Peru Country Case Study:
Impacts and Responses to the 1997-98 El Niño Event
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Note: This Peru Country Case Study was supported by the International Research Institute for climate prediction (IRI) and NOAA's Office of Global Programs as a contribution to the UNEP/NCAR/WMO/UNU/ISDR study for the UN Foundation.
Executive Summary
The Economy
During the 1990s, an advanced process of neo-liberal reforms was implemented, radically transforming the Peruvian economy. A significant part of public sector enterprises were privatized and the market became the dominant mechanism determining the allocation of resources and earnings. Twenty years of populism paved the way to one of the freest economies in the world. During most of the decade, Peru was able to attract significant foreign capital contributing to the equilibrium of the balance of payments, counteracting a trade balance historically and consistently in the red. Indeed, imports continue to significantly outpace exports because the neo-liberal policies have not transformed the structure of production.
Peru continues being an exporter of raw materials. During the 1990s the mining industry and fishmeal exports made up to three fourths of Peruvian exports, echoing the last forty years. The worldwide financial crisis of 1998 was born in Southeast Asia, moved on to Russia and finally reached the shores of Latin America, plunging Peru into a deep recession which cripples it still, into the new millennium. That recession was aggravated by El Niño, but its cause can be traced to the limitations of the neo-liberal economic reforms of the 1990s.1
The Government and El Niño
Members of the scientific community in Peru issued a forecast about El Niño in June 1997, prompting the central government to set in motion a plan of preventive measures. It was the first time that a plan of this nature had been implemented in Peru. In all the previous El Niño events, the government reacted in the midst of the El Niño-related Southern Hemisphere summer rains. This time there were six months of lead time to implement a structured plan whose main merit was, in fact, the timeliness of its preventive measures.2
This plan accurately defined how to handle the approaching problem. It established the goal of facilitating the drainage of the excessive rainwater into the ocean. A series of riverside levees to contain the surging river waters were constructed; water-pumping equipment was acquired, in order to alleviate the inevitable flooding of the very low-lying areas. The response of the central government was, perhaps, incomplete because it ignored the issue of financial assistance to enterprises battered by El Niño. The response did, however, include an exact definition of how to face the main problem.
The government's stumbling block proved to be a flawed consideration of the "how," because the central government wanted to do everything itself without the assistance of other governmental agencies or of society at large. The central government was interested in highlighting its importance as a guarantor of the security and prosperity of Peruvians. In addition, the government of President Alberto Fujimori wanted to highlight its efficiency and start paving the way for a third term in office without the interference of another agency that might question or dilute its leadership.
In Peru, lamentably, the state machine is centralized, and its core is afflicted with disorder and dispersion. There are too many public entities and their operational areas are ill-defined. So, turf wars, conflict, and competition are the daily bread, even in the inner sanctums of the executive branch. During El Niño, this conflict became apparent in light of the government's inability or unwillingness to designate a team leader to execute the work of riverside levees; keystone of the master plan set in motion by the government itself. In addition, a coordinator was not designated to manage the overall plan, resulting in a general chaos featuring a big corruption scandal. Peruvians have been afflicted with the authoritarian aspects of centralization, without enjoying its potential advantage for orderliness.
Government-sponsored Institutions
INDECI (National Institute for Civil Defense) is a specialized institution of the executive branch in charge of civil defense against acts of nature. The Peruvian government in the 1930s first adopted the concept of civil defense. It was initially seen as an extension of the military's duties into the area of civil society at large. In 1972 the system of civil defense was enacted into law, having been modified in the 1980s and again in the 1990s, but that continues being the bedrock of the government's policy in the face of natural disasters.
A small bureaucracy integrated by officials of the Peruvian army directs INDECI, in Lima as well as the provincial capitals. The system also determines the district-wide and local levels of responsibility of the mayors. However, the military is unaccustomed to consensus seeking and dialog, while the mayors require consensus to carry out their initiatives.
In Peru, unfortunately, the army lacks a civil defense specialty. Consequently, the officers put in charge of INDECI lack specific training for their new job. After two years, these officers are rotated to new assignments and the new arrivals are, once again, lacking in the proper skills. Therefore, the INDECI has problems of management and stability, in spite of being overseen by the most solid institution in the Peruvian government.
There are four government-sponsored scientific institutions entrusted with activities related to the weather. They are SENAMHI (The National Meteorological and Hydrological Service), IMARPE (The Ocean Institute of Peru), IGP (The Geophysical Institute of Peru), and DHNM (The Hydrographic and Marine Directorate of the Navy). All these organizations belong to the executive branch, and are overseen by various agencies. They have a stable, coordinating organization dedicated to El Niño called ENFEN (National Study of the El Niño Phenomenon).
IMARPE is well aware that news of an impending El Niño leads to diminished investment in fishing. It is a time of panic for the various industries related to the harvesting of marine resources. Conscious of the importance of the fishing industry to the Peruvian economy, IMARPE is habitually cautious in the handling of information. For example, during the last El Niño, Marco Espino, the director of research in IMARPE told us that they had information of substantial fluctuations of marine resources as early as the Southern Hemisphere summer of 1997, but had waited until April before releasing information which amounted to a description of the initial (onset) phase of an El Niño without explicitly mentioning the name. It was only later on, after SENAMHI in June of 1997 explicitly used the term "El Niño," that IMARPE began to speak out on the topic openly.3
Scientific leadership in weather issues is held by the IGP, because its forecasting abilities offer significant advantages. Indeed, the IGP can issue forecasts that extend out for a full year, while SENAMHI's forecasts are for the following day.4
IMARPE and IGP have arrived to the Internet era, posting well laid out web pages that are updated regularly. The web pages of these Peruvian meteorological institutions offer ample information. Any journalist could put together a good meteorological section, accompanied by informative illustrations, by simply going to the web page and using the posted information. The problem is that there aren't any journalists with even a modicum of meteorological training that might allow them to understand the information on the web. This training should be carried out because of its key importance in the development of a national plan to disseminate for the purpose of making available weather information.
An evaluation of Peruvian scientists reveals the standout presence of a group of local experts that, in general, has been more accurate in forecasting than the big centers in Lima. The meteorologists in the provinces have taken advantage of the Internet to maintain a relationship with scientific research centers abroad. The increased communications with the international scientific community enhance the superior capability that researchers in the provinces have to observe changes in nature over time. In Lima the sky is always cloudy. The result is that some local scientists have been more accurate than the highly reputed investigators of the capital.
Many seminars and professional debates were held during El Niño. They were usually organized by the municipalities and could also count on the collaboration of the NGOs. Not surprisingly, the quality of these forums was very uneven, with some having been very productive and others quite the opposite.
The Media and El Niño
In contrast with the high quality of weather programs in other countries, our lack of interest in the weather has made our underdevelopment in this area evident. Weather reporting in Lima is a minor and unelaborated subject.
Another element they must consider is: the political value of El Niño and the intense partisan struggle that it unleashed. In effect, the government tried to showcase the efficiency of its plans and highlight its efforts, while the opposition pointed out the opposite.
A lot of media coverage, often contradictory, was given to El Niño during the preventive phase, between June and December 1997. A multitude of experts engaged in a somewhat confused public debate on the weather. The topic was the magnitude of the coming rains. The entire country was listening in on the debate between the scientists, including the elite and the decisions makers, on this increasingly important matter. The memory of the highly destructive "Mega Niño" of 1983 was still fresh in their minds, and the concerns of the public and of the government were justified.
Exasperated by the complexity of the debate on the intensity of the future rains, in September 1997, the executive branch reacted. President Alberto Fujimori ordered the state-sponsored scientific institutions to speak through one official spokesman. It was agreed that ENFEN would be the only entity authorized to emit an official opinion on behalf of the government.
This debate bombarded the public with scientific opinion and speculation. The focus of the debate was correct, because it was important to forecast as accurately as possible when and where the rain would fall, how much, etc. The problem was that the debate was limited to abstract scientific speculation, without embracing the concrete problems facing the citizenry. The citizenry did not receive guidance on what to do to protect itself under any of the scenarios contemplated by the experts. During the preventive phase, the scientists were not focused on formulating practical advice for families. They took refuge in their theories, many of which did not agree with each other.
Television coverage improved during the course of El Niño. In December 1997, a TV program directed by Abraham Levy and broadcast from America Satel, used visual techniques showing weather variations over time, a first for Peruvian television even though it is widely used in North America.5
The America Satel experience demonstrates that TV has the technical means to make weather information available and it could offer very attractive weather programming which would be particularly welcome in the provinces. This has not yet happened, however, because everything revolves around Lima.
The radio-listening audience is quite large in Peru, especially in the blue-collar sectors. In a survey carried out by the Institute of Peruvian Studies (IEP) it was found that 74% of the Peruvian workers from these sectors regularly turned to the radio as a source of information. The same survey found that 82% of the workers watched TV frequently as a source of information. The audiences are thus pretty even, making it clear that both media compete and that radio has not lost its vitality.
The press is a singular domain whose rules are, in part, different from those that govern TV and radio. Excepting the so-called "chicha" dailies, most of the newspapers are directed to the middle class. The influence of the press, therefore, is of key importance in that it targets diverse elites, albeit lacking reach into the larger population mass.
The experience of the last El Niño burst upon a communications media ill-prepared to handle weather-related news, suddenly taking on major proportions. When this happened, El Niño became headline news for almost two years, even though it was highly politicized. In the end, however, it did not bear permanent fruit: Peru continues to be without professional reporting of meteorological issues in the news media.
Except for the occasional article in a scientific journal, the topic of El Niño had been absent for several years, at least in the mass media. El Niño had ceased to be news of current relevance in spite of the prolonged, if moderate, El Niño of 1992 and of 1994 that had only sporadically been mentioned in the press. In the early 1990s, El Niño was perceived as a potential threat that had not materialized.
Teleconnections to the Southern Sierras
It was a well-known fact that El Niño, in addition to its direct effects on the northern coast caused by the increased ocean temperatures in the eastern tropical Pacific, had an indirect effect, due to atmospheric alterations, on the high Sierras – far from the sea. These teleconnections seemed to bring about droughts in the Southern Sierras every time that the northern coast received heavy rainfall. The drought during the 1982-83 El Niño was a notorious fact. A less severe drought had occurred during the moderate 1972-73 El Niño. In 1998, however, a drought in this region did not materialize, disparaging news to more than one noted Peruvian scientific institution.
One of the goals of the government's drought response plan was to sow 15,000 hectares of fodder (i.e., grass) before January 1998 in Puno. Given that the drought did not occur, it would seem that, logically, these programs died out. On the contrary, they have proven to be quite successful. It so happens that the scarce amount of land devoted to fodder and the heavy overgrazing of natural pastures is a perennial problem of the cattle industry in the Sierras. Therefore, although the plan was developed to confront a drought crisis that did not materialize, it was successful because its goals addressed structural problems that needed to be confronted.
Societal Impacts Linked to the 1997-98 El Niño
El Niño has laid out a very tough challenge to Peruvian agriculture. An impoverished sector has had to support the embattlement of nature by whatever means. Farm losses have multiplied and have many causes, among which is the destruction of arable land. Thousand of hectares of farmland were washed away by swollen rivers, leaving deserts where farms used to be.
El Niño also silted up canals and drainage systems, and generally wreaked havoc on the system of irrigation. Consequently, agricultural output for the 1998-99 season was poor. During this period, however, the main irrigation systems of the coastal basins were rebuilt. The government's expenditures on reconstruction have been evident in that area.
Throughout 1997, the Ministry of Agriculture (MINAG) followed a pro-active policy to protect the irrigation and drainage infrastructure, undertaking several civil engineering projects. The MINAG did not, however, address two important problems facing pre-El Niño 1997-98 agriculture: agricultural credit and technical orientation. Some products were doomed at the outset, but the northern farmers believed that rice would be a viable crop. Unfortunately, the farmers could not conduct a massive rice campaign in 1997, due to the lack of available credit to purchase supplies. They were finally able to do so in 1998, after arduously scraping up some capital. The results were not good. There was overproduction in 1999 and rice prices plummeted. To top it off, the Fujimori government, ever faithful to its neo-liberal politics, allowed rice to be imported from Southeast Asia at a time when they were exporting all that they were able to in order to alleviate its own economic crisis. Everything went wrong in the Peruvian rice business. The producers were harmed by the fall in prices and the importers were equally harmed by the same phenomenon that all the parties had inadvertently created.6
Next to El Niño, plagues have been one of the principal problems facing Peruvian agriculture. The elevated temperatures that "tropicalized" the winter season along the coast gave rise to new pests and crop stress starting in 1997. In 1996, the Peruvian coast had been distressed by a very cold winter and a very dry summer. After the 1997-98 El Niño, the plagues returned with a vengeance. Vermin decimated crops in the 1998-99 season and continue being dangerous into the year 2000, affecting many valleys and a variety of crops.
The availability of credit constitutes another of the major problems facing Peruvian agriculture that El Niño exacerbated considerably. From the 1930s until the early 1990s, there was an agricultural bank linked to the state. This bank was the great enabler and was well managed for many years, making it an effective economic agent that granted the minimum of credit necessary for the continuity of business. During the five-year government of Alan García, 1985-1990, this bank was managed very poorly and was used extensively to further political ends. In the early 1990s, the credit institution was technically bankrupt and the government opted to liquidate it.
It is clear, however, that after the previous "Mega Niño" of 1983, there was an agrarian bank that financed the crop campaigns in 1984 resulting in a faster recovery of the sector. This time around, however, Peruvian agriculture had to face the aftermath of an El Niño without the presence of a solid credit institution. The 1997-98 El Niño has deepened the problem of agrarian credit, one of the structural weaknesses of Peruvian agriculture.7
Highways
The infrastructure of highways and roads was directly and negatively impacted during the last El Niño. This network extends for 75,000 km in Peru. A great majority, 50,000 km, are little more than dirt roads and trails. Only a third of Peruvian highways are either gravel or asphalt. Most of the 10,000 km of asphalt roads are in the Pan-American Highway that runs along the coast. Seen as a group, this network is very inadequate because its extension is limited compared to the size of the country. In addition, 80% of the merchandise in Peru makes use of the highways and roads. In that regard, the economic importance of the road network is immense, in spite of its inadequate size. Unfortunately, that same limited road network was severely battered during the last El Niño.8
Transportation companies and merchants have been hit hard by the vulnerability of the Peruvian highway system. The most affected, however, have been the towns and villages that were left isolated by El Niño. For example, the Solidarity Bulletin of Chiclayo noted dozens of cases, among which was a testimony published from Canchachalá in the mountains of Ferreñafe. Seven small villages found themselves cut off without adequate food or supplies.
The task was immense and they faced structural problems of great magnitude that were impossible to solve in the short term. The highways cross a multitude of riverbeds inappropriately termed "dry," which they are in a normal year. In an El Niño year, however, these "dry" riverbeds channel an avalanche of water and mud, cutting the highway at several points. The solution of the highway engineers to deal with the "dry" beds that cut across highways is to build a pontoon. During an El Niño, the pontoons overflow and the water runs beside the highway eroding it. This explains the television images during El Niño showing a line of trucks traveling single file over severely eroded highways that had become but a thin shred of asphalt.
The strategy to protect bridges faced still graver problems. In effect, the bridges of the Pan-American Highway had been designed for relatively minor flows of water, much less than those that a "Mega Niño" would bring. For example, the famous Bolognesi Bridge in Piura collapsed when it was subjected to a flow four times greater than the maximum for which it had been designed. The magnitudes are so high that it is easy to understand that this type of problem could not be solved with a few months of warning and that it was not just a question of trying to gain a few extra months. The cleaning of riverbeds and drainage channels and shoring up the foundations are certainly useful operations, but insufficient if the bridges are designed for very low water volumes. Thus built, the bridges will inevitably collapse.
In 1998, for example, in the Department of Lambayeque six bridges collapsed, five of which had been reconstructed after the 1983 "Mega Niño." There are no easy answers and it is necessary to find intermediate solutions that might even include the altering of the course of some highways in order to avoid very low depressed areas where the "dry" riverbeds pose a heightened threat to bridges.
Some positive cases also point out that the most important decisions were those made during the reconstruction phase of the 1982-83 event. The highway that joins Piura with the port city of Paita, a fifty-kilometer stretch, is a triumph of forward thinking. The torrential rains of the 1983 El Niño created a lagoon that completely submerged this highway, cutting off Piura from its supply route. A period of famine and desolation ensued. Later on, the highway to Paita was rebuilt on a high embankment and rerouted around the lagoon-prone area. Thanks to these well-learned lessons, the 1998 El Niño did not isolate Piura from its port, and the highway stayed open in spite of the inclement weather. Coastal marine trading was enough to stave off another famine.
Fisheries
IMARPE managed the 1997-98 El Niño in a more prudent manner than it had done in earlier events. It did not allow over-fishing in 1997, before the warmer temperatures had set in. The marine biota withstood the trauma with enough vitality left over to bounce back after only two bad years. Biological normality returned to the seas by the third year. Actually, the two bad years were not really terrible because the catch still amounted to half of pre-El Niño levels. Its management of the marine biota during this El Niño has enhanced IMARPE's reputation.9
The financial difficulties facing the fishing industry are daunting and El Niño has aggravated them considerably. These difficulties are a consequence of the privatization process. This privatization process consisted in the auctioning off of the state owned enterprises that were in turn formed by the expropriations of the sector in the early 1970s. The fishing industry was sold piecemeal, that is, each plant was sold separately which translated into a cost of entry that allowed many Peruvian industrialists to participate. In sharp contrast to all the other economic sectors that were privatized at that time period, the fishing industry stayed in the hands of nationals with new, as well as the reappearance of old, managerial groups.
Technically the whole industry is in bankruptcy and some analysts maintain that El Niño has caused their financial situation. Another point of view, however, is that El Niño has merely revealed the fragility of a privatization process that favored Peruvian industrialists who had leaned heavily on Peruvian private banks. The debt was based on an excessively risky calculation that only contemplated a continuum of good years and made no provisions for safeguarding against the lamentably confirmed possibility of three bad years in a row.10
Prevention Phase – 1997
As previously noted, the government's preventive plan consisted of civil engineering projects of riverbank fortification. Infrastructure protection was the government's leitmotiv. This strategy had virtues and defects, the main drawback being the absence of a plan directed at revitalizing production, which fell into severe recession. The preventive strategy itself, however, was very poorly implemented due to a centralist and individualist mindset abetted by a high degree of bureaucratic disorder. Overlapping areas of responsibility are one of the endemic secular afflictions of Peruvian bureaucracy that only got worst during the last El Niño.
Topping this state of affairs were the many delays in getting the civil engineering projects going, thereby diminishing their timeliness. The president acted quickly, but even he had to contend with the slow-moving wheels of the executive branch. For example, the drainage projects for El Niño in Piura did not get started until August 9. These high-priority projects for the area that was going to be hardest hit still had not commenced as the emergency rolled into its seventh week.
Emergency and Reconstruction
The emergency phase in the summer of 1998 was the critical period, when all the proverbial Horsemen of the Apocalypse visited Peruvian territory. The government's strategy during that period was to run in the face of each difficulty. At first, President Fujimori wanted to personally witness each one of the situations as they arose. Late, he understood that this was impossible and divided his attention among the various ministries. Fujimori did not include provincial mayors or other local authorities in the committees entrusted to carry out the daily fight of the provinces during the emergency. On the contrary, the president simply delegated his personal authority to his ministers. Again, the government persisted in its attitude of doing everything itself.
The government's reconstruction efforts have been considered a continuation of the civil engineering projects of prevention. The government saw itself as simply restoring the lost infrastructure at what was perceived to have been a very slow pace. The government formed a committee entrusted with the reconstruction effort called CEREN (National Reconstruction Committee) in June 1998. This committee is presided over by the engineer Alberto Pandolfi, a minister that has held many positions in several of the cabinets of the Fujimori government and that has been a key figure in the adoption of policies on El Niño.
Former President Fujimori defined the role of the government during the reconstruction as that of a contractor and had blocked other possibilities. The government's efforts have been so slow that they were not (as of this writing) even restoring the destroyed infrastructure, not to mention the linking of these efforts with regional development.
What actions might have been taken given a forecast in October of 1996
It is difficult to suggest because it deals with assumptions and not an analysis of facts. I am inclined to believe that nothing different would have occurred. The central government would have applied a similar plan, based on prevention with the same established goal, that is to say, facilitate drainage through a civil engineering project to shore up and protect the riverbanks. The problems that plague the inner workings of the central government would have been intact, as well as the tensions with the other institutions that represent local interests. These dynamic relationships define the structure of society and of the government in Peru. Six months of extra time to prepare would not have altered these old, strongly rooted political habits.
The only significant probable change is that scientists would have had extra time to organize their debates. But, as we mentioned, their lines of communication with the politicians were very weak. The latter make decisions, without bothering to listen to the scientists. None of this would have changed with an earlier, even perfect, forecast.
The most pro-active institute in promoting a relationship between the scientific community and society has been the IGP. For example, in November 1997, the IGP organized an important seminar with Piura's managerial community to debate new investment opportunities that might open up with El Niño. This seminar was well attended and the managers were eager to participate. The forecast of the IGP director, however, called for a moderate El Niño with rainfall levels less than 1,000 mm, when in reality they exceeded 4,000 mm. What frustrated this interesting experiment was not the lack of time to implement the IGPs recommendations, but a forecasting error by the scientists.11
Main strengths and weakness of the Peruvian government's response to El Niño-related problems
The study of the last phenomenon of El Niño in Peru has allowed us to x-ray the attitudes of society and of the government when confronted with natural disasters. First, we have the government's analysis, seemingly very quick to respond to the early warning signals and poorly organized for long-term prevention. Indeed, after receiving the forecast for El Niño, the state developed an integrated plan in short order and the presidency of the republic displayed unusual energy to implement it. However, the inertia of the Government to face natural emergencies derives from the lack of an efficient organization and the tensions that exist with other domains of political and social power.
The northern coast's business community that was severely battered by El Niño has yet to receive the priority attention that it deserves from the government. Its capacity to react has also been limited. The weakness of the regional bourgeoisie in the provinces was confirmed when they were unable to participate in the economic effort of prevention and much less in that of reconstruction. This economic effort has fallen almost entirely on the central government.
The dialogue between the scientists and the politicians is inadequate or non-existent. The scientists lack the means to make themselves heard by the politicians. Only when the later summon them can they converse, but no political decision of the government is subject to the input or opinion of the scientists, who are employed by the same government to study those same issues. The politicians consider the scientists to be rara avis, which don't deserve any measure of attention.
The government's reconstruction policy implemented during the post-Niño does not seem to be the most adequate. The government created CEREN, the ad hoc entity that evaluates projects, requests bids, and then contracts out reconstruction work to private industry. The dominant characteristic of their work has been slowness and inadequacy causing numerous frustrations in the affected provinces. Reconstructing the irrigation and highway infrastructures has been the leitmotiv of the government in this period.
Lessons Learned
- The ENSO warm event should be considered as a recurrent event in national planning (e.g., in civil defense, urban zoning, construction codes), rather than as an anomalous and unusual condition.
- Increased coordination among governmental scientific agencies concerned with the dissemination of El Niño information would result in a more coherent message for the public to act upon.
- Scientific institutions and government agencies must engage and educate the media so that they can convey more clearly their messages and minimize misinterpretation of ENSO information.
- It is misleading and dangerous to base preparations for an El Niño event that has been forecast solely on the impacts of the last event (regardless of its magnitude).
- The centralization of early warning and response activities in Lima, Peru hinders effective action in the provinces during crisis situations.
- Early warning of El Niño events will not enable the prevention of negative impacts and the exploitation of positive impacts if larger (i.e., more basic) structural changes related to economic and political development are not undertaken during non-El Niño periods (e.g., credit availability, transportation and health infrastructure, education).
- With the exception of Peru's northern coastal areas, there is inadequate scientific understanding of El Niño's teleconnections to different geographical regions within the country.
- Dialogue between decision makers and scientists ranges from inadequate to nonexistent, in large measure because of the poor opinion they have of their scientists.
- Financial assistance from the central governments to the regions that have been adversely affected must be improved upon in order to remove delays.
- The parts of the country that are usually affected by El Niño must receive priority attention from the central government. They must be directly involved in the planning of preventive, mitigative, and adaptive responses to El Niño-related hazards.
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Refer to Efrain Gonzales for a treatise on the Peruvian economy in the 1990s, Neoliberalismo a la peruana: economía política del ajuste estructural, Lima: Intituto de los Estudios Peruanos (IEP), 1998.
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We have explored the government's preventive plan in a book; Antonio Zapata y Juan Carlos Sueiro, Naturaleza y política: el gobierno y el fenómeno del Niño en el Perú, Lima: IEP, 1999.
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El Comercio, June 6, 1997, p. 1.
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The scientific activities of the IGP are described interestingly in its annual report. IGP, Ciencia en Sociedad, 50 years. Lima: IGP, 1997.
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A preliminary overview of the role the media played during the 1997-98 El Niño can be found in "Medios de comunicacion, sensacionalismo o doctrina" by Angela Zelada, Prevención, año 5, # 11, mayo 1998.
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Overproduction and falling prices continued to affect Peruvian agriculture in the post 1997-98 El Niño era. This resulted in a dramatic fall in the price of potatoes, engendering significant rural rebellious activity. The latest agrarian strike in Andahuaylas clearly bears this out.
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Both Alberto Fujimori and Alejandro Toledo, candidates in the May 2000 Peruvian runoffs, made public their decision to rebuild the agrarian bank, if elected.
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A report on the impact of El Niño on the highway infrastructure was published by the Colegio de Ingenieros del Peru, Informe del fenomeno del Niño 1997-1998, Lima. CIP, 1999.
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The Fisheries Research Director of IMARPE, Marco Espino, was intensely involved in the scientific debate on the impact of El Niño. An example of his work can be found in "El Niño de 1997 y los recursos pesqueros: una propuesta de analisis," Lima: setiembre de 1997.
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Juan Carlos Sueiro has written several articles tracking the development of the financial crisis of the fisheries sector for Analisis Economico magazine. A somewhat different reading can be found in Pesca, a publication headed by Alejandro Bermejo.
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Interview with Ronald Woodman, May 1998.
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