ASEJ: Action for Social and Ecological Justice

Who We Are
Action for Community and Ecology in the Rainforests of Central America is a working project of the Alliance for Global Justice and a member of the Native Forest Network. ACERCA sprang from the necessity of filling a gap left when groups such as the Environmental Project on Central America (EPOCA) disbanded in the early 1990's. We emerged out of the pressing need for international response to the environmental and human rights abuses occur ring in the Central American region. We are a collective of activists, organizers, researchers, advisors, interns, and volunteers, who together develop strategies and implement ideas. We have been focused on southern Mexico and Nicaragua, having been asked by the peoples of those regions to become involved. Previous delegations to these regions have served as tools to increase awareness of the struggles of indigenous communities. Through these issues, ACERCA works to expose the power imbalance which allows most cultural and environmental destruction to take place. Our video "Lacandona: The Zapatistas and Rainforest of Chiapas, Mexico" is available for purchase ($20 includes shipping) and papers on our expeditions to Chiapas and Nicaragua are forthcoming.

As ACERCA evolves, we are expanding our work and areas of concentration to the other regions of Central America. Our identity has developed out of an understanding of the inherent links between the globalization of the world economy and poverty, injustice, militarization, and the destruction of the environment. Our strategy is to use Central America as a lens through which people might more easily view these connections between politics and ecology. Ultimately, we see ACERCA's efforts as being vital to stopping the tide of destruction, both to the environment and to all the inhabitants of Central America.

OUR MISSION
Logger near Waskamby in Nicaragua's North Atlantic Autonomous Region. Photo: Langelle/NFN

The mission of Action for Community and Ecology in the Rainforests of Central America is to protect the ecological and cultural integrity of the Central America region. We will move toward this goal by working with people in ihe US, the international community and Central America who are promoting ecological integrity, social justice, community self-reliance and democratic participation with regard to environmental and social issues in southern Mexico and Central America. We intend to promote a better understanding of the problems faced in Central America by building bridges that facilitate communication among the peoples of the region while also disseminating information to a North American and international audience.

Central America: Environment Under Attack
Stretching from southern Mexico's Isthmus of Tehuantepec to the Isthmus of Panama, Central America is a region celebrated for its natural beauty. Dense rainforests cover the eastern lowlands, lush coastlines sparkle in the Caribbean sun and the mountains echo with the sounds of tropical birds and insects. The fertile volcanic soils of the Pacific plains have nurtured civilization for thousands of years.

Today Central America's natural environment is under attack. More than two-thirds of the rainforests are gone, and thousands of square kilometers of forest are destroyed each year. Indigenous communities and culture are vanishing. And things are destined to get worse under the current practices of economic globalization.

Multinational corporations, bent on extracting our planet's remaining natural resources, and using "free trade" agreements to pave their way, are sweeping through the western hemisphere. Central America and all its inhabitants are under attack.