Hillary Clinton Visits Women's Forestry Project in Panama
10/17/97
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Headline: Hillary Clinton Visits Women's Forestry Project in Panama
Source: Reuters
Date: 10/17/97
Byline: Arshad Mohammed
Copyright 1997 by Reuters
CHICA, Panama (Reuter) - Hillary Rodham Clinton swept over
the Panama Canal by helicopter Friday then hiked to meet a group
of women who make ends meet by reforesting a deteriorating rain
forest near the canal.
Dressed in a khaki pantsuit and sturdy hiking boots, the
U.S. first lady ended her three-day visit to Panama by walking
down a muddy trail to visit a village nursery where the 11 women
and one man grow trees, flowers and fruit seedlings.
Set on a hillside in Chica, a town 30 miles southwest of
Panama City, the nursery is an effort to help the group members
support themselves and an environmental push to reforest the
area near the canal which has lost half its trees in the last 50
years.
The visit also provided an elaborate photo opportunity for
Mrs. Clinton, who chatted with the women for a half hour,
quizzing them about their plants and sales and whether they
owned the five-acre plot they worked.
``I'm very impressed by this, it is exactly the kind of
project that I have seen all over the world, and that works to
fulfill a need in the community and also to give income,'' Mrs.
Clinton said at the nursery, which sits above a lush green
valley.
After a long series of questions about who owned the land --
the group does -- Mrs. Clinton laughed, noting that as a lawyer
she always wanted to know who owned what. ``We want to make sure
that you have the land -- that the land is yours,'' she said.
Members of the group earn about $250 a year from the
project.
Faustina Nunez, a spokeswoman for the nursery project,
admitted trouble sometimes juggling schedules and said some of
the women's husbands had begun cooking dinner before they got
home, prompting a wave of laughter from the audience.
The project has received $91,000 from the U.S. government to
provide tools and training for the women, who grow a mix of
guava and mango trees and medicinal herbs and flowers.
They sell the herbs and flowers on the open market, and the
trees to the operators of the Panama Canal.
The trees are used to reforest the watershed area of two
lakes and five rivers that feeds the canal vast quantities of
fresh water.
The 50-mile canal, which was completed in 1914 and links the
Atlantic and Pacific oceans, needs 52 million gallons of water
to move one ship through its locks.
The canal spills about 2 billion gallons of water per day,
enough to serve a large city for about 24 hours.
U.S. officials said they are seeking to improve the
environment and roll back the deforestation before the United
States returns the waterway to Panama at the end of 1999.
After flying back to Washington Friday evening, Mrs. Clinton
planned to head south again Sunday with her husband for a
one-week tour of Argentina, Brazil and Venezuela.