Keywords
:
Indicators; Sustainability; Rural development; Natural resources policies; Honduras
1. Introduction
The concept of sustainable development has been widely used as an organizing framework
since the Brundtland commission WCED, 1987 and the UN Conference on Environment and
Development UNCED in Rio de Janeiro in 1992 promoted this leitmoti6 at an international level.
The general idea refers to a broad range of devel- opment objectives for meeting basic human needs
while maintaining the life support system for cur- rent and future generations. Following the defini-
tion of sustainable development by Barbier 1987, there are three dimensions: ecological sus-
tainability, economic feasibility and socio-political acceptability, which are in an interactive conflict-
ing process. The general objective is to maximize these goals across the biological, economic and
social systems thus generating trade-offs among them. As a powerful but often ambiguous concept
within the broader ecological economic paradigm, sustainability has been criticized for only being
useful at a conceptual level, not at an operational level e.g. Redclift, 1987; Munro, 1995. As sus-
tainability indicators are seen as necessary to put into effect the concept of sustainability and to
introduce it to the policy-monitoring arena, a variety of efforts have been made in the past to
develop indicators for sustainable development Simon, 1997. Two mainstream approaches can
be identified; the first being an analytical ap- proach in developing pressure-state-response pat-
terns OECD, 1994, and the second being a systemic approach in defining synthetic indicators.
Pressure-state-response indicators have been de- veloped for the agricultural, forest, industrial and
energy sectors, for instance, amongst others OECD, 1994; Montreal Process, 1995; Winograd,
1995;
CDS, 1996.
Whereas system
analysis provide these indicators at a system level related
to energy efficiency and material flux intensities like environmental space for service units, carry-
ing capacities and ecological footprints Ehrlich and Holdren, 1971; Schroll, 1994; Wackernagel
and Rees, 1996. Economic difficulties and lender pressure have
obliged Latin American countries to implement structural adjustment programs, governmental de-
centralization and market liberalization; govern- ment expenses were reduced and national markets
were opened up to foreign imports, price subsidies were eliminated and many public enterprises pri-
vatized. Currently, the liberalization of land and agricultural markets and decentralization, accom-
panied by antipoverty and sector investment pro- grams, are dominating the rural development
strategy. In many cases, impacts through these interventions on natural and environmental re-
sources have not been monitored. Agricultural expansion for cash crops takes place mostly on
fertile plains, as observed in most Latin American countries. This puts pressure on small-scale farm-
ers to amplify the agricultural frontier in tropical forests and mountainous areas, where ecological,
economic and social impacts on these fragile ecosystems are very likely to happen at a larger
scale. In this way a social gradient is built up, with poor farmers having to bare additional envi-
ronmental costs on less privileged lands.
Most parts of Central America are mountain- ous landscapes with forests on their hillsides,
which represent fragile ecosystems threatened by erosion and landslides in the rainy season and by
forest fires in the dry season. In Honduras about 55 of the population live in rural areas IICA,
1994, with population growth and unequal land distribution forcing small-scale farmers to occupy
small valleys and hillsides. The link between rural poverty and the environment is often highlighted
in the sustainable development debate e.g. Falck, 1995. Consequently, rural poor migrate to urban
centers, tropical forest frontiers and to marginal areas on hillsides. Low income only permits short-
term planning and low investments by small-scale farmers in natural resource management for pro-
tection measures. Policy strategies are needed to overcome the limited capacity of the poor people
in these marginal environments to invest in long- term improvements of the natural resource base
Altieri, 1995; Reardon and Vosti, 1995. Most decisions on natural resource management are
made at farm or community level. To do so, a minimum set of criteria and indicators have to be
defined for monitoring development paths in these fragile ecosystems. The objective of this study is
to make a contribution in defining and assessing indicators at community level in a mountainous
region, adopting ecological, economic and social dimensions, to elicit the conflicting objectives in
development, and to discuss their practical impli- cations and the challenge to apply them at a wider
scale. Some specific indicators used are described in detail in the case of land use change Kammer-
bauer and Ardo´n, 1999, pesticide residues Kam- merbauer
and Moncada,
1998 and
land degradation and rehabilitation Paniagua et al.,
1999. Special attention is given to autochthonous indicators for a sustainable development. The re-
sults obtained by this intensive study of a typical watershed for mountainous regions are briefly
presented. Section 2 describes the site selection process and provides some information about the
site studied. Section 3 provides a summary of the general conceptual framework for the indicator
identification and the assessment steps, together with the study methods used. In Section 4 the
indicators identified are presented and assessed. In Section 5 the community development paths and
perspectives are discussed. Section 6 is comprised of some conclusions for policy design and moni-
toring systems.
2. Site selection and description
