Hydropower in the Hinterland: Extractivism, Indigenous Activism, and Violence in Central America

After achieving independence from Spain, then separating from Mexico in the first quarter of the 19th century, Central America was slow to modernize and even slower to industrialize in what has been termed a “long middle period”. By the early 20th century, the nations of middle America began to adopt the modern technology of hydroelectric power with the purpose of producing electricity. While, initially, the construction of dams benefited local communities and were relatively small in size and output, by the late 20th century multiple national governments actively encouraged foreign investment and welcomed international mining corporations into rural zones that were often remote. These mining corporations from North America and Europe required enormous electrical output previously non-existent in the areas determined to contain valuable mineral resources and, thus, large scale dam construction projects ensued, ostensibly in lands populated primarily by Mayan and Ladino subsistence farmers.

This research investigates the environmental impacts of those dam constructions, the aftermath of local population relocation, planned flooding of indigenous lands, and, ultimately, the rise of violence by national governments against their own people and subsequent pan-indigenous activism in response. This poster presentation will provide visual evidence utilizing topographical maps, documented photographs, and the presentation of statistical data of the following through charts and graphs: numerical data corresponding to assassinations of environmental activists; political maps representing nations and regions involved in the study; and, chemical pollutants of water sources as a result of mine runoff. The visual presentation of these materials is part of an unpublished article-length piece being prepared for journal publication and is the start of an eventual monograph that connects western hemispheric pan-indigenous environmental activism that has benefited from modern communications technology and international media coverage. This study aims to connect US and Canadian indigenous environmental struggles, such as the fight against the Keystone Pipeline project, and peoples of the South American Amazonian Basin protesting logging and destruction of the forest biome with the struggles in the middle region of the hemisphere. I argue that there are commonalities amongst the three groups, though the activists and environmental degradation in Guatemala, Honduras, and Nicaragua have yet to receive sufficient scholarly attention. A fuller understanding of the impact from the construction of hydroelectric dams and creation of new internationally-owned extractivist industries in Central America beginning in the 1980s will benefit interdisciplinary disciplinary scholars, non-profit aid groups, and diplomacy in unraveling 21st-century issues of “environmental migrants“ emigrating from the region.