Is this the new economics utopia?

 By d∂wn

Imagine a place where everybody knows everybody’s name.  A place where people are constantly helping each other. Where women meet at 6am to ask their neighbours if they can carry a parcel down to the nearby town when they get the bus there. Where there are associations for everyone – the cattle owners, the coffee farmers, the artisans, those who work in tourism.  Where all the tourism is eco-tourism, run by locals. Where communities arrange to get together in mingas to clear the forest paths of weeds. Where the men talk of the women as being the leaders of the community. Where the local newspaper leads with an article about an environmental rights summit, and contains articles about the assessment of river quality, inequality, and a German fair trade coffee company (including a 4-paragraph profile of the company’s home town, Hamburg!). Where 300 farmers have got together to form a fair trade coffee cooperative. Where a group of women have got together to make cosmetics from the local aloe vera plants and sell them to shops and hotels across Ecuador.

Where, when a Japanese mining company came to start exploiting copper seams, the locals got together, informed themselves, went on a field trip to Peru to see the impacts of copper-mining on communities there, lobbied local and national government.  And then the mining company’s installations were burnt down, they successfully won the court case in their defense! Where, when a Brazilian hydroelectric company began seeking rights to built a big dam across the river, which would result in flooding various communities, the locals came up with the proposal to build several micro-dams at various points around the valley to produce electricity for the community.

It sounds like something from a nef manifesto.  But it really exists, and that’s where I am now.  It’s called the Intag Valley, and it’s about 4-5 hours away from Quito, the capital of Ecuador. The last 2-3 hours are along a treacherous cobble-stone road that winds up and down mountains from the nearest proper town Otavalo.  But the locals don’t complain – rather they are grateful that the road is no longer just a dirt track as it was a couple of years ago.  Anyway, according to the local newspaper, the government is planning to build a paved road soon. In any case, we couldn’t see what was out there, because for the last 1.5 hours of the journey we were surrounded by thick clouds.

The area itself is very varied, from páramo through to lush cloud forest. Everywhere there are savagely steep hills, often with perfectly flat plateaus above. It forms part of the Chocó region, one of the key biodiversity spots worldwide.

Apart from being stunningly beautiful, it was probably just an ordinary rural Ecuadorian region until 1993, when a Japanese mining company began exploring the Toisan mountains in the North West of the region for copper.  The locals weren’t keen.  They found out about the potential impacts of the mining, and resisted, culminating, as mentioned, in the burning down of the companies’ installations. The community stood together when they were accused of arson – no one identified anyone else as being involved, and they eventually won the case against the company, which by then had left the sector.

But perhaps, what is most remarkable is what happened afterwards.  A flowering of social capital, of associations, community groups, mingas. And of alternative economic solutions.  The community knew that it couldn’t say no the mining and then just carry on as before. This is an area little more than 100km from the capital, not some community deep in the Amazon.  So, instead, they started developing alternatives.  The fair trade coffee came first.  Then lots of groups developing eco-tourism and the manufacture of crafts. The micro-hydroelectric project is the next step. The idea is to ensure that the communities have a stable source of income without having to rely on mining, and to prevent migration out of the region to the cities and towns nearby.

After spending six months in Ecuador, I have to admit that I haven’t always been convinced that I could really see a positive example here for low carbon high well-being living.  In Quito, the rich live high carbon lives, whilst the poor may not consume much, but probably would if they could.  The crime and congestion of the city really do not seem compatible with happy lives. And the food.. akh! How come their life expectancy is so high with a diet of rice and chicken and more rice?

Of course, I exaggerate, I do have responses to all those concerns.   There is a middle class whose footprints are certainly lower than most people in Europe, and yet have fulfilling lives. The poor, in general, are not dirt poor, and even in the city are able to supplement their income growing animals and crops. And they don’t eat too much meat (a little every day), and certainly get their five-a-day in terms of fruit.

But this time in Intag has perhaps been the first time I’ve been really convinced of a positive alternative.  This is conscious, this is environmentally and socially aware.  This is people criticising consumerism and valuing what they have around them.  We’re here for another two weeks, so we’ll see if our opinion changes.  But for now, we’re impressed!

You can find out more about the valley through the Red Ecoturística Intag, where we are currently volunteering, though it is currently only in Spanish (we're working on the translation).