Community Participation and Geographic Information Systems - Chapter 19 potx

Information technologies, PPGIS, and advocacy: globalization of resistance to industrial shrimp farming Susan C. Stonich Chapter 19 19.1 INTRODUCTION This chapter investigates the potential of PPGIS to empower local commun- ities, enhance global civil society, and contribute to public advocacy, especially in the Third World. It is based on lessons learned during an ongoing applied research project investigating the role of Information Technologies (ITs) in the globalization of resistance to industrial shrimp farming in tropical coastal zones in Asia, Latin America, and Africa. The project is multidisciplinary and highly collaborative – including the efforts of academics/scientists, NGOs, grassroots groups, and private/public donors – and is aimed at integrating research and practice. This chapter focuses on the challenges, issues, feasibil- ity, and potential of scaling-up – that is, linking local/community-level PPGIS into a global PPGIS in order to advance advocacy, affect global environmen- tal governance, and further alternative development. To date, project activities have focused on conducting ethnographic and survey research among members of the global resistance coalition, with funding from the National Science Foundation (NSF), The University of California Pacific Rim Research Program, and the Rockefeller Brothers Fund. Preliminary research included assessment of existing access to and use of advanced ITs by individual coalition members, the global resistance coalition, and the worldwide network of industry supporters (the backlash movement). Project activities have also included a series of meetings and workshops for project collaborators. Preliminary results suggest the crucial role played by advanced information technologies such as e-mail, the Inter- net, and the World Wide Web (WWW) in the formation and maintenance of resistance and industry networks, in facilitating vital communication among members of each network, and in each network’s strategy for achieving short- and long-term objectives. Preliminary work also reveals the virtually universal desire by the grassroots/non-governmental coalition members to increase access to, training in, and use of spatial ITs (maps, remotely sensed data, and GIS) and other ITs (e.g. e-mail, the Internet, the WWW) to achieve individual organizational and shared coalition objectives (Stonich 1998). © 2002 Taylor & Francis Discussion of the formation of the global resistance and counter industry coalitions, as well as the role of information and communication technolo- gies in social change, can be found in Stonich and Bailey (2000) and Stonich (1998). Current funding for the project includes an NSF planning grant. The scholarly aim of this phase of the research is to determine the social con- text and impacts of communications and spatial ITs on the formation, strategies, and effectiveness of the emerging global coalition of non- governmental and grassroots organizations that is resisting the expansion of the shrimp farming industry. Equally important are the applied objectives of the project: enhancing access to, and effective use of, these technologies by local individuals, communities, and organizations as well as the global network. These activities are a cooperative effort to collect, interpret, and communicate ecological information; to share information; to integrate scientific data with local knowledge; and to advance public/consumer cam- paigns. Simultaneously, field research is being conducted in a well-chosen sample of locales in Asia, Latin America, and Africa in order to identify information/data needs and assess how ITs, including PPGIS, might meet those needs. By using an empirical approach that takes advantage of a dynamic, global phenomenon, this stage of the project will aim to enhance understanding and general explanations of information and spatial technologies. Such understanding is crucial for the design of more appropriate, accessible, and democratic ITs and systems. 19.2 GLOBALIZATION OF RESISTANCE TO INDUSTRIAL SHRIMP FARMING Aquaculture often is promoted as ‘The Blue Revolution’, analogous to the Green Revolution in agriculture and essential to feed growing human popu- lations in light of stagnating or declining yields of marine stocks (Figure 19.1). Recently, however, increased attention has been paid to aquacul- ture’s social, economic, and environmental costs (e.g. Bailey et al. 1996). Particularly controversial is the explosive expansion of capital-intensive industrial shrimp farming in coastal brackish water ponds in Asia, Latin America, and Africa, which critics maintain has promoted social dislocations, ecological changes, and environmental destruction comparable to those caused by Green Revolution technologies (Bailey 1997) (see Figure 19.2). Globalization of industrial shrimp farming has created new institutional linkages among international agencies, multinational corporations, govern- ments, and national elites. Globalization also has provoked considerable vio- lence and the emergence of grassroots resistance movements (principally NGOs) among the poor in coastal areas of Asia, Latin America, and Africa 260 S. C. Stonich © 2002 Taylor & Francis Figure 19.1 Intensive shrimp farm in Thailand. Figure 19.2 Constructing a shrimp farm along the coast of Honduras. © 2002 Taylor & Francis (Stonich 1996; Stonich and Bailey 2000). Aware of the powerful political and economic forces allied against them, resistance groups have sought regular con- tact with their counterparts in other countries, as well as support from organi- zations and individuals in industrial nations. Major environmental groups including Greenpeace, World Wildlife Fund, and the Natural Resources Defense Council, as well as private foundations such as the MacArthur Foundation and the Rockefeller Brothers Fund, have supported the network resisting industrial shrimp farming. These and other organizations and individ- uals have found common ground with several hundred community-based NGOs around the world. After a series of international meetings beginning from April 1996, these groups formed the Industrial Shrimp Action Network (ISA Net) on World Food Day in October 1997 during a week-long meeting in Santa Barbara, California. The aims of ISA Net include drawing international attention to the environmental and social costs of shrimp farming, and sup- porting the efforts of coastal communities to maintain viable communities, economies, and environments (Stonich and Bailey 2000). Currently, ISA Net is made up of 25 member NGOs from 22 countries. Membership is divided almost equally between organizations in the North and South. ISA Net’s operating structure includes its members, a secretariat (who works from ISA Net headquarters in the state of Washington), and a steering committee of nine individuals representing a subset of member organizations. Four working groups also exist: communities and commu- nication, public education, science and industry, and international institu- tions and national governments. ISA Net maintains close ties with its parent organization, MAP 1 (Stonich 1998). Although ISA Net is focused on the human and environmental consequences of industrial shrimp farming, MAP has a much broader focus that includes the human impacts of destruc- tion of mangrove and other coastal environments. 19.3 ASSESSMENT OF THE USE OF COMMUNICATIONS AND SPATIAL TECHNOLOGIES An evaluation of access to and use of telecommunications and spatial tech- nologies by members of the global shrimp farming resistance coalition was attempted in the following manner: 1 In-depth, semi-structured interviews with NGO leaders were conducted during various international meetings and at local sites between 1997 and 2000. These interviews focused on access to and use of these tech- nologies, as well as on perceived obstacles to their use. Leaders were also asked about the usefulness of these technologies to advancing the goals/objectives of their organization. 262 S. C. Stonich © 2002 Taylor & Francis 2 MAP records, mailing lists, etc. were compiled, a master database was created using Microsoft Access, and a sampling frame of 811 MAP members was constructed. 3 Semi-structured questionnaires were sent by e-mail and postal mail to a subset of 64 key MAP members. This group was determined by attend- ance at one of the three international NGO strategy sessions, and included NGOs, academic advisors, and donors. 4 On the basis of various stakeholders identified earlier in the project (e.g. NGOs and grassroots organizations, the industry, academics, governments), an extensive search of WWW sites was done in order to evaluate and compare the use of the web by each group of stakeholders. 5 Two information technologies workshops conducted during the October 1997 meetings in Santa Barbara were used as a means to evalu- ate access to and use of associated technologies. One workshop focused on the use of e-mail, Internet, and WWW technologies, and the other on the use and potential of GIS and remotely sensed data. 6 A subsequent four-day meeting was convened in Santa Barbara in June 1998. This meeting was attended by the ISA Net secretariat and an inter- national group of social scientists engaged in research on the human and environmental consequences of industrial shrimp farming. Many of the participants were using GIS in their work. Discussions at this meeting centred on the feasibility, potential content and alternative structures of an IT/PPGIS system that would meet the needs of ISA Net in a scientific, rigorous way. 19.3.1 Project results Despite significant ideological, political, and strategic differences between members, members of the resistance coalition share a belief that ITs and spatial technologies are significant tools with which to achieve their diver- gent goals. They are becoming increasingly aware of the potential of ITs to facilitate communication among members and to advance political action. Although members rely somewhat upon direct networking in the field, the group is largely maintained electronically via e-mail and the Internet, and is loosely coordinated by MAP which maintains a member list-server and WWW site. Of the 64 organizations identified as key mem- bers of the coalition, 50 (80 per cent) reported that e-mail was their most frequent means of communication with MAP, ISA Net, and individual members. 2 Although the majority (70 per cent) of NGOs surveyed used paper maps extensively, they reported little use of GIS and other advanced spatial technologies. However, their responses indicated a relatively sophisticated awareness of the potential of digital technologies to bolster their efforts. In addition, there is growing cognizance of how these technologies are used by Globalization of resistance to industrial shrimp farming 263 © 2002 Taylor & Francis governments and industry to justify the siting of shrimp ponds and other coastal development. In a letter to Dr Anjali Bahugauna at the India Space Applications Center on 9 September 1996, Indian NGO leader Dr Bittu Saghal wrote: ‘I am on the Ministry of Environment’s Coastal Task Force and am deeply distressed at the way in which technical experts are helping the government to interpret images to suit development projects. Mangrove and fragile coastal zones are easily being categorized as having “no ecological value” so as to facilitate their destruction by roads, jetties, and other kinds of development I believe that our Coastal Regulation Zone Rules are vital to the survival of fishing grounds and therefore fisher folk.’ (Saghal 1996). According to Jorge Varela, Executive Director of the Committee for the Defense and Development of the Gulf of Fonseca (CODDEFFAGOLF) in Honduras: Our objects are the defense of coastal natural resources; development of local communities and environmental political activities Clearly, we are interested in obtaining information and spatial technologies— and in improving our system of communication Spatial technologies are critically important With these technologies, we could determine, independent of the government and the shrimp industry, the grade of destruction or recuperation of various habitats which would make our studies, conclusions, and recommendations more objective personal communication 1998 19.3.2 Constraints on the use of ITs and spatial technologies In spite of general recognition of the potential of ITs and spatial technolo- gies by NGO leaders, several significant constraints regarding access and implementation were identified. These included: lack of economic resources to purchase equipment (reported by 75 per cent of respondents); inadequate training in wisely using and properly maintaining equipment (63 per cent of respondents); inadequate English language skills (56 per cent of respond- ents); and poor infrastructure in rural areas (56 per cent of respondents). These constraints were even more significant in terms of spatial technologies, the use of which raised a number of additional questions: In the process of cre- ating maps for local, non-science actors attempting to use GIS, will local users be forced to adopt the ‘correct’ scientific language to use these technologies? Will such requirements dissuade potential users because they believe they never win these kinds of science-based arguments? Does GIS involve more than sim- ply using the tools, but also adopting a whole legal-science discourse? These questions involve accessibility and user-friendliness, both on the ‘producing’ and ‘consuming’ ends of the technology, and suggest that as much attention should be paid to public participation in production of PPGIS as in its use. 264 S. C. Stonich © 2002 Taylor & Francis 19.3.3 Current status of the use of ITs and spatial technologies Since its founding in October 1997, ISA Net has made some significant strides in achieving its goal of advancing communication among mem- bers. These achievements are quite important in light of the extreme divers- ity of its membership. In 1999, with the help of external funding from private foundations, ISA Net created a WWW site, http://www.shrimp- action.org. This site includes information about ISA Net, action alerts and news, a list of ISA Net members and their individual websites, an archive of press releases, links to current research and scholars, and contact infor- mation. Almost all ISA Net members now maintain their own WWW sites, usually with external financial support. This is quite a change from 1997, when no Southern NGO member had its own WWW site and most did not have access to the Internet. In early 2000, ISA Net established a private e-mail list server through E-groups to expedite communication among members and associated academics. Although ISA Net concen- trates on facilitating communication among its members, MAP has assumed the role of providing information to the public, primarily through a weekly electronic newsletter sent to several hundred individ- uals and organizations. To date, ISA Net is not directly using GIS, although spatial technologies are central to the work of several of the academics who support ISA Net’s efforts. A good example is the Shrimp Aquaculture Research Group at the University of Victoria in British Columbia (http://www.geog.uvic.ca/ shrimp/). Under the direction of Dr Mark Flaherty, this multidisciplinary group is engaged in a number of projects focusing on the human and envir- onmental dimensions of shrimp farming in Thailand. One of these pro- jects uses GIS to integrate LANDSAT imagery and other digital data (hydrology, soils, political boundaries, irrigation infrastructure) to invest- igate inland shrimp farming. A related project investigates the potential of using RADARSAT imagery to identify shrimp ponds. These projects are part of a long-term effort to develop a training programme and build spa- tial analytical capacity in the Department of Aquatic Sciences at Burapha University. 19.4 CHALLENGES TO SCALING-UP The many problems involved in public use of communications and spatial technologies are magnified when the community of users is a heterogeneous coalition of individuals and institutions throughout the world. In addition to the formidable financial, technical, and data constraints, significant social, cultural, and political obstacles also exist. Globalization of resistance to industrial shrimp farming 265 © 2002 Taylor & Francis 19.4.1 Lack of consensus among ISA Net members Among the most prevalent and well-documented reasons for the failure of public participation efforts is failure to take into account and directly con- front the diversity, contending perspectives, and unequal power relations among community members. Overcoming these obstacles is difficult at the local level; it becomes almost insurmountable when the community is constituted by a global coalition of diverse factors (Stonich and Bailey 2000). This is the primary obstacle to advancing a successful ICT system and PPGIS for ISA Net, and is more important than either financial or tech- nological constraints. To some extent, ISA Net is an experiment in estab- lishing a powerful global coalition of the poor in the local and global arenas of environmental governance. The existing information and communication network among ISA Net members is the result of three years of concerted efforts to reach consensus among contending coalition members. During the Internet and GIS work- shops and the subsequent focus groups conducted during the NGO plan- ning meetings in October 1997, heated discussions occurred regarding potential alternative designs for a system. However, no consensus was reached at that time due in part to contending perspectives among partici- pants about the structure and organization of the global network itself (Stonich and Bailey 2000). There has been much more agreement among members regarding the kinds of GIS or spatial technologies information and data that should be covered by such a system. These included identify- ing community management areas and use of local resources by artisanal fishers and farmers; integrating information about the distribution of shrimp farms, processing plants, and packing facilities, and about employ- ment generation; undertaking a longitudinal study using historical aerial photos and satellite imagery to demonstrate the decline in mangrove forests and fish stocks; and creating a spatial database identifying the distribution and types of human rights violations and legal protections, and the areas of successful versus unsuccessful legal protections. Non-governmental repre- sentatives suggested that these types of information could be used to justify their community-based development and conservation programmes. Participants in the workshops also agreed that under the appropriate condi- tions, access to ITs, training in ITs, and funding for high-potential projects (e.g. projects focused on specific development, policy, or legal goals) could significantly increase the probability of successfully achieving their goals. 19.4.2 Heterogeneity and diversity among members, environments, and ecologies Local communities affected by the expansion of the industrial shrimp industry inhabit locales that are somewhat similar environmentally (i.e. 266 S. C. Stonich © 2002 Taylor & Francis coastal, tropical, etc.). However, they also are extremely diverse in terms of nationality, culture, language, technological capacity, wealth, and power. These differences (and related diversity of interests) among ISA Net mem- bers are apparent in ongoing debates about the network’s goals and object- ives, strategies for action, and appropriate ITs. Gender divisions also have emerged as an important factor. Thus the challenge of designing and implementing a successful global IT and PPGIS for ISA Net go beyond the considerable frustrations usually associated with attempts to link data from different scales and time periods to produce a more comprehensive under- standing of how people regulate and manage resources. Despite the advant- ages of spatial ITs in linking different data sources, it remains difficult to identify for analysis particular social, economic, political, environmental, and ecological factors and relationships among diverse human, geographic, and environmental contexts. A critical requirement in this regard is to create a system that is at once sensitive to local diversity (among people, perceptions, knowledge, environments, ecologies, political systems, institu- tions, etc.) and capable of synthesizing information and demonstrating regional and global patterns and conclusions. 19.4.3 Technological capacity and training Although confronting the constraints presented by diversity and lack of con- sensus among members is crucial, obstacles related to technology, financing, and training also are serious and must be addressed. Diversity in techno- logical capacity is apparent among ISA Net members. Not surprisingly, Northern members such as World Wildlife Fund, Natural Resources Defense Fund, and the Environmental Defense Fund enjoy considerable technolo- gical advantage over their Southern colleagues. Representatives of these Northern NGOs also are fluent in English and have more resources at their disposal than do their Southern counterparts. Although it is tempting to work through these more powerful organizations, they do not necessarily represent the interests of the Southern NGOs, many of which are com- munity-based organizations comprised largely of poor people from coastal zones. Working with the more powerful Northern NGOs may serve the North’s interests at the expense of those of Southern NGOs. Making things more complex, Southern NGOs themselves differ significantly among them- selves in their capacity to utilize advanced ITs. Thus, working with local groups in the South greatly reduces the speed of design and implementation, although doing so enhances representation and effective participation. 19.4.4 Cultural and social considerations People from the South may be suspicious of technologies that are seen as Western or Northern, and with which Northern partners have a higher level Globalization of resistance to industrial shrimp farming 267 © 2002 Taylor & Francis of expertise, familiarity, and financial investment. Southern partners may not want to use such technologies because they feel that the playing field is not level. Even if they participate in e-mail discussions, some participants feel that the medium does as much harm as good because of the potential for misunderstanding inherent in e-mail messages. Research suggests that the Internet does not build trust as rapidly as face-to-face encounters. In the West, people have become very accustomed to phones, fax machines, and the Internet as communication media. But in international networks that involve people who do not use telephones or other technologies on a regu- lar basis, it may take quite some time before the trust is there to use them. Nor is it simply a matter of others ‘catching up’ with technology. There are legitimate criticisms of the Internet and valid arguments in favour of face- to-face encounters. It will likely be impossible to sustain any Internet net- work without occasional face-to-face meetings and discussions. Although this may seem obvious, face-to-face meetings require large amounts of funding that simply may not be available to citizen action or international civil society networks. The Internet seems to work best in situations where people have already met in person one or more of the people they are com- municating with, allowing Internet communications to develop from a per- sonal basis, rather than the reverse. 19.4.5 Counter mapping, politics, and the ownership of information As discussed elsewhere (Stonich 1998), the characterization of ITs, GIS, and other spatial ITs as capable of democratizing or reinforcing extant power relations is ambiguous. On which side of the line such efforts fall depends on a number of diverse factors. Mapping, especially counter-mapping, is frequently an extremely political endeavour, and must be viewed within the broader social, economic, and political framework in which it occurs. An IT/PPGIS as generally envisioned by members of ISA Net certainly enhances the potential danger of surveillance, conflict, and co-option of local knowledge and resources by power elites (including the shrimp indus- try). At the same time, it also has the potential to advance advocacy, make visible the claims of those most affected by the expansion of industrial shrimp farming, counter the claims of the industry, and promote new visions of development. The considerable agreement among resistance coalition members about the kinds of useful spatial knowledge and infor- mation that could be distributed through the Internet and at the local level remains a very significant (but unrealized) potential. The expansion of the shrimp farming industry already has provoked considerable conflict. The essential requirement here in terms of PPGIS is that the political conse- quences of such an effort must be thoroughly investigated and taken into account. 268 S. C. Stonich © 2002 Taylor & Francis [...]... 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(Mangrove Action Project) is a non-governmental, environmental organization located in Washington State (outside Seattle) Its mission is to conserve mangrove and other coastal ecosystems It is made up of more than 300 other NGOs, private foundations, and individuals from all over the world 2 Other means of communication included: facsimile (9 per cent), postal mail (9 per cent), and telephone (2 per cent) . understanding and general explanations of information and spatial technologies. Such understanding is crucial for the design of more appropriate, accessible, and democratic ITs and systems. 19. 2. ecologies, political systems, institu- tions, etc.) and capable of synthesizing information and demonstrating regional and global patterns and conclusions. 19. 4.3 Technological capacity and training Although. use of e-mail, Internet, and WWW technologies, and the other on the use and potential of GIS and remotely sensed data. 6 A subsequent four-day meeting was convened in Santa Barbara in June 199 8.