inhabitants want their town to be seen as an example of adaptation to climate change and the construction of alternatives making survival possible. Several of them said they did not want an “ayó” – good-bye in Garífuna – for their community.

Traditional Garifuna dance forms part of the projects aimed at preserving the culture, boosting food security and conserving the environment in the area. Credit: Thelma Mejía/IPS

By Thelma Mejía
TRUJILLO, Honduras , Oct 10 2012 (IPS)

Hurricane Mitch, which devastated Honduras 14 years ago, prompted a group of Garifuna women to start organising, to help the people in greatest need of assistance.

Since then they have expanded their work, and have become an example of the commitment to preserving the environment, farming in a sustainable manner, and preserving their culture.

The experience gave rise to the Garifuna Emergency Committee of Honduras, led mainly by women from the Caribbean province of Trujillo, one of the most beautiful parts of the country, and the first human settlement created by the Spanish colonialists.

According to historical accounts, the Garifunas are descendants of African slaves who survived the sinking of Spanish galleons off the coast of the Caribbean island of St. Vincent in the 17th century, where they intermarried with members of the indigenous Carib tribe.

Their language combines words and grammar of West African languages with the Caribbean’s Arauak dialect, and some French, English and Spanish. The Garifuna are estimated to number around 600,000 in Central America, the Caribbean, Mexico and the United States today.

“When Mitch hit our community and the help didn’t arrive, we organised to go out in search of food, medicine and shelter, because we could not allow our people to sink,” the executive director of the committee, Nilda Hazel Gotay, told IPS.

From Oct. 22 to Nov. 5, 1998, Hurricane Mitch wrought havoc throughout the Caribbean region, Central America, southern Mexico and the United States.

It hit Honduras particularly hard, leaving 6,500 dead, 9,000 missing and 1.5 million homeless, and causing some four billion dollars in economic losses, according to official figures.

The Garifuna Emergency Committee is made up of nine women and three men, and has been working for 13 years in three main areas: the environment, culture preservation and sustainable agriculture.

Sixteen communities have benefited from the work of the Committee, which since its creation has managed to raise awareness in the communities about the importance of preserving the local environment through projects of reforestation of stream and river basins and mitigation of climate change, and of growing crops without pesticides.

They have received a variety of international aid, because the projects involve extremely poor Garifuna communities that “have to be strong to face the challenges of the future,” said Gotay, a leader of the ethnic group.

“We teach our people how to grow crops that are traditional to our culture, like manioc, taro, plantain, coconuts and sweet potatoes, besides educating our children about Garifuna traditions in dance and music,” she said.

These traditional practices, said Gotay, have helped the communities prepare for natural disasters and for the more frequent and lengthy drought caused by climate change. They have managed to recover river basins in Guadalupe and Trujillo, reforest waterfronts, and recuperate fruit trees like coconut palms.

Hugo Galeano, an expert on environmental issues, told IPS that the work carried out by the Garifuna Emergency Committee is the best example of empowerment and organisation of a community defending its natural resources, “as they are the protagonists of their stories of change and cultural preservation.”

“Garifuna women have demonstrated their leadership and management capacity, without the need of intermediaries, which has brought down costs and gives these grassroots civil society groups a stronger level of community organisation,” he said.

Along with implementing projects in favour of the environment and sustainable agriculture, the communities that have benefited from the Committee’s projects have also managed to keep Garifuna culture from dying out among the younger generations.

They now have a Garifuna market where they sell products related to their cultural and gastronomic roots. And every April, they organise the Educational Garifuna Carnival, where the “baile del maipol” (maypole dance) is held by costumed women dancing with colourful ribbons attached to a tree.

They also explain to children the importance of the traditional Garifuna drum made of hollowed-out hardwoods like mahogany, which links the past and the future, and they teach them to write music in their native language.

Agricultural engineer Noel Ruíz, the mayor of Santa Fe, one of the communities where the Committee is active, said he supports the projects “because I know their work since I was a technical adviser to environmental organisations, and they have managed to respond to the needs of the local population.”

In a conversation with IPS, Ruíz stressed the importance of the strategic alliances with the Garifuna Committee for the preservation of the culture and traditional foods, the creation of market gardens, humanitarian aid and sustainable agriculture.

“They go to poor areas that have been abandoned to their fate, and today they are a great example of association that local governments should follow. I hope this example will be taken into account in national policies on citizen participation, which haven’t been seen yet,” he added.

The work with local governments has been essential to the members of the Garifuna Emergency Committee. They underline the importance of lose relations with the municipal authorities, to coordinate training workshops on the environment, cultural festivals, productive projects and other activities.

“As Garifunas, we love supporting our people, designing projects so they can pull ahead, and thus also teaching our children that there is a culture and a language that must be preserved, and teaching them to learn to love and value nature,” Gotay said.

The Committee has earned international prizes from Ecuador, Canada and the United Nations. It is currently operating with funds from Canada, but it has also received support from organisations in Europe and the United States.