ABSTRACT

The ecological successes in Nicaragua would draw widespread acclaim and support from the US and international environmental movements. Under the banner of revolutionary ecology, the new Nicaraguan government aimed to create policies, projects, and programs which would promote: social and environmental justice, national sovereignty and control, a model of sustainable development, and ecological democracy. Central to the process of revolutionary social transformation in Nicaragua was the pursuit of a non-aligned foreign policy, economic diversification, democratization of the state and social planning, and agrarian reform. The implementation of comprehensive agrarian reform had an immediate impact of Nicaragua's rich tropical rainforests. With the triumph of the revolution, the Nicaraguan Energy Institute worked with IRENA to promote alternative renewable energy technologies and other appropriate productive forces which would foster more democratic and equitable forms of sustainable rural development. Despite impressive social and environmental gains in the early years of the Nicaraguan revolution, the Sandinista government experienced increased hostility from the United States.