- ENGOV
- GOMIAM
- Suriname
ENGOV is a collaborative research project funded by the European Commission. The project focuses on the obstacles and possibilities for sustainable production systems that can generate both economic development and a more equitable knowledge input and distribution of benefits across ethnic, socioeconomic and gender lines in order to decrease poverty, exclusion, and environmental degradation in Latin America.
The project’s central objective is to understand how environmental governance is shaped in Latin America and to develop a new analytical framework for environmental governance in the region. In order to develop 'Latin American perspectives', the project is built up around two main aspects of environmental governance in the region:
1) the social context in which environmental governance is shaped, including historical, structural, institutional and information backgrounds; and
2) production systems and challenges to environmental justice. The nine themes of the research work packages are:
- Historicising unequal resource distribution
- Shifting elites and institutions in environmental governance
- Strategic actors and responsible consumption
- Building and exchanging knowledges on natural resources
- Analysing poverty and sustainable development
- Resource extraction conflicts compared
- Local solutions towards environmental justice
- Mitigation and adaptation to climate change
- Crossing boundaries in environmental governance
The ENGOV project will start in March 2011 and will last four years. The project is coordinated by CEDLA and the consortium consists of the following institutions:
- CEDLA-UvA: Centre for Latin American Study and Documentation - Universiteit van Amsterdam, The Netherlands
- CLACSO: Consejo Latinoamericano de Ciencias Sociales, Argentina
- ICTA-UAB: Institut de Ciència i Tecnologia Ambientals - Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, Spain
- IRD: Institut de Recherche pour le Développement, France
- SUM-UiO: Centre for Development and the Environment - Universitetet i Oslo, Norway
- CDS-UnB: Centro de Desenvolvimento Sustentável - Universidade de Brasília, Brazil
- UAM-Xoc.: Universidad Autónoma Metropolitana - Xochimilco, Mexico
- IDEA-USACH: Instituto de Estudios Avanzados - Universidad de Santiago de Chile, Chile
- IIGG: Instituto de Investigaciones Gino Germani, Argentina
- UASB-SQ: Universidad Andina Simón Bolívar - Sede Quito, Ecuador
Project Coordinator
If you would like to remain informed about the ENGOV project, please send us an email
Related News:
Please find here a short information video about ENGOV:
Lecture during the kick-off meeting of ENGOV, Amsterdam 8 april 2011
The Chevron-Texaco court case in Ecuador: Countering environmental injustice?
This lecture formed part of the kick-off meeting of ENGOV. It was given by Prof. dr. Joan Martínez Alier, on the environmental damage caused in Ecuador's Amazon region by Texaco. Find here a link to the video of this lecture.
In his lecture, Joan Martinez Alier examined the Chevron-Texaco court case (1993-2011) and the economic and legal reasoning behind the recent large fine. Comparisons were made to similar cases in Latin America (e.g. against several companies for damage caused by the nematicide DBCP) and elsewhere. He also gave an overview of the main trends and limitations of previous environmental policies and academic approaches to environmental governance in the global South, and propose steps towards more sustainable and equitable natural resource use in the North and the South.
Radio Nederland interviewed Prof. dr. Joan Martínez Alier:
Environmental Governance in Latin America: Towards an Integrative Research Agenda 
Prof. dr. Michiel Baud, Dr. Fábio de Castro and Dr. Barbara Hogenboom
Article of the European Review of Latin American Studies
Small-scale gold mining and social conflict in the Amazon:
Comparing states, environments, local populations and miners in Bolivia, Brazil, Columbia, Peru, and Suriname
Project goal
Researching how to resolve conflicts caused by small-scale gold mining in the Amazon
Introduction
Over the last few decades, the growth in small-scale gold mining has resulted in environmental problems and socio-political conflicts in the Amazon. The countries affected include Bolivia, Brazil, Colombia, Peru and Suriname. Uncontrolled polluting activities of small-scale gold mining often threaten the livelihoods of indigenous peoples. Cross-border tensions arise when miners from one country invade another, or smuggle gold between countries. With the recent instability in the world economy driving up the price of gold, and with techniques becoming more mechanised, the scale of the problems is increasing. As few national governments know how to respond to these developments, evidence-based policy responses are urgently required. These are what this project aims to provide.
Project description
The first phase of the project, from January 2011 to 2013, will be dedicated to a comparative analysis of the different political and environmental situations of the local populations and of the miners themselves. Our research will acknowledge the economic motivations and cultural dimensions affecting both of these groups. By creating a partnership between academic experts, politicians, local communities and small-scale miners, our project team will be able to present a comprehensive and integrated viewpoint on the issues concerned. This innovative, interdisciplinary, anthropological approach will form the basis for creating policy initiatives that will start to be implemented during the second phase of the project.
Project Coordinator
For more information:
Project Strategische analyse en participatief actieplan voor Z.O. Suriname
Aan het CEDLA vindt een driejarig onderzoeksproject plaats naar de gevolgen van wegenaanleg, rivieromlegging voor de productie van hydro-energie, en van wijdverbreide goudwinning, voor de bewoners en het bos in het binnenland van Suriname. Pitou van Dijck voert dit driejarige onderzoek uit met medewerking van Marinella Wallis. Naast het CEDLA zijn ook onderzoekers in Suriname en Nederlandse Suriname specialisten betrokken bij het project. In het komende jaar zal intensief worden samengewerkt met Celos, een onderzoeksinstituut verbonden aan de Anton de Kom Universiteit van Suriname.
Het project wordt gesponsord door Cordaid, Icco en Hivos.
Suriname Special van LA Chispa, Magazine over Latijns-Amerika en de Cariben
Dit nummer telt 68 pagina’s en bevat onder meer interviews met onderzoekers die in het project participeren, reportages over kleinschalige gouddelving bij Nieuw Koffiekamp, over het Wayanadorp Apetina aan de Tapanahonirivier, die wellicht zal worden omgeleid, en over ngo’s in de dorpen aan de Boven Surinamerivier, waar het leven door het aanleggen van een weg wellicht sterk zal veranderen. Zie www.lachispa.eu.
Het nummer is te koop aan de balie van de CEDLA bibliotheek – prijs 5,00 euro.
U kunt de Surinamespecial ook bestellen door een mail te sturen naar: info@lachispa.eu
Rapporten
Een algemene inleiding op het projectthema:
Pitou van Dijck, Een weg komt nooit alleen
Recent gereedgekomen onderzoeksrapporten uit het project Strategische Analyse en Participatief Actieplan voor Zuid Oost Suriname:
• Pitou van Dijck: The IIRSA Guyana Shield Hub: The case of Suriname.
