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Figure 3.6 Cooperative Candelaria, Un Nuevo
Amanecer. Courtesy of the authors.
At the end of the war, the abandoned coffee estates (shown at the top of the figure)
were more forest than farm, as indicated by the serpent toward the upper right
corner, the broken coffee branches toward the upper left one, and notations such
as "propiedad destruida" (destroyed property) and "vosque destruido"
[sic] (destroyed forest). In the late 1980s, militant campesinos founded the cooperative
and claimed 322 hectares of the now-rundown coffee estates in 1992. On the map,
several properties are labeled "propiedad de la cooperativa" ("property
of the cooperative") and the acreage of each is given.
Other processes also contributed to the changed landscape. Closer to town, a number
of properties were broken up into smallholdings, evident if one compares the two
maps. Two properties were distributed to residents in the early 1980s under the
"land-to-the-tiller" phase of the agrarian reform; one is labeled
"parcelas de FINATA," and the other simply "FINATA," which
refer to the acronym of the administering agency. Others were subdivided into
lots when landlords sold land to pay off accumulating debts. Some families could
afford to buy land as a result of cash transfers from relatives in San Salvador,
provincial towns, or the United States. The subdivision of property among heirs
also contributed to the proliferation of smallholdings.
click image for an enlargement
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