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044468

EACH-FOR

Environmental Change and Forced Migration Scenarios

Specific Targeted Project Scientific support to policies – SSP

Deliverable reference number and title: D2.6.2.2

EEccuuaaddoorr CCaassee SSttuuddyy RReeppoorrtt

Due date of deliverable: 31.12.2008 Actual submission date: 30.01.2009

Start date of project: 01.01.2007 Duration: 2 years Organisation name of lead contractor for this deliverable: UPV-EHU

Project co-funded by the European Commission within the Sixth Framework

Programme (2002-2006)

Dissemination Level

PU Public PU

PP Restricted to other programme participants (including the Commission Services)

RE Restricted to a group specified by the consortium (including the Commission Services)

CO Confidential, only for members of the consortium (including the Commission Services)

EACH-FOR is a project funded by the European Commission, by SERI (Austria) and by ATLAS Innoglobe (Hungary)

Project website: www.each-for.eu

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EEccuuaaddoorr

CCaassee SSttuuddyy RReeppoorrtt

Oscar ALVAREZ GILA Virginia LÓPEZ DE MATURANA DIÉGUEZ

Ana UGALDE ZARATIEGUI 1. INTRODUCTION

1.1. Synthesis of context Ecuador is one of the sixteen Latin American republics that was born after the collapse and the subsequent political fragmentation of the former Spanish Empire in the early 19th century. During its first decade of independent life, Ecuador formed a political union with the neighbouring countries of Colombia and Venezuela (the "Great Colombia"), an echo of which remains today in the similar design of the national flags of these three countries. From 1831 on, Ecuador has been regarded as one of the most paradigmatic examples of the political evolution of most of the Latin American countries: the contrast between the political institutions formally based on the principles of European-like liberal democratic systems (parliamentary republic, political constitution, division of powers) and the reality of a sequence of unstable regimes and governments, whose accession to power was due, in a huge number of cases, to the use of military power, or even to political violence. After nine years of military regime under the dictatorship begun by José María Velasco Ibarra, Ecuador recovered democracy in 1979. Nevertheless, and following the old tradition of politics in the country, stability has not been a trait that can define the political context of Ecuador during recent decades. A quick succession of presidents governed the nation from 1996 until the 2005 riots that forced former president Lucio Gutiérrez to resign. The last presidential elections were held in November 2006. The populist and right-winger presidential candidate, Álvaro Noboa, clashed with the leftist candidate, Rafael Correa. Correa won the elections and has held the post of president from January 2007. The political agenda of the new president included the call for a new asamblea constituyente (a special legislative body to draft a new constitution for the country, that will be the third since 1979) and some changes in the international alignment of Ecuador with other Latin American leaders usually labelled as "populists" like Venezuelan Hugo Chávez and Bolivian Evo Morales. Officially, until the changes proposed in the new constitution will be implemented,1 Ecuador is still defined as a presidential republic, with division

1 By the end of September 2008, when the second draft of this CSR was being finished, the results of the referendum showed a clear majority of votes supporting the new

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of powers: legislative, executive and judicial. Both parliament and government are elected by universal suffrage (minimum 18 years of age), which is compulsory for literate persons of ages between 18 and 65, and for other eligible voters. Ecuador has no major conflicts with its neighbouring states, even though the question of the borders of the country became the strongest point of discussion that conditioned the relationship between them. In the south and western side of the country, Ecuador had been claiming for decades a great portion of Peruvian territory in the Amazonia region, almost as much territory as the actual Ecuadorean surface today. During the19th century, the intensity of this claim was low, as the region was no more than a marginal, non-profitable and poorly-known area. After the rubber boom of the late 19th and early 20th centuries however, the region suddenly turned into a very desirable area. The controversy on the definition of the Ecuadorean-Peruvian border in Amazonia lasted more than a century, with the clash of 1995 between the two countries (the so-called Alto-Cenepa War) as its last stage.2 On the other side, problems in the borderlands near to Colombia have only recently arisen, but not in terms of sovereignty, but of national security. The main issue is related to the internal conflict in Columbia, whose roots date back from the 1960s, between the state and the guerrillas (mainly the FARC, one of whose operational bases is located in this area). The military incursion into Ecuadorean territory by Colombian troops to attack a FARC camp in March 2008 can be considered the most critical trouble for diplomatic relationships between the two countries in the last century (Tokatlian 2008). In the first half of the 20th century, the political and economic focal point of Ecuador was made up of estates (haciendas) in the inter-Andean central highlands (Sierra) and the plantation economy in the coastal plain (Costa). Haciendas were traditionally large farms, devoted to agriculture or livestock production and often directed towards local and regional markets, in which the relationship between owners and workers was more social than economic. However, in 1950, some changes started to become apparent in the farming structure based on the production of bananas (Larrea et al. 1987), which related to the dismantling of the traditional structures of agricultural production and the implementation of new productive, foreign-invested and foreign-market oriented enterprises. Between 1950 and 1970 some changes were made, organising a new social space based on small and medium properties, especially in the central highlands, along with the presence of huge plantations, mostly in the tropical climate coastal region. Even though the central highlands of Ecuador suffered an important process of urbanization due to the farming modernization, this area retained its traditional condition of being the most extensive and populated rural area in the country. Between 1950 and 1990 the cities in the Andean mountains underwent a significant growth as a consequence of both internal - in a first stage - and international Constitution. 2 A short overview of the development of the diplomatic controversy, from the Peruvian

point of view, at http://www.congreso.gob.pe/comisiones/1999/exteriores. See also Simmons (1999).

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migratory movements (Pedone 2003), with Colombia as the main protagonist of this migration, mostly due to the guerrilla conflict in the areas near to the international border. Successive attempts to industrialize the country in the second half of 20th century were unsuccessful (Conaghan 1988). Only the development of oil industry from mid-1970s, in the context of the rising international prices of oil because of the crisis of 1973, has been able to change the basic features of an economy traditionally based on agricultural exports. By the end of the 1950s, a series of prospecting activities in some areas of Ecuadorean Amazonia had shown the presence of large deposits of oil. Under the military dictatorship's rule the increasing income because of oil exports (the amount of oil exported between 1972 and 1975 sums up to about as much as the amount of the total exports of the country in the preceding 140 years) promoted the creation of several companies to extract the resource, with participation of both national public and international private capital. There was also a progressive but undeniable shift of the economic power of the country from the traditional poles like Quito or Guayaquil to the newly populated Amazonian region. The population in 2004, which is the last official data available, was about 12.5 million inhabitants (est. population in September 2008, according to the official statistics institute of Ecuador, INDEC: 14.02 million). 50.2% of the population lives in the Costa, 44,3% in the Sierra and the rest in the area known as Oriente (see Map 1). Ecuador has a high rate of urbanization, as 62.5% of the population live in urban areas (ODEPLAN 2000). The illiteracy rate is also very high for the region's standards: 8% of men and 12% of women are illiterate. Most of the population is mestizo, a mixture of native population and the racial contribution of people from European or African origins during the colonial era, even though only about 25% of the population is officially included in the category of "native," belonging to 13 different indigenous nationalities. Spanish is the official language for administration, medium and higher education and nation-level official purposes, but there are also several other recognized native languages in official use in native areas, the quechua being the most widspread (Dirección Nacional de los Pueblos Indígenas 2000). One of the most problematic concerns of Ecuador's economy and society is the great inequality in the distribution of wealth. Twenty per cent of the population earns only 2.5% of the total national income, while the richest 20% collects 55.8%. According to the Human Development Index, in 1995 -two years before international mass migration to Europe exploded, as we will see later- Ecuador occupied the 72th position in the ranking of development. In 1999, poverty rates were about 69% in urban areas and up to 80% in rural areas. In the same year, 4 of every 10 Ecuadoreans had an average income of less than 2 dollars per day (UNICEF 2000). Actually, both poverty levels and income inequality have usually been mentioned as the main reasons for migratory movements in Ecuador.

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1. 2. Brief overview of environmental problems Ecuador is located in western South America, bordering the Pacific Ocean at the Equator, between Colombia, Brazil and Peru. The land area is 283,560 sq km and the length of the coastline is 2,237 km. The climate is tropical along the coast, becoming cooler inland - at higher elevations along the Andean mountains - and also tropical in the Amazonian jungle lowlands. The country is usually divided by geographers into three main natural regions (Dalmasso & Fillon 1972): the coastal plain (Costa), the inter-Andean central highlands (Sierra), and the flat to rolling eastern Amazonic jungle (Oriente); see Map 1. Each of these natural regions present different environmental features: climate, vegetation, potential agriculture, history of human presence there, and even the average slope gradient of their lands, as these three regions are determined by the presence of the Andean mountains that cross the country from north to south. The altitude ranges from 0 m at the Pacific coast to 6,267 m at the peak of Chimborazo, and then to about 150 m in the lower point of the Ecuadorean Amazonia or Oriente. Because of this, environmental problems are also very different, according to the natural region. The main environmental problems nationwide are:

1. Deforestation: in almost all the regions of the country. According to FAO's evaluation of the World forest resources3, in 2000 the percentage of land covered by forest was about 38.1% (10,557 ha.). During the last century, most of these forests were concentrated in the regions more sparsely and recently occupied, principally in the Oriente, but in the most recent decades this region also shows the

3 http://www.fao.org/docrep/005/Y19975S/y1997s1u.htm.

Map 1: Natural regions of Ecuador

Source: Pedone (2003: 60).

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highest annual rates of destruction of forest because of the implementation of new economic activities, the exploitation of oil re-

sources and the urbanization and population density of the area.4 Ecuador has one of the world’s highest rates of deforestation estimated at over 300,000 hectares (3%) per year (Mecham 2001). Deforestation not only implies the impoverishment of ecosystem biodiversity, but also the worsening of the natural economic basis of rural populations, thus "deteriorating their health and life conditions and maybe impelling them to migrate" (ODEPLAN 2000).5

2. Soil erosion and degradation- is especially serious in the Andean

mountain area (Sierra), in which the elevated gradient of slopes, together with the dryness of its climate, enhances the vulnerability of the lands used for agriculture (Map 2). It is also interesting to highlight the importance of historical background in environmental problems, as the Sierra has been the most, and sometimes the only, densely inhabited part of the country for several millennia. The continuous use of lands for agriculture has also contributed to the expansion of the processes of soil erosion.6

3. Desertification- is particularly taking place in the southern part of the

country and in some areas of the Sierra as well, mainly as an indirect consequence of the previously described environmental problems.

4 According to Juan Ramón Etxebarria, member of the NGO Elizbarrutietako Mixiolariak, in Ecuador "destruction of Nature is a very high concern. Deforestation has taken place in an uncontrolled manner. Huge areas of rainforest have disappeared. In the places where forest were, today we can see farms, haciendas, livestock... In these areas even rivers have dried out because of the wild deforestation" (Expert interview, September 2008). 5 Deforestation is hitting all the regions of Ecuador, in accord with the historical presence of human activity in each of them. In the inter-Andean basin native vegetation has been practically eliminated since colonial times, replaced by crops, pasture, towns and exotic tree (eucalyptus and pine) plantations. This region suffers serious soil erosion problems and today only about 1-2% of its original forest cover remains, mainly at inaccessible high-altitude locations above 3400 meters. Only about 5% of the forests of the coastal region remain, most have been destroyed in the last 50 years by logging, agro-industrial monocultures (banana, cacao, coffee, African palm) and colonization; even the coastal mangroves are being eliminated by the emerging shrimp industry, especially in Emeraldas province. In Amazonia, since the early 1970s, about 30% of the region has been deforested or polluted as a result of the oil industry and accelerated colonization facilitated by the oil roads. 6 The first attempts to fight against soil erosion date from the pre-colonial area, centuries before the first Europeans came to this land. For instance, during the Inca empire,in the 14th and 15th centuries, the local communities or ayllús and the central Incan bureaucracy implemented huge public works to conserve the quality and productivity of arable lands in the most endangered areas of central Andes, especially with the building of terraces.

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4. Water pollution- There are two or three main sources of water

pollution, depending on the informants. First of all, this problem has become a matter of great concern in the main cities and their surroundings, because of the disposal of wastewater from human consumption and other economic activities as mining (Ecuador has some very productive gold, copper, lead and magnesium mines, along with oil fields, materials whose handling provokes some environmental hazards to human health), as it has created huge problems for fresh water availability.7 Chemical contamination of fertilizers and pesticides for export crops (principally banana plantations, potato farming and cut-flower farms) is also a deeply threatening matter in the coastal region. Finally the emergence of the aquaculture industry along the coast - Ecuador is one of the global leaders in the production of shrimp to export - has also affected the quality of coastal sea waters.

5. Air and ground pollution- resulting from mining and oil production

wastes in ecologically sensitive areas of the Amazon Basin and Galapagos Areas, as well as in some specific areas in the rest of the country with high presence of mining activity.

6. Floods- in the plain lands of the Costa, and especially in the basin of

the Guayas river, usually related to periodical climate events.

7 The access of the population to potable water is considered so important that in the recently approved new Constitution of the country, it has become a fundamental right, prior to other more usual and formal human rights as they are usually presented (political and economic rights): 2nd title; 12th article: "Access to water is a fundamental and undeniable human right." http://asambleaconstituyente.gov.ec/nueva-constituci-n-de-la-rep- blica-del-ecuador.html.

Map 2: Soil degradation in

Ecuador Source: FAO.

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In sum, most of the environmental problems cited above are not merely natural, but linked directly to the model of economic development implemented by Ecuador, based mainly upon the exploitation of primary resources (fish, bananas and other export crops, minerals and oil) for export. It is even arguable that, as in the rest of Latin America, the "worsening of environmental problems" is one of the main challenges that Ecuadorean society has to face (Gallopín and Chichilnisky 2001: 271). The lack of adequate environmental controls on economic activity has led to strong pressures being placed on natural resources and, thus, to an increasing de-gradation of the environment. Erosion, deforestation and pollution are mostly created by mining and oil producing activity, the invasion of protected natural spaces, and the indiscriminate expansion of the agricultural frontier in more vulnerable areas (Hartman et al. 2002: 2). The intensification of environmental degradation in Ecuador fits with the main issues identified by Gallopín and Chichilnisky: "(1) the expansion of the agricultural area allocated to short-cycled crops, (2) increase of the areas of permanent pastures, and (3) reduction of the areas covered by forests and expansion of urbanized areas" (2001: 276). There is also a heavy reliance on agriculture that not only leads to the exploi-tation of many field workers, but also to an unstable economy that is strongly affected by climatic variability and change. Therefore, the people are extremely vulnerable to droughts and bad crop years. Climatic extremes are more common, planting times have become unpredictable, and alternating floods and drought wreak havoc on farmers. The impacts of climate change and desertification, although felt nationwide, have been most marked in the provinces of Loja and Manabi, where thousands of families have been forced to migrate due to prolonged droughts. Increased deforestation follows their arrival in other provinces where they practice the same forms of land-use that have created deserts in their places of origin. According to Gallopín and Chichilnisky (2001: 278), by 2030 Ecuador would not be able to feed its population, if the projected developments of crop production and population are real, as a consequence of "deforestation, desertification, erosion, and loss of fertility of soils; agricultural, industrial and domestic pollution; accumulation of wastes; and growing vulnerability to landslides, droughts and catastrophic floods".

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Year Disaster Outcomes 1980 Earthquake at Guayas province. Several deaths. 1983 Earthquake at Reventador, that provoked

mudflows. Lot of casualties, and very important economic losses.

1987 Earthquake and mudflows in the Amazonia NO DATA AVAILABLE 1999 Eruption of Pichincha volcano, near Quito

(october). The population around the volcando was evacuated.

1999 Eruption of Tungurahua volcano (october). 26,000 people were preventively evacuated, especialy in the town of Los Baños.

2000 Landslide in El Alar volcano: a big fragment of the mountain broke down into a lake, provoking a sudden flood.

13 people dead near Río Chambo. Lot of fields got covered by mud and crops got lost.

2006 Eruption of Tungurahua volcano (July-August) 4,500 people evacuated. 1 dead and 60 dissapeared.

2007 Earthquake (November) No major damages. Table 1: Major non-climatic natural disasters in Ecuador (1980-2008)

Source: Petit-Breuilh Sepúlveda (2004), for 1980-2000. Other years: BBC news; El País (Madrid).

In addition, the country is exposed to numerous catastrophic natural hazards, such as earthquakes, volcanoes and landslides. Ecuador is located in the so-called Pacific Ring of Fire: a geological area where two tectonic plates (Nazca and South American) are pushed together; that provokes a very high risk of suffering this kind of damaging event. From 1980 on, there have been at least eight of these events, with an average of nearly three major disasters every decade (Table 1). In terms of the number of affected people, droughts, floods and earthquakes are the three major natural hazards, the latter two causing the greatest damage and displacing the greatest number of people (Table 2). According to Hugo Yepes, head of the National Geophysical Institute of Ecuador, the average recurrence rate of major earthquakes in Ecuador (more than 7.0 in Richter scale) is about 25 years. # of Events Killed Injured Homeless Affected Total Affected Damage US$

Drought 2 0 0 0 634,000 634,000 0

avg per event 0 0 0 317,000 317,000 0

Earthquake 16 11,336 486 214,867 182,950 398,303 1,535,000

avg per event 709 30 13,429 11,434 24,894 95,938

Epidemic 11 999 0 0 159,678 159,678 0

avg per event 91 0 0 14,516 14,516 0

Flood 22 889 259 115,436 1,461,582 1,577,277 561,570

avg per event 40 12 5,247 66,436 71,694 25,526

Slides 12 1,099 120 180 81,156 81,456 500,000

avg per event 92 10 15 6,763 6,788 41,667

Volcanoes 10 6 13 7,200 539,670 546,883 160,975

avg per event 1 1 720 53,967 54,688 16,098

Wild Fires 2 0 0 0 800 800 0

avg per event 0 0 0 400 400 0

Table 2: Summarized table of Natural disasters in Ecuador (1904- 2006)

Source: EM-DAT: The OFDA/CRED International Disaster Database, www.em-dat.net - Université catholique de Louvain - Brussels – Belgium

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Finally, the country is also directly affected by the El Niño Southern Oscillation (ENSO), a cyclical variation of the atmospheric general circulation that leads to extreme events (droughts or floods), and that affects all the aspects of human life, especially the economy and public health (Hartman et al. 2002: 3). As Kovats et al. say (2003), "El Niño events have occurred for millennia but were probably first recognised in the late 19th century in Peru." The name El Niño derives from the appearance of warm water off the coast of Peru and Ecuador, which was most noticeable around Christmas (El Niño meaning "little boy" refers to the infant Jesus). From time to time, the warming is anomalous and persists for 12-18 months, forming an El Niño event. There is written historical evidence about ENSO episodes and its effects from the 16th century, and some geological studies have proved the existence of alternate ENSO episodes for several millennia. During an El Niño event, the invasion of warm sea surface water from the western Equatorial region along the coast of northern Chile, Peru and Ecuador causes major changes in both marine and athmospheric environments. On the one hand, the quick warming of sea temperature diminishes the availability of nutrients and thus damages the productivity of fisheries (INP 1999, COPEFEN 1998, ECLAC 1998, Cornejo 2007).8 The normal patterns of general atmospheric circulation are dramatically transformed: El Niño events are consistently associated with heavy rainfall, strong winds and flooding on the coastal region of Ecuador. The reverse side of El Niño events, caused by abnormally cold sea water temperature, are named La Niña (the feminine of El Niño), even though it is more unknown than its "brother". The fluctuation between El Niño, La Niña and average "normal" years comprises an ENSO pattern. It was not until the 1982-83 El Niño event that scientists and governments started understanding El Niño, not only as a Southern American local climatic phenomenon but as a huge climatic alteration worldwide, one of whose most devastating effects were linked to lost in fisheries, crops and other industries across the globe. The unusually intense 1997-98 El Niño -the strongest ever (McPhaden 1999)- stimulated further scientific interest in ENSO: its features, evolution, effects and forecasts. According to official information (CEPAL) the economic losses in Ecuador after the El Niño of 1997-98 were estimated at 1.9 billion US dollars, more than 100.000 ha of first-class agricultural areas were lost; road, telecommunication and water supply networks were heavily damaged and in most cases totally destroyed; thousands of jobs were also lost as a consequence; thousands of people lost their property; and more than 100 people lost their lives, most of them children.9 The effect of global climate change on the ENSO is uncertain, but there are concerns that extreme events associated with it might become more frequent

8 Nott et al. (2002) also highlight the effects of the decrease of marine life in the rest of the ecosystem, for instance in the "availability and population dynamics of landbird species" that become affected by the weather patterns created by El Niño events. 9 http://unisdr.unbonn.org/ewpp/project_viewer.php?project_id=156

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and more intense (Timmerman et al. 1999). Notably, there have only been three El Niño events classified as "very strong" during the 20th century, two of them in the last two decades, including the one of 1997-1998. Moreover, since 1980 it has been noticed that there have been more El Niño (warm) events than El Niña (cold)10. 1.3. Brief overview of migration processes

1.3.1. Three migratory regions The three main regions defined above can not only be differentiated because of their natural and economic features, but also due to their past and present patterns of population and migratory behavior. In fact, the weight of history can be easily noticed once we analyze the composition and trends of population, even in the most recent times. First of all, the Andean Mountains (Sierra), which is the most anciently popu-

lated zone of the country, at least from the times of the Incan Empire and beyond, maintains the greatest part of the Ecuadorean population even today. The majority and the most important Ecuadorean provinces in terms of population are in this area, with the largest of them being the province of Pichincha that has 17.94% of the total population of the country, in which Quito - the capital city - is situated.11 This region received almost all the currents of internal immigration until the middle of 19th century. Today however, internal migrants are increasingly moving to other regions of Ecuador like the Costa (the lesser part) and especially the Oriente, and to foreign countries (the metropolitan area of Quito being an exception to this general pattern because of its political functions) (Álvarez Velasco 200712). The Pacific Coastal Low Lands (Costa), was mainly a marginal area of the former Audiencia of Quito - the colonial precedent of today's Ecuador - for ages, with the only exception being the province of Guayas, where the main sea port of the country, Guayaquil, was located. The situation changed abruptly after half a century of independence of Ecuador, after which, the Costa increasingly became the destination for internal migration, especially during the last third of 19th and all through the 20th century. In fact, this region has showed the highest demographic growth rates of the whole country from 1900 to about 1990, because of the colonization of former tropical forests, the 10 The El Niño events since 1980 are as follows: 1982-1983 (Very strong); 1987-1988 \ (Strong), 1991-1994 (Medium, in three separate events); 1997-1998 (Very strong), 2002-2003 (Strong). 11 As Claudia Pedone (2003) states, the prevalence of Quito is a consequence of the concentration of the administrative services which depend on the capital city; commercial, social and cultural systems that link in the entire Sierra. 12 This author also highlights that, although net migration rate in Quito metropolitan district (DMQ) is still positive, the in- and out-coming migratory currents are quite complex. It is true that "immigrants from all over the country (and, in the last years, from other Andean countries) are settling in the city", but at the same time DMQ is also the departure point ("a strategic nodule") for international emigration to both the United States and EuropeanUnion, often acting as an intermediate stage between a previous internal migration and a subsequent international emigration.

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expansion of intensive agriculture for export (especially bananas) and the sustained economic growth of the city of Guayaquil, that strengthen its traditional importance as the main - if not unique - port of Ecuador. During this period, Guayaquil took over the capital city of Quito as the most populated city of the country: one quarter (25.81%) of the population of Ecuador resides today in Guayas, the department whose head is Guayaquil. The city's trade functions have not been replaced so far by any other port of the country, so the shift of the economic balance of the country to newly developing areas such as Amazonia in the aftermath of the oil boom has not displaced Guayaquil from its prime position as the commercial and financial capital of Ecuador. Nonetheless, the competence of the new economic developing regions of the country has a direct effect on the last migratory currents in the Costa. This region, especially Guayaquil, is both receiving some internal immigration from the Sierra and rural areas within the Costa itself, and being utilized as a point of departure for migrants on their way to Oriente and to Europe. The Amazonian area (Oriente) is still a very sparsely populated region. While it occupies about 45% of the total surface of Ecuador, only 4% of Ecuador’s population lived there according to 2001 census. Nonetheless, it has experienced the highest rates of demographic growth in the last two decades. Furthermore, it has suffered a strong process of occupation because of its oil wells. This is today the most demographically dynamic area of the country, as its migratory balance is clearly positive - it receives more immigrants than the few emigrants it is sending outside. According to Camacho (2004), the periods of more internal mobility within Ecuador can be linked without hesitation to the main periods of economic development: the growth of cocoa (1860-1950) and banana plantations (1948-1965) on the coast; and the "oil revolution" in the Oriente (1972-1995). 1.3.2. International migration to and from Ecuador Ecuador is one of the few countries in Latin America - together with Argentina and Chile - that not only sending, but also receiving immigration flows from abroad (Ministero de Relaciones Exteriores 2007). Most of the incoming migrants to Ecuador declare political factors to explain their decision. The report of the UNHCR in 2006 says that there are 10,063 refugees in Ecuador, along with 2,469 asylum seekers and an undetermined number of about 250,000 people included under the label “various,” that receive some alternative form of protection. Notably, Ecuador has the biggest contingent of refugees in Latin America today. Almost all of them come from the neighbouring Colombia, because of the undeclared war between the government and the guerrillas (FARC), the danger of which they are escaping. The presence of increasing numbers of refugees and other forced immigrants from Colombia is creating political, social, economic and environmental

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problems for Ecuador, whose economy cannot produce resources enough to meet the needs and costs of the assistance for the refugees (Betts 2005: 18)13. First of all, the inter-Andean central highlands (the zone sending the greatest number of emigrants from Ecuador), is the place where the biggest contingents of Colombian refugees and forced immigrants are settling, especially in the provinces nearest to the border. For instance, Quito currently takes 5,687 Colombian refugees, and other important cities of the country, such as Cuenca, Ibarra, Lago Agrio and Santo Domingo have around 1,000 or 2,000 refugees each (http://www.iho.int). Moreover, these figures only take into account the population officially recognized as refugees; only 5% of the Colombians living in Ecuador that were forced to flee from their homeland, have been granted this official recognition. The presence of the refugees is thus increasing the pressure on the weakest regional economy of the country, maybe intensifying the pressure for further migration. The apparent lack of concern and support for the Colombian refugees on behalf of the Columbian government is actually one of the clearest causes of political disagreements between the two countries, according to several Ecuadorean officials14. Other officials simply accuse Colombia of removing populations from the borderlands, in order to create a buffer zone and cut any possibility of external aid to the guerrillas, without being aware of the people that are forced or expelled from their homes and end up crossing the frontier to obtain refuge in Ecuador. As stated by the consul of Ecuador, the official policy of Ecuadorean government on the issue of Colombian refugees and forced immigrants is based, among other questions, on the fact that these people generate a serious problem for the environment, the ecosystem and food security.15

However, it is not immigration, but emigration flows that define most accurately the demographic dynamic and behaviour in Ecuador. Along with a very high natural population growth, the Ecuadorean population increased 12.8% from 1991 to 2001, one of the most important features of the demography of the country in the 1990s was the emergence of a significant emigration current abroad, mainly directed to European Union countries. This does not mean that Ecuadoreans did not emigrate abroad before, even though most of the migrations at that time were primarily internal (Álvarez Velasco, 2007). In fact, at least from the early 1950s there is evidence of some persistent out-migration networks in Ecuador. Moreover, historically, the United States of America was the “natural” destination of Ecuadorean

13 As the same author suggests, "Ecuador has been mooted as a possible recipient for DAR [Development assistance for refugees] at the Mexico City Conference to celebrate the 20th anniversary of the Cartagena Declaration in November 2004, where it was suggested that a UN inter-agency assessment of the border provinces might allow Colombian refugees to be included with development plans for the west of the country". 14 Interviewed with the Consul of Ecuador in Barcelone, by Matteo Manfredi: October 2007. 15 Drug trafficking is also another big problem that Ecuador has to confront because of the efforts of Colombian army to eradicate drug plantations along the borderlands, "They were, not only destroying their plantations, but also ours, destroying water, food, destroying human life: they were poisoning not only our environment, but also our population”.

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emigrants because of, among other reasons, (a) the geographical proximity; and (b) the widespread belief in the possibilities of the “American dream” among large social strata. Even until 2006, this country had the largest numbers of Ecuadorean immigrants living there. This preference of Ecuadoreans to migrate to the USA rather than to other destinations prevailed until 1998, even though the flows were decreasing annually because of the strengthening of measures to control immigration to the USA. These migration flows were originated in some specific provinces. According to Goycoechea and Ramírez Gallegos (2002: 36), the pioneering regions that first started the migratory flows to the USA were the southern provinces of Azuay and Cañar (Jokisch 2002: 23).16 Even today, the population of these two provinces shows a clear preference for emigrating to the USA rather than to Europe, in contrast to the rest of the country. The persistence of traditional, deeply rooted social networks explains the continuity of this behaviour. Sometimes this early preference for the United States has been explained by means of the differences in immigration policies between the USA and Europe. Nonetheless, this does not actually seem to be the only real reason to explain the delayed start of Ecuadorean migration to Europe. Spain, for instance, had granted Ecuadorean immigrants the right of dual nationality and other social protection since 1960 (Geronimi et al. 2004), and no visa requirements were implemented for Ecuadorean immigrants applying to reside in Spain until 2001 (Anguiano Téllez 2006: 4), but these benefits did not seem to attract too many Ecuadoreans to Spain for decades. In fact, the explosion of Ecuadorean flows to Spain and other EU countries, took place while the conditions to obtain permission to reside in the country were becoming more difficult after the implementation of the shared border security measures of the Schengen treaty. This change however, did not prevent EU countries, and especially Spain17, from overtaking the USA as the main destination of Ecuadorean migrants (see Table 2).

Before 2000 9,1% Between 2000-2004 78,6% Between 2005-2006 12,3%

Table 3: Year of arrival to Spain from Ecuador. Source: Aierdi et al., 2008.

16 Emigration from Azuay and Cañar, mainly directed to New York, Chicago and Minneapolis in the United States, emerged as a noticeable flow in terms of quantity in the late 1960s, when the first cases of confinement of illegal Ecuadorean immigrants came to the public attention via the mass media. It seems that the flows dramatically increased in the aftermath of the crisis that hit one of the traditional industries of both provinces, the manufacture and export of "paja toquilla" hats. Even when the local economy recovered from the crisis, the influence of migratory chains impelled a continuous flow of immigrants, once "local smallholder agriculturalists became integrated into the global economy" and the differential of income between U.S. cities and Ecuadorean rural areas made migration much more attractive in terms of comparative earnings. 17 In Spain, Ecuadoreans represent the second-to-last immigration current from Latin America, following the arrival of South Cone exiles in the 1970s and the migration from Peru and Dominican Republic in the 1980s. Only recently Ecuadoreans have started being overtaken in numbers by immigrants from other countries such as Colombia or Bolivia (Anguiano Téllez 2006, Álvarez Velasco 2007).

15

A clear breaking point in the migratory behavior of Ecuadoreans occurred in 1998. Suddenly migration to Europe began, starting migratory flows previously unknown in the country. Between 1998 and 2001, when migratory flows from Ecuador to Europe reached their peak (Aierdi et al. 2008), about 350,000 migrants had officially departed the country, even though some estimates increase this amount and roughly calculate up to 2 million citizens of Ecuador living abroad by 2002. In the first half of 1999 alone, for instance, 172,320 Ecuadoreans moved to Spain. Two indicators help us to understand the tremendous impact of these migratory flows in Ecuador: on the one hand, the emergence of a new kind of "enterprise", usually belonging to the "informal economy", to provide services to future emigrants: chulqueros or prestamistas (loaners) to support the cost of the travel, and coyotes (gangs that helped illegal immigrants crossing the border). On the other hand, the Ecuadorean government had to implement for the first time a consulate service to look after their citizens living abroad: the Dirección General de Ecuatorianos en el Exterior (2005). The enforcement of new rules to enter Spain and the whole EU Schengen area with a newly implemented tourist visa in 2002, along with the changes in the immigration policy of the USA that made the procedure to grant visas to Latin Americans more difficult (Ricaurte 2007), slowed but did not stop the flows.

The intensity and quick development and growth of Ecuadorean migration to Europe in this period astonished politicians and public opinion in both departure and arrival countries, and thus created huge interest among social scientists specialized in the study of the causes and outcomes of migration. In fact, the debate on the causes of this unexpected and quick growth, which has sometimes been referred to as a veritable "stampede" (Ramírez Gallegos and Ramírez 2005), has usually focused on "traditional" explanations such as the economy. In 1998 the financial system of Ecuador collapsed, pulling down the rest of the economy also (García-Calvo Rosell 2006). A second reason given is the importance of chain migration system.

Graph 1: Ecuadorean migrants

abroad (1996-2001). Source: Ricaurte, 2007.

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From 1998 on, when the European Union started to be the main destination for Ecuadorean migrants, three new main destinations abroad were clearly preferred: in order of quantitative relevance, Spain, Italy and the United Kingdom. Spain is chosen in most of the cases because of language, similarity of culture and identity. Migrants from Ecuador also find some attractive things like a parallelism of language and culture in the other Mediterranean country, Italy, which is the second most popular destination. And finally the United Kingdom was chosen because of the attractiveness of its currency, whose exchange rates with both the Euro and the US Dollar made this destination very desirable from a purely economic point of view. The change of the geographical patterns of Ecuadorean emigration abroad also affects the distribution of preferential regions of origin. Along with the two traditional provinces of origin mentioned above, other provinces in both the Sierra and the Coast joined the group of areas with high emigration rates: between 1998 and 2002, Azuay, Cañar, Loja, Manabí, Los Ríos, Guayas and Pichincha had the highest levels of outgoing emigration to other countries (De la Vega, 2006: 175). In almost all the cases, with the suprising exceptions of Guayas and Pichincha, i.e., the two most populated cities of Ecuador, they are usually provinces whose economy is mainly based upon agriculture, and whose poverty levels are extremely high, even for the average standards of the whole country: between 78.4 and 86.5% (according to UNDP data: Informe sobre Desarrollo Humano 1999: 146-152).18 2. METHODS

2.1. Justification of the selection

Fieldwork for this research was carried out in two different areas: the departure country, Ecuador, and the most important receiving country for Ecuadorean immigrants in the EU: Spain. In Spain, we conducted surveys in two areas among those that have received Ecuadorean immigrants in the last decades (see Map 3): Catalonia and the Upper Ebro Valley (that includes provinces like Saragossa, Navarre, La Rioja and Álava). Catalonia is one of the most populated regions in Spain and its capital city, Barcelona, is the second most important city of Spain in population, and the first in economic activity. The Upper Ebro Valley is an important area because of the presence of a high technology, export-oriented agriculture. Land-owners need cheap workers and because of the strong demand for manpower, many immigrants - not only Ecuadoreans, but also Moroccans and people of other nationalities - have decided to settle in this area to work as peones or braceros (unskilled farm workers). Apart from Madrid, there is another third main region that has intensely attracted Ecuadorean immigration, also because of the implementation of intensive

18 According to the Inter American Development Bank, Ecuadoreans sent 1,656 million dollars in 2003, 1,740 in 2004 and 2,005 in 2006 (Domínguez Ávila, 2007: 13). Notably, remittances are seemingly having a negative impact on the Ecuadorian economy by influencing increased inflation and raising the average price levels.

17

agriculture: Murcia on the south-eastern coast of Spain; for this case, no direct fieldwork has been conducted, as there is much scientific literature available on some aspects of Ecuadorean migration to this region (mainly on quantification, adaptation and other social issues).

Map 3: Number of Ecuadoreans in Spain (2007).

Source: Census of Population and estimations (Instituto Nacional de Estadística). Spain. Per province, distinguishing men and women. Dark green: Men / Light green: Women

With respect to the place of origin of the immigrants, they had arrived in Spain from several provinces of the regions of Coast and Sierra, as we can see in Table 3. Only the Oriente is not represented in the results of the survey.

Table 4: Surveys of Ecuadorean immigrants in Spain (2007)

Fieldwork in Ecuador was centered on a very specific area, the province of Los Ríos (Map 4), located in the western region or Costa. This province is located in the Guayas river basin, very close to its mouth: in fact, the capital city of the province, Babahoyo, is located only 75 km north of Guayaquil. The name of the province comes from its principal geographical feature, as it occupies an area drained by a dense web of rivers, all of them tributaries of the Guayas. It was once covered by a compact rainforest, but today only a

18

few small areas of it remain. In the place where the rainforest used to be, today there is a succession of plantations and farms (cocoa, coffee, rice and bananas, principally). Agriculture is the main source of income for the province's economy. The province is located in the middle of a huge, low plain, so the capacity of the land to drain the excess of water is extremely low, especially in times when the flows are abnormally high. The risk of floods is the main environmental problem that affects this province (Map 4).

2.2. Discussion of methods

Surveys have been the main source for our study, both in the country of origin and destination of Ecuadorean migrants in Europe. First of all, we carried out 53 surveys with Ecuadorean immigrants in Spain (in Catalonia and Upper Ebro Valley, because these areas have one of the largest presence of migrants from Ecuador, not only in Spain but in the European Union19). We also interviewed the Consul of Ecuador in Barcelona and other officials, who gave us very interesting information about environment and migration processes in Ecuador. Finally, we collected some expert interviews with members of NGOs that assist Ecuadorean migrants in Spain. Approaching the people of this nationality was easier than those of other nationalities that we also studied in Spain. They have a similar culture and also have Spanish as mother tongue so, in spite of some of them being illegal immigrants, they felt more confident than Moroccans, for instance, about their degree of acceptance and capacity to adapt to Spanish society. A series of surveys with non migrants in the province of Los Ríos was subcontracted to local researchers, through a Basque NGO called Elizbarrutietako Mixioak, linked to the Catholic Church, whose presence in Ecuador dates back to the early 1960s. In fact this province is the place where this NGO started working after

19 Fieldwork in Catalonia was conducted by Matteo Manfredi. Fieldwork in the Upper Ebro Valley [Basque Country, Navarre, La Rioja and Aragón] was performed by Neida Jiménez.

Map 4: Flood risk in Ecuador. Source: Peña Herrera (2008)

The area highlighted in blue represent those whose risk of flood is considered high, according to the recurrence of past episodes of floods. The southern part of Los Ríos province is covered by this risk.

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it arrived to Ecuador, so they provided us with a good knowledge of the local conditions and their evolution in the last decades. Sixteen surveys were conducted there, along with several interviews with local experts and government officials. Finally, as we have said before, we have also used available literature, which was one of the main sources of expert information on both environmental issues and migrations in Ecuador. 3. FIELDWORK FINDINGS & ANALYSIS.

3.1. Fieldwork in Spain: to which extent did the environment lead to migration? One of the most striking characteristics of Ecuadorean immigration in Spain, and all over the European Union, is the high rate of feminization it shows. 28 of the interviewees were men and the other 20 were women.20 This feature fits with the outcomes of much research on Latin American, and more precisely Ecuadorean immigration to Spain in the last two decades: about 57.5% of Latin American immigrants living in Spain in 2005 were women (Anguiano Téllez 2006: 5). Fieldwork and expert interviews in Ecuador confirmed this impression: for instance Maite Labayru, a member of the NGO Elizbarrutietako Mixioak that has been working for several years in the town of Palenque, in the western side of Los Ríos, recognizes that while men tend towards temporary, pendulating internal migration to other medium- and high-size cities within Ecuador, international migration is the domain of women:

Among rural populations in Palenque, internal non-permanent migration prevails. Usually male householders tend to go to the cities, like Babahoyo, Vinces, Guayaquil or Quito once the harvest is finished, from June to October. There they work as peones in the construction or port facilities, chauffeurs or private security agents. There are also a few young people that go there to study. Regarding international migration, it is more usual among women, usually to Spain and Italy.

The percentage of women that are heads of a household is notably higher among emigrants than in the homeland. Furthermore, the position and capacities of women inside the families are quite different, and they enjoy greater freedoms in Europe than in the traditional family system of Ecuador, which can also be considered to be a factor that is encouraging feminine migration abroad (Lipszyc 2004). Two thirds of the interviewees declare that they come from urban areas, but there is also a significant number of informants coming from rural places, and there is also a high percentage of step-migrants. However, when these

20 According to the survey results, 5 of the interviewees did not answer this question, probably because of a mistake made by the interviewer during the process of collection of data. After asking the survey conducter about this lack of information, she told us that as far as she could remembers, most of them were women. This lack of accuracy does not harm the most relevant conclusion from this part of the survey: the importance of women as pioneers of international migratory movements from Ecuador.

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migrants arrive in Spain, they tend to prefer to settle down in urban areas (see Table 2). There are two different situations regarding their patterns of settlement and labour integration: while a part of this flow comes to high- and medium-size cities and urban environments (Madrid and Barcelona, principally), another part of Ecuadorean immigration arrives in rural areas, in order to work in agriculture (Murcia and Upper Ebro Valley, principally). In this case however, there is tendency to relocate to urban areas as a way of social and economic improvement.

ORIGIN CURRENT PLACE THEY LIVE

Nº % Nº % Urban 36 67,92% 47 88,69% Rural 12 22,65% 1 1,88% No answeR 5 9,43% 5 9,43% TOTAL 53 100% 53 100%

Table 5: Patterns of residence. Ecuadorean interviewees in Spain (2007) Another major difference between these two main regions of reception (urban and rural areas) is related to the rate of feminization in each of them: in fact, while women tend to be the majority of Ecuadoreans in urban areas (in a relationship about 60%-40%), in rural spaces, the percentage of men is equal to a bit higher than of women (about 55%-45%; see Map 3). To a certain extent, this distribution was reflected in the surveys, even though we cannot claim any kind of statistical significance for the surveys conducted in Spain. Eighty per cent of the interviewees were aged between 18 and 40, so they were both of working and reproducing age (Ministerio de Relaciones Exteriores 2007). According to the typology of households, there are two kinds of Ecuadorean migrations in Spain:

� Single people: usually young, that consider themselves as temporary migrants, because their principal aim is to earn money to return as soon as possible to Ecuador.

� Family groups: most of them consider themselves as permanent

migrants. The benefits of the Welfare State (education and medical assistance) were mentioned to be among the reasons given for their preference to stay abroad rather than return to their homeland. Migrants from rural areas especially describe these benefits as one of the most important links to their host country. This is due to the important imbalance of social services between rural and urban areas in Ecuador, as the Ecuadorean Consul in Barcelona states: "There is only medical attention in the most important areas: Quito, Guayaquil, Cuenca or Machala. Rural services are completely neglected"

On the contrary, Ecuadorean immigration to Spain cannot be considered as well skilled as a whole. Two of every three Ecuadoreans living in Spain only have primary education; the third highest proportion among Latin Americans

21

after Dominicans and Bolivians.21 Actually, in all these cases a relationship between feminization rate and average schooling level can be established: the higher the percentage of women is, the higher the proportion is of not- or less-skilled immigrants. Perhaps this relationship occurs due to the less access women have to education in the country of origin. Men tend to work in construction and agriculture; while women are more required for domestic service and some auxiliary tasks in agriculture (Anguiano Téllez 2006). 3.2. How do environmental problems affect migration? If we only take into account the sole results of the survey, we would probably deduce that environment does not play a major role in the latest migratory movements from Ecuador to Europe. In fact, only six people in the surveys said that the problems of the environment affected their decision to move from the place they lived in. Even in these cases however, when the same people were asked other questions related to environmental matters, they stated that the environment did not concern them Perhaps one of the reasons for this can be found in the process of data collection. It seems that some parts of the survey were misunderstood by interviewees, especially regarding concepts related to the definition of “environment” and “environmental problems.” Notably, a very similar kind of problem emerged in previous studies, such as the one developed by Goycoechea and Ramírez (2002: 37): when they asked a Ecuadorean that had not migrated yet about whether environmental factors influenced their decision to migrate, the answer was: "I only know Europe from the photos, it's a nice place, with beautiful scenery (..) It's like a paradise". It seemed that the interviewee was interpreting environment to mean landscape. And thus, from this point of view, it is not rational to contend that the mere beauty of the countryside could be reason enough to force people to cross an ocean to settle in a foreign country so far away from home. When interviewees are directly asked about their reasons for migrating, as we would have probably expected, economic problems always emerge as the most commonly repeated reasons for their decision, sometimes highlighting the economic problems that hit them in their country, and other times noting their desire for improvement (all the 53 answers cite economic reasons). Moreover, this same desire lies behind the second of the most important declared cause of migration: the search for better living conditions for their families (42 answers):

My life has improved here, I have a job and I have formed my family.

21 There is a huge diversity among Latin American immigrants in Europe in regard to educational and occupational levels. On the one hand, there is a majority of less-skilled, low- class job holders; but on the other extreme, about one third of Latin American residents have obtained unversity level degrees and tend to move into medium or well-qualified jobs (Domínguez Ávila 2007: 10). There is also a geographical differentiation behind this classification, as only a few countries (Argentina, Uruguay and Chile) tend to have most of the medium and top skilled Latin American immigrants.

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I do not think about going back because I have gathered my family together and we all have built our life here.

Nonetheless, when interviewees are asked about specific environmental problems, people who came from rural areas admit that, to a certain extent, floods, droughts, the lack of water and some disasters like earthquakes, eruptions and El Niño events have often hit their country and affected their life quality strongly (17 answers):

Droughts prevented me from working the fields and now pollution affects my breathing. There was an earthquake in Manabi in 1998 and I emigrated as a result of it. In Ecuador floods filled my house with water.

While interviewees generally conceded that there are environmental problems, less agreed to accept the possible link with migration. In fact, the only direct and clearly established statements of environmental reasons provoking migration in the answers provided by people coming from rural areas were concerning natural disasters such as earthquakes and volcanic eruptions, and their direct outcomes. There is actually a long tradition in Ecuador that links the occurrence of this kind of event and the emergence of forced displacements of population. For instance, when in August 1949 the Tungurahua volcano exploded, affecting several areas of the provinces of Cotopaxi and Tungurahua with landslides and similar damages, one of the responses of the government was to resettle the most vulnerable populations to safer areas. Some of these emergency displacements finally resulted in permanent migration, as in the case of those that moved to Pelileo (Petit-Breuilh Sepúlveda 2004: 267). The connection with migration could also be established indirectly however, in that the interviewees recognized that environmental changes have produced effects on the economic base of their families by means of the decreasing of productivity or even the destruction of crops, both leading to a reduction of family income and forcing relocation. Some pioneering studies, such as the one by Jokisch (2002), have asserted that that consideration of environmental factors helps to explain some of the migratory patterns in several rural areas. For instance, he found a correlation between migration and deforestation in two cantons in the N.E. section of the province of Cañar (cantons of Mazar and Llavircay (2002: 33), an area that -as we have stated before- is characterised by a long tradition of both internal migration to big Ecuadorean cities and, from the 1950s, to the United States.22

22 Nevertheless, it is also necessary to point out that the links between environmental factors and migration, in this case, are part of a very complex system of factors. Deforestation, for example, can be affected by the migratory patterns of a population. For i instance, he says that "most of the research from the rural Andes concur with this pessimistic assessment of the impacts of migration", that leads to damage of agricultural systems, due to "inadequate attention to agriculture leading to environmental degradation". According to Jokisch, researchers have argued that "international migration is even worse than domestic

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In the case of the Sierra region, slow processes like land degradation are eroding the productivity of farms and putting stress in the evolution of average income of households. On the other hand, people from urban centres - who are less affected by di-sasters, at least in the same direct way as a flood or a drought can affect the livelihood of a farmer- are more willing to admit the presence of some environmental problems in the pool of causes that made them decide to leave their homeland. Some of the interviewees, for instance, agreed that air pollution in the cities they lived in Ecuador is the main cause that made them migrate - even though they paradoxically decided to settle down in cities and urban areas in which air pollution is also a major environmental concern:

There was much pollution that affected my breathing. I had breathing problems and infections there.

It is also quite interesting to note that the only group of Ecuadorean immi-grants in Spain that consider themselves primarily as "environmental migrants" is the community from the city of Otavalo. Otavalo is located in the central-northern part of the country, in the Sierra. It is a mining town whose growth occurred during the 20th century. This city is an exception in the Sierra, as for decades it has been a place that has received a lot of Ecuadorean internal immigrants because of its flourishing economy. But this situation also has a reverse side: mining has created one of the most polluted environments in the whole country (Interview with the consul of Ecuador in Barcelona). In this city, there is also a great presence of trade unions of workers and miners, with a high level of participation in political parties, associations of workers and so on. It can be considered "the most politicized city of the country." The fight against pollution is one of the hot topics on the political agendas of local groups. Thus, there is a greater awareness of environmental problems inside Otavaleños than in any other city in Ecuador. This likely explains why people of Otavalo see environmental problems as important driving forces for migration (Pujadas & Massal 2002: 68). Not surprisingly, emigrants from Otavalo tend to focus on the question of the lack of adequate policies of the government and other responsible agencies to help the society facing the problem. A statement repeated by some of the Otavaleños says that the solution to the problem would start once the politicians decided to use the public resources in the development of the country and the fight against climate change, instead of stealing them. As one interviewee stated; "all the blame is to be put in the hands of the bad governments that have ruled the country.” Thus, the difference between immigrants coming from rural and urban areas in relation to the importance they place on environmental problems affecting their decision to migrate, can be summarized as follows:

migration because (..) remittances are seldom dedicated to investment (..) or agricultural improvement." The debate is still open and inconclusive.

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Area of origin (Ecuador) RURAL URBAN

Area of destination (Europe)

BOTH RURAL AND URBAN PREDOMINANTELY URBAN

Level of study, skills LOW LOW - MEDIUM Incidence of environment

inmigration HIGH (environmental changes

affected crops yield, high interannual variability; El Niño)

MEDIUM (catastrophical events, pollution)

Level of knowledge and awareness of

environmental issues

LOW (They do not quote "environment"

as cause of migration)

HIGH (Some of them highlight

"pollution" as main cause of migration)

Examples Provices of Los Ríos, El Oro, Imbabura or Manabí

City of Otavalo

Table 6: Rural vs. Urban Migration: Factors of influence

3.3. The effects of sudden environmental changes: The case study of El Niño 1997-1998 in Los Ríos. An overview from the literature 3.3.1. A Literature Review As previously noted, two important events related to the two main topics of our analysis (environment and migration) had happened very closely to each other in the late 1990s: on the one hand, the El Niño event of 1997-1998, that was - as we have already seen - the strongest recorded since the starting of modern climate data collection; and on the other hand, the migratory "stampede" of Ecuadoreans abroad, most of them to Europe, that began in the second half of 1998 and 1999. An important question is: Were these two events connected to each other? Or was the time connection only a mere coincidence? The search for answers to this question was tackled in two ways. First of all, a review was conducted of the available literature. Secondly, the question was explored as part of the field research of the study. Los Rios became selected as the regional case study within Ecuador, because this province was inside one of the areas most affected by the worse consequences of the 1997-1998 El Niño, and because it was a zone with almost no previous experience of international migration (Albornoz Guarderas and Hidalgo Pallarés, 2007). If any connection could be established between El Niño's effects and international migration, this province would probably offer us one of the best and clearest examples of it. Almost none of the official reports published by Ecuadorean governmental agencies on the effects of the 1997-1998 El Niño23, noted a relationship be-

23 It seems that the El Niño events, that create wetter and hotter climate conditions in the coastal area of Ecuador, can also explain the increase of incidence of some infectious tropical diseases (malaria, dengue, yellow fever and other water transmitted diseases as cholera and hepatitis), as the new climate conditions favour the spread of the vectors of these diseases (like mosquitoes); for instance, Vivar Mendoza (1997), OPS/PAHO (2002) and Gagnon et al. (2002) found a significant relationship that demonstrates that flooding promotes the

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tween El Niño and the migratory movements in the decade after. However, when the Corporación Andina de Fomento [CAF], an inter-state agency formed by several countries of Southern America collected an extensive assessment of the damages produced by the El Niño event in each of the most affected countries of the group (CAF, 2000), migratory movements were actually accepted as one of the social changes due to the effects of El Niño.

In the case of Ecuador, the main findings of the CAF report pointed out that the most damaged areas (principally on the Coast, as the incidence of El Niño is moderate in the Andean plateau, and not significant in the Oriente), in which unusually strong precipitation, floods (see Image 1), soil erosion and even sea level rise were noticed, were related to flows of internal migration, which brought people especially from poor, remote rural areas to the cities in search of jobs to compensate for the lack of income because of the loss of crops. In fact, agriculture was the sector of the economy most deeply hit by El Niño - agriculture exports account for 60% of the external trade balance of the country. In the four most damaged provinces (Guayas, Manabí, Los Ríos and Esmeralda), livestock also suffered great losses, a circumstance not widely experienced in previous flood events that have affected the same area (Ro-sero and González 2003). From a demographic point of view, the 1997-1998 El Niño event simply intensified a tendency to concentrate the former rural population into urban areas that started some decades before. There is no mention about the start of international mass migration in the aftermath of the event. A review of the literature reveals that only a few scholars specialized in migration studies believe that there was a direct cause-effect relationship between the damage produced by El Niño and the dramatic changes in Ecuadorean migratory patterns. For most of scholars in this field, the strong economic crisis that hit Ecuador between 1998 and 1999 is understood as the main -and maybe only- cause of the migratory boom of those years (Gómez heightened instances of malaria epidemics in the coast.

Image 1: Floods at

Cantón Baba, Province of Los

Ríos. 1998. Source:

Elizbarrutietako Mixioak

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Quintero, 2005; De la Vega, 2006, who offer an interesting summary of the main findings of the previous literature on the topic). This point of view is seemingly shared by the wider public opinion, who view the events of 1998 also focus on the mix of poverty, economic crisis and pernicious political practices as the most remarkable cause of migration (for instance Pereda and De Prado 2003). Notably, the main economic and social indicators in those years present an almost catastrophic situation: after a decade of continuous positive economic growth (average 2-3% per year), GDP dropped -6.3% in 1999, and did not start recovering until the end of 2000.24: the fall of GDP in the last years of the century almost completely erased all the growth of a decade before. Unemployment rates almost doubled between 1997 (about 8% of active population) and 1999 (more than 15%); and public budget for social issues (education, health) dropped about 37% between 1996 and 1999 (De la Vega 2006: 172). By 2000, 6 of every 10 Ecuadorean households were below the level of poverty, the highest rate in several decades. Rosero and González state that the average effects of El Niño events in Ecuadorean economy are about a 5,3% reduction of GPD from the beginning of the event, and that usually take 1,3 years to be recovered (2003:9). On the other hand, when we turn to the work of experts in the economics field, we can find that most of the researchers coincide in explaining the drastic increase in migration levels as a result of a concurrence of circumstances, one of which was the effects of 1997-1998 El Niño event, that hit forcibly the production of agriculture and fisheries - the first economic sector in Ecuadorean exports. Three other events noted were:

(1) The financial crisis after a general failure of the credit system of the country, after a general financial crisis in the whole Latin American bank system (although triggered in SE Asia), that led to a decrease of credit funds available to both public and private banks;

(2) The striking collapse of the international prices of oil - the second

most important income for Ecuador's international balance of trade - that reached historically low levels, thus diminishing the Ecuadorean state budget by about 4% of GPD in 1998 and 1999;

(3) The political instability and, thus, the lack of a well-defined

economic policy to face the crisis and the increase of the huge external debt;

From the literature therefore, we can conclude that it is likely that environmental factors influenced the Ecuadorean migratory explosion of the

24 (ODEPLAN, 2000) Inflation also escalated: 31% in 1997; 43% in 1998 and 61% in 1999.

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last years of 20th century (Goycoechea and Ramírez Gallegos 2002: 34-35). Importantly, there is some research available in which a link between the 1997 El Niño event and migration has been established in other parts of the world. For instance, a governmental agency of the Philippines in charge of a R&D study on the effects of ENSO anomalies in this archipelago has underlined, among other consequences (losses in agriculture, environmental destruction, and higher risks of droughts), that "social and economic impacts include massive migrations to urban areas, decline in productivity of industries, eventually leading to unemployment and food shortages." According to this research, migratory movements due to the effects of several ENSO events can be presented in the case of the Philippines.25 A similar conclusion can be found in the research conducted by Retana and Villalobos Flores (2003) about the social effects of the 1997 El Niño in Central America, and more precisely in Costa Rica. As these authors pointed out in their conclusions that migration tends to appear when the impact of the climatic event damages the level of "social comfort" of the most vulnerable populations -understood as a mix of household income level and regularity, and the capacity of the whole society to deal with the damage inflicted on public infrastructures.26 3.3.2. The 1997-1998 El Niño in the province of Los Ríos. Fieldwork results The results of the fieldwork seem to indicate that, at least in the case studied in the province of Los Ríos, El Niño transformed migratory patterns. As we have seen before, half of the surface of the province, including a large part of the lands used for agriculture and farming, is located in an area with high level of risk of floods. One of the main climatic outcomes of El Niño episodes in Ecuador is the increase of precipitation and the intensification of flood risk. 4 of the 11 cantons of the province suffered the maximum level of damage, 6 the medium, and only 2 minor overflowing of rivers (Vos, Velasco and Labastida 1999:5). During 1997 and 1998, a series of recurrent floods were experienced in the province, with two main features: their extremely high intensity, stronger than other previous floods; and their persistence - as they

25

El Nino R&D Program, available at http://www.pcarrd.dost.gov.ph/infocenter/projects/enso. 26 Retana and Villalobos Flores also state that the most usual of these flows are internal, from rural to urban areas, but that in some cases they can also become international movements, as it is -in their opinion- the case of Central American nations, whose traditional migratory relationship with the USA made this country the main destination of those looking for an escape from disasters caused by natural hazards (p. 38). Social vulnerability and the availability of resources are thus very important to explain the migratory effects of such events as El Niño. As Sarachik and Shea state (1997); short term "climate variability [as the El Niño events are] works on the agricultural system as it really is and has consequences that depend both on the obvious factors of agriculture and on the added human and economic dimensions of agriculture. For example, in the USA, a low rainfall year may lead to crop failures and the imposition of a whole series of disaster relief efforts, most of which are designed to keep people from losing their farms. In the Northeast part of Brazil, however, the lack of such efforts combined with the total lack of alternate work for the peasant farmer has in the past led to mass migrations away from Northeast Brazil to the bigger cities of the south". Some historians have also used the effect of ENSO to explain historical migration, but in another sense -not as cause but as a way to help movements- (Anderson et al., 2006).

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lasted two years.27 As a consequence, crops were lost and most of the livestock were drowned or killed by the spread of diseases caused by water-related vectors. As noted by Vos, Velasco and Labastida (1999):

The rural population of the province of Los Ríos, where many farmers are engaged in the production of rice and corn, was hardest hit by El Niño. Foregone agricultural income amounts to 25% of mean consumption of rural households in this province. We estimate a rise in the incidence of rural poverty of 18.6 percentage points, increasing the number of poor by 53,000 (16).

All the interviewees stated in the surveys that they had previous experiences of migration in their and/or their families' lives. In the first case, when interviewees were giving an account of their own personal experiences, all of them claimed to have participated in previous internal migratory movements within Ecuador, mainly in two forms:

- Migration from rural to urban areas within the same province, from small settlements or caseríos to the small- and medium-size urban centers of the province (especially the capital, Babahoyo, and other towns like Quevedo or Vinces). These movements have tended to be permanent. - Migration out of the province to other regions of Ecuador, mainly to Guayaquil - only 75 km away from the town of Babahoyo -, but also to Quito or to the Oriente. These movements have tended to be temporary or even circular. For instance, two of the interviewees declared that they worked half of the year in their town of origin, Palenque, as farmers or agriculturalists, but spent at least five months every year in Guayaquil, working on the construction.

It is very interesting to note the timing of these low-distance and pendulating migratory movements. All of those who were undertaking circular migration recognized that they started migrating - or migrating more often, in the case of those that claimed previous migratory experiences - "cuando lo del Niño" ("by the time the El Niño happened"), in reference to the 1997-1998 event. Also remarkable is the flippant use of the Spanish expression quoted above. It somehow seems to convey an implicit acceptance of the links between the climatic event and the decision to migrate. At the same time, all the interviewees claim to have relatives living abroad. In all the cases, the departure of the international emigrants had happened after 1998; none of them before. Another interesting feature is the great number of women that participated in this international flow; in contrast with the internal one, mainly protagonized by males: according to INEC, 59.95% of Los Rios migration abroad (2001) was composed of women.28

27

http://www.who.int/mediacentre/factsheets/fs192/en/index.html.. 28 According to the National census of 2001, there were 8,018 Ecuadoreans from Los Rios "absent abroad", with 4,726 of them being women.

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A bit surprisingly, almost none of them suggested, in the first instance, a link between environmental problems and their migratory experience. In fact, the only one that agreed with this idea, actually accepted the environment as a cause, not to emigrate but to come back, when he explained that he had decided to return from Guayaquil "because of the noise and pollution, life was very hard for me. I earned a lot there, but I didn't like it at all so I returned". Pollution, for instance, was for many a key reason why living in rural areas was preferable to living in urban areas, even though contamination because of fertilizers in pesticides is a crucial problem in several areas of the Costa where intensive plantations are located.

Image 2: Palafitos surrounded by water during the floods at Cantón Baba, Province of Los Ríos. 1998.

Source: Elizbarrutietako Mixioak After further questioning, it became apparent however that crops and livestock were the key to the relationship between environment and migration. When they were asked about the reasons that impelled them or their relatives to migrate, there was unanimity in citing the failure of crops, massive deaths of livestock and, thus, the dramatic decrease of the family income and the availability of economic resources as the main factor that made them take the decision. Even in the only case in which the survey was not answered by an agriculturalist or a farmer but an artisan from Palenque, the same problems lay behind, as the general lack of purchasing capacity of their clients also hit him strongly and obliged him to go away to find supplementary income:

... lots of my clients got totally ruined, so they couldn't buy the tools I made anymore. Sales dropped off and I had to give up

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working for a time. Wait for better times. So I went to Quito to work with a brother of mine that has a shop there.

We can deduce that these migrations were caused by an economic problem with underlying environmental factors. It was neither the El Niño event itself, nor their effects in some aspects that can lessen life quality such as the destruction of infrastructure like roads or the spread of infectious diseases, the main driver of migration, but its effect on local and family economies. Actually, the 1997-1998 El Niño event was not the first time when floods had hit the province. Because of this, the local population had developed ways to adapt to the recurrent floods for a long time. In the words of Mayte Labayru from Elizbarrutietako Mixioak (Interview at Palenque August 2008), referring to the floods that happened in March 2008 in Los Ríos.29

Even though the most damaged people have been obliged to take refuge in several provisional camps, most of the inhabitants haven't needed such aid, as they use to build palafitos (stilt houses or pile dwellings) or two-floor houses to live in; so when the flood comes, they just remain upstairs until water backs down. People know how to face flood: if they need to go out from home, they just swim, or use their canoes, or construct puentes-balsa (raft bridges) to cross the flooded areas. Even for the kids these are amazing times, as they don't have to go to school and can go swimming just in front of home. Usually livestock doesn't suffer very much, if there is a normal flood, as they are also used and can keep eating the plants underwater. (..) If the flood doesn't last very long, no major damage is done to crops (see Image 2).

The main difference between the 1997-1998 El Niño and other previous events lay in the intensity and duration of the floods that extended beyond the coping capacities and the limits of the traditional ways of adaptation. For instance, the accumulation of successive losses of crops for two years finally drained the households' reserves prepared to prevent the damages based on the outcomes of previous, shorter floods. So this could explain the delay of approximately one year between the El Niño event and the outbreak of massive migration. Moreover, some experts also highlight the increase of deforestation from the 1970s, a process that has worsened the effects of extreme events as droughts and floods.30

29 According to the NGO Plan International (www.plan-international.org), in March 2008, devastating floods swept across more than half of Ecuador. Mostly in the Costa (provinces of Manabí, Guayas and Los Ríos). About 3,500,000 people were affected; of which 300,000 were evacuated to safer places. Only 19 casualties. "The damage was comparable to that of El Niño ten years ago". Weeks of intense rain have caused rivers to overflow and numerous landslides have occurred, destroying roads. Diseases such as Malaria or diarrhea have spread. Food supplies are also becoming scarce in some areas. 30 Interview to Juan Ramon Etxebarria, 23/X/2008.

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The acquired experience of previous floods also made migration happen in two stages. At first, the redistribution of the population was driven through traditional patterns, intensifying internal flows within Ecuador, from rural to urban areas, and from small to big or growing cities. Since the environmental problems were not the only problems effecting the country however, which by that time was involved in a more serious economic crisis, the capacity of Ecuadorean economy to cope with the internal redistribution of the population diminished quickly. The migratory pressure finally gave way a sudden start of international migration, primarily to Spain, helped by other two circumstances: the exceptional good shape of Spanish economy within the EU, that had recently commenced an ascending cycle, and the actual reduction of the prices of international air transportation from the start of the 1990s, that improved the access of wider sectors of Ecuadorean society to the use of this travel system. Finally the possibility of an easier integration in the host society also resulted in Spain being a main destination for Ecuadorean emigrants. In consequence, the 1997-1998 El Niño acted as a trigger for the outbreak of migration to Europe from the province of Los Ríos. As a result of the damage to the economy produced by the extreme features of this climatic event, exacerbated by the general downturn of the Ecuadorean economy, internal redistribution of population was no longer sufficient for improving the livelihoods of the people effected.difficult. Europe, or more precisely, Spain, emerged as a new solution. Once the El Niño event and its outcomes disappeared, migration did not cease but continued, because of the implementation of new, successful migratory networks that started operating autonomously from the external triggers that had created them, due especially to the pull effect exerted by the economic differential between Ecuador and the new places where Ecuadorean immigrants had become rooted. So the persistence of migratory networks between Los Ríos and other regions of Ecuador or Europe, even if they were eventually frozen because of an adverse economic situation, could be reactivated in the future when other environmental danger make them necessary again. In fact, it seems that they have already been reactivated, if the statement made by the NGO volunteers in Los Ríos is true and the floods of March 2008 have really "caused migrations to towns and cities." 4. CONCLUSIONS AND FUTURE RESEARCH For decades migratory movements in Ecuador were mainly internal, although starting about half a century ago there were some international flows to the United States. It was not until the last decade of 20th century that out-migration emerged as a major feature of the behaviour of Ecuadorean population, with new flows mainly directed to Europe. To a certain extent, environmental factors have played a role in the formation and features of some migratory flows in the past, both internal and international. In any case, the level of concern about environmental issues among migrants differs between those immigrants coming from rural and urban areas. In the former, it seems that even though environment has played

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a major role in the pool of causes that led them to the decision to migrate, stress is always put on economic reasons behind which actual environmental problems often lie. In contrast, migrants from urban spaces are more willing to quote environmental problems and even to accept them among the reasons that impelled them to migrate, but in this case, the environment is not linked primarily to the economy, but to life quality. Ecuador is hit periodically by extreme climate events, the most known being the ENSO, a climatic variability whose two most severe expressions are the so-called El Niño and La Niña events. We have centered our attention in the 1997-1998 El Niño, as it was the strongest ever recorded. From both the findings of the literary review and field research, we can conclude that this event affected the migratory patterns of large regions of Ecuador forcing the change of the former internal, temporary or pendular migratory movements of the inhabitants of these regions as a normal way to face the economic effects of the damage caused by previous El Niño events, into new international movements, mainly to Spain and other EU countries.

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