El Salvador community action
The aim of this page is to recognise, celebrate and encourage the self-empowerment of community agency networks (CANs) and community groups' activism for climate, environment and many other sustainability topics across El Salvador.
News
- The women behind El Salvador's historic environmental victory, Apr 11, 2017...awid.org
- El Salvador Votes for Water over Gold, March 30, 2017, Pedro Cabezas. In response to enormous public pressure, lawmakers have rejected appeals by global corporations and voted to protect the country's people and water supply by banning metallic mining.inequality.org
The dream to restore a special forest taking root in the high Andes, news.mongabay.com (Feb 14, 2025) - Latin America is moving fast to protect democracy from excesses of big tech, theconversation.com (Feb 11, 2025)
- Study shows large social disparities in neighborhood flooding within Latin American cities, nature.com (Feb 10, 2025) — Policymakers must prioritize flood adaptation and recovery efforts in neighborhoods with lower socioeconomic status
- ‘Global weirding’: climate whiplash hitting world’s biggest cities, study reveals, theguardian.com (Mar 12, 2025)
- Only seven countries worldwide meet WHO dirty air guidelines, study shows, theguardian.com (Mar 11, 2025) — Governments could clean their air with policies such as funding renewable energy projects and public transport; building infrastructure to encourage walking and cycling; and banning people from burning farm waste.
- Many cities are banning ads for airlines, SUVs and fossil fuels – and yours could be next, theconversation.com (Mar 10, 2025)
Networks and sustainability initiatives
Neighbourhood initiatives, and organizations across El Salvador
- ADES Santa Marta
- La canasta campesina
- Un Pulmón Más
- Mancomunidad La Montañona
- Asociación Ciudadana Migueleños en Acción
- Mizata Green
- Radio Victoria
- Asociación Amigos del Lago de Ilopango
- La Mesa Directiva para la Protección y Conservación del Bosque La Montañona
- Mesa Integral por el Desarrollo de San Miguel - MI SAN MIGUEL
- Asociación Comunitaria Unida por el Agua y la Agricultura
- Asociación de Cuencas del Golfo de Fonseca
- Asociación de mujeres ambientalistas de El Salvador
- Asociación de Desarrollo Comunal Mujeres de Barra de Santiago
- Asociación nacional de trabajadores agropecuarios
- Asociación de Reconstrucción y Desarrollo Municipal
- Asociación Fundación para la Cooperación y el Desarrollo Comunal de El Salvador
- Red de investigadores ambientales
- Centro de estudios aplicados en ecología y sustentabilidad ambiental
- Asociación de tortugueros playa los Pinos, de Cangrejera
- Territorios Vivos El Salvador
- Consejo coordinador nacional indígena salvadoreño
- Centro Salvadoreño de Tecnología Apropiada /Amigos de la Tierra
- Daki Semiárido Vivo
- Equipo impulsor del acuerdo Escazú
- Federación de Cooperativas de la Reforma Agraria de la Región Central
- Foro del Agua
- Fundación Campo
- Asociación de acción juvenil Hombro a Hombro
- Movimiento Ecofeminista El Salvador
- Mesa nacional frente a la minería metálica
- Parque industrial Verde
- Paso Pacífico
- Red Trinacional por el Rescate del Rio Lempa
- SOS Salvemos el Río Sapo
- Unidad Ecológica Salvadoreña
- Proyecto Megáptera
- Fondo de Agua y Agricultura
- Catholic Relief Services
- Sustainable Ocean Alliance El Salvador
- Asociación Mangle
- Mancomunidad Trinacional Trinacional Fronteriza del Río Lempa
Video
Each week 3 different short videos from across the world.
Spain community action, Sweden community action, Canada community action / ...This week's UK videos
Maps for community action
The collaboration between the UNDP Accelerator Lab in El Salvador and the Appropedia Foundation represents an inspiring example of how organizations can collaborate to document and share grassroots solutions for global development. The partnership combined the innovative methodologies of the Accelerator Lab with Appropedia’s open platform to explore how grassroots innovations in water and livelihoods could be identified, documented, and shared with the world.
The purpose of using Appropedia, an open, wiki-style website was to explore new ways to document relevant community demographics but being able to separate it into modules, including a specific solution mapping module, in a format that communities co-created and could later use for planning purposes, to mobilize resources, and for any purposes they deemed pertinent.
Biodiversity
Biodiversity and endangered species
There are eight species of sea turtles in the world; six of them nest on the coasts of Central America, and four make their home on the Salvadoran coast. Of these four species, the most common is the olive ridley turtle, followed by the green sea turtle. The other two species, hawksbill and leatherback, are much more difficult to find as they are critically endangered, while the olive ridley and green sea turtle are in danger of extinction.
Recent conservation efforts provide hope for the future of the country's biological diversity. In 1997, the government established the Ministry of the Environment and Natural Resources. A general environmental framework law was approved by the National Assembly in 1999, although specific legislation to protect wildlife is still pending. In addition, a number of non-governmental organizations are doing important work to safeguard some of the country's most important forested areas. Foremost among these is SalvaNatura, which manages El Impossible, the country's largest national park under an agreement with El Salvador's environmental authorities.
Despite these efforts, much remains to be done.
It is estimated that there are 500 species of birds, 1,000 species of butterflies, 400 species of orchids, 800 species of trees, and 800 species of marine fish in El Salvador.
Ecosystem restoration
During the Bonn Challenge 3.0 high-level meeting in March 2018, El Salvador announced plans to propose a United Nations Decade on Ecosystem Restoration 2021–2030, aimed at boosting existing efforts to restore degraded ecosystems. El Salvador's leadership on ecosystem restoration arose out of its support for the Bonn Challenge, which aims to restore 350 million hectares of degraded ecosystems globally by 2030, and endorsement of the New York Declaration on Forests. As one of the six Bonn Challenge pilot countries, El Salvador has pledged to restore 1 million hectares, equivalent to half of the country's territory.
About El Salvador
El Salvador, officially the Republic of El Salvador, is a country in Central America. It is bordered on the northeast by Honduras, on the northwest by Guatemala, and on the south by the Pacific Ocean. El Salvador's capital and largest city is San Salvador. The country's population in 2024 was estimated to be 6 million according to a government census.