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The United Fruit Company, now Chiquita Brands International, was an American corporation that traded in tropical fruit grown on Latin American plantations and sold in the United States and Europe. The company was formed in 1899, from the merger of Minor C. Keith's banana-trading concerns with Andrew W. Preston's Boston Fruit Company. It flourished in the early and mid-20th century, and it came to control vast territories and transportation networks in Central America, the Caribbean coast of Colombia and the West Indies. Though it competed with the Standard Fruit Company for dominance in the international banana trade, it maintained a virtual monopoly in certain regions, some of which came to be called banana republics, such as Costa Rica, Honduras, and Guatemala.
Puerto Cortés, originally known as Puerto de Caballos, is a port city and municipality on the north Caribbean coast of Honduras, right on the Laguna de Alvarado, north of San Pedro Sula and east of Omoa, with a natural bay. The present city was founded in the early colonial period. It grew rapidly in the twentieth century, thanks to the then railroad, and banana production. In terms of volume of traffic the seaport is the largest in Central America and the 36th largest in the world. The city of Puerto Cortés has a population of 69,000.
An environmental impact statement (EIS), under United States environmental law, is a document required by the 1969 National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) for certain actions "significantly affecting the quality of the human environment". An EIS is a tool for decision making. It describes the positive and negative environmental effects of a proposed action, and it usually also lists one or more alternative actions that may be chosen instead of the action described in the EIS. Several U.S. state governments require that a document similar to an EIS be submitted to the state for certain actions. For example, in California, an Environmental Impact Report (EIR) must be submitted to the state for certain actions, as described in the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA). One of the primary authors of the act is Lynton K. Caldwell.
Samuel Zemurray, nicknamed "Sam the Banana Man", was an American businessman who made his fortune in the banana trade. He founded the Cuyamel Fruit Company, and later became president of the United Fruit Company, the world's most influential fruit company at the time. Both companies played highly controversial roles in the history of several Latin American countries and had a significant influence on their economic and political development.
The Nam Theun 2 Hydropower Project, or simply NT2, is a hydroelectric dam on the Nam Theun River in Laos. Commercial operation of the plant began in April 2010. The scheme diverts water from the Nam Theun, a tributary of the Mekong River, to the Xe Bang Fai River, enabling a generation capacity of 1,075 MW, from a 350 m (1,148 ft) difference in elevation between the reservoir and the power station.
The Roghun Dam is an embankment dam under construction on the Vakhsh River in southern Tajikistan. The dam is situated 110 km from Dushanbe. It is one of the planned hydroelectric power plants of Vakhsh Cascade.
Olanchito is a town with a population of 45,270 and a municipality in the Honduran department of Yoro. The municipality was founded in 1530 and today comprises 70 villages, over 300 hamlets, and around 100,000 inhabitants. It is located 107 miles (172 km) North-East of Tegucigalpa, the country's capital. Olanchito is in the Central Time Zone, with a UTC offset of -6 hours. The city is the birthplace of many exponents of Honduran literature, such as Ramón Amaya Amador. Olanchito has his manuscripts, his collection of books, the table at which he wrote, and even his ashes. Known locally as the Civic City, Olanchito's main industry is based around agriculture.
Goldcorp Inc. was a gold production company headquartered in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. The company employed about 15,800 people worldwide, engaged in gold mining and related activities including exploration, extraction, processing and reclamation. Goldcorp’s operating assets included four mines in Canada, two mines in Mexico, and four in Central and South America. As of the third quarter of 2014, Goldcorp was the world's fourth-largest producer of gold. On January 14, 2019, Goldcorp agreed to a merger acquisition by Newmont Mining Corporation, the world’s second-largest producer of gold, with the merged “Newmont Goldcorp” to be the world’s largest producer.
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In political science, the term banana republic describes a politically unstable country with an economy dependent upon the exportation of a limited-resource product, such as bananas or minerals. In 1904, the American author O. Henry coined the term to describe Honduras and neighbouring countries under economic exploitation by U.S. corporations, such as the United Fruit Company. Typically, a banana republic has a society of extremely stratified social classes, usually a large impoverished working class and a ruling class plutocracy, composed of the business, political, and military elites of that society. The ruling class controls the primary sector of the economy by way of the exploitation of labor; thus, the term banana republic is a pejorative descriptor for a servile oligarchy that abets and supports, for kickbacks, the exploitation of large-scale plantation agriculture, especially banana cultivation.
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Banana production in Honduras plays an important role in the economy of Honduras. In 1992, the revenue generated from banana sales amounted to US$287 million and along with the coffee industry accounted for some 50% of exports. Honduras produced 861,000 tons of bananas in 1999. The two corporations, Chiquita Brands International and the Dole Food Company are responsible for most Honduran banana production and exports.
The Tinto River is a river in Honduras. It is a tributary of the Guayape River.
The Gilgel Gibe III Dam is a 250 m high roller-compacted concrete dam with an associated hydroelectric power plant on the Omo River in Ethiopia. It is located about 62 km (39 mi) west of Sodo in the Southern Nations, Nationalities, and Peoples' Region. Once fully commissioned, it will be the third largest hydroelectric plant in Africa with a power output of about 1870 Megawatt (MW), thus more than doubling total installed capacity in Ethiopia from its 2007 level of 814 MW. The Gibe III dam is part of the Gibe cascade, a series of dams including the existing Gibe I dam and Gibe II power station as well as the planned Gibe IV and Gibe V dams. The existing dams are owned and operated by the state-owned Ethiopian Electric Power, which is also the client for the Gibe III Dam.
Water resources management in El Salvador is characterized by difficulties in addressing severe water pollution throughout much of the country's surface waters due to untreated discharges of agricultural, domestic and industrial run off. The river that drains the capital city of San Salvador is considered to be polluted beyond the capability of most treatment procedures.
Guatemala faces substantial resource and institutional challenges in successfully managing its national water resources. Deforestation is increasing as the global demand for timber exerts pressure on the forests of Guatemala. Soil erosion, runoff, and sedimentation of surface water is a result of deforestation from development of urban centers, agriculture needs, and conflicting land and water use planning. Sectors within industry are also growing and the prevalence of untreated effluents entering waterways and aquifers has grown alongside.
The Marlin Mine is a gold mine in Guatemala owned by Montana Exploradora de Guatemala, S.A (Montana), which is a subsidiary of Canadian company Goldcorp.
The Sambor Dam is a proposed dam and hydroelectric power station on the Mekong River south of Sambor village in Prek Kampi District, Kratie Province, Cambodia. If built, it would be the lowest dam of the Mekong's mainstream dams, and largest in Cambodia.
Cuyamel Fruit Company, formerly the Hubbard-Zemurray Steam Ship Company, was an American agricultural corporation operating in Honduras from 1911 until 1929, before being purchased by the United Fruit Company. The company was founded in the 1890s by William Streich to export bananas and sugar from the northwestern Cortés region of Honduras to international markets. It was bought by Samuel Zemurray around 1905, who took the company name for his own operation. Zemurray would later become the president of the United Fruit Company. Both Cuyamel and United Fruit are corporate ancestors of the modern-day firm Chiquita Brands International.
Canadian mining in Latin America and the Caribbean began in the 20th century. Latin America and the Caribbean's vast resources give the region great geopolitical importance, attracting foreign interest for centuries. From the colonial race of European empires, to the multinationals of today's neoliberal capitalist world, this region continues to draw interest. Canada's involvement in Latin America increased dramatically since 1989 with several landmark negotiations and agreements. By 2009, the Canadian larger-company mineral exploration market in this region was valued at US$1.7 billion. Currently, Latin America and the Caribbean are dominated by Canadian companies falling from a 49% to 32% held control over the larger-company mineral exploration market after the global recession of 2008. The Canadian share of the market is roughly US$59 million more than the amount domestic companies planned to spend in this region. Both Mexico and Chile have the most intense focus of Canadian mining companies; however, their interest and involvement in other Latin American countries is prevalent.
References
- ↑ Doing Business with the Dictators: A Political History of United Fruit in Guatemala, 1899-1944 by Paul J. Dosal
- ↑ https://business-humanrights.org/en/honduras-new-report-documents-negative-social-environmental-impacts-of-hydroelectric-project-cuyamel-ii%7C%5B%5D Honduras: New report documents negative social & environmental impacts of hydroelectric project Cuyamel II
