Honduras

An alliance of Honduran peasants is asking the Government to halt the construction of a hydroelectric dam being built by the Energisa company in the area of Gualaco, Olancho, some 240 kilometres to the north-east of Tegucigalpa. The inhabitants affected by the project consider that it is causing damage to the environment and that the construction of the dam will prevent water being supplied to thousands of inhabitants, in addition to the fact that they may be obliged to leave their lands.

Industrial shrimp farming is a main cause for the loss of mangroves in the tropics. Even though private companies are the direct agents of such destruction it is important to highlight that governments and multilateral development agencies play a very active role in paving the way for this to happen.

After nine months of denouncing the destruction of wetlands at "El Carey", Marcovia, Choluteca; after several months after members of CODDEFFAGOLF (a local environmental organization) and the Environment Attorney were driven out with threats from that site; after several months of requesting international solidarity for this case; two months after the visit of a RAMSAR representative, and a few days after announcing the mobilization of fishermen and farmers to Choluteca, near the coast of the Gulf of Fonseca, CODDEFFAGOLF launched a Peoples' Peaceful Demostration, which has already achieved

Palms are typical of the coastal landscape in the Pacific region of Honduras, inhabited by the Garifuna communities. They are descendants from Africans that were brought to the region after the Spanish Conquest and have developed a culture strongly related to their environment, of which palms are an essential component. Palms occupy an area of 6,000 hectares and about one million people depend directly or indirectly upon it.

Honduras has the obligation both under international and national law to protect 75,000 hectares of wetlands in the Gulf of Fonseca. On May 1999, The Honduran Government, through the Natural Resources and Environment Secretariat (SERNA), during the RAMSAR Convention on Wetlands, obtained the designation of the Coastal Wetlands of the Gulf of Fonseca as "RAMSAR Site 1000".

The following letter from Jorge Varela of the Committee for the Defence and Development of Flora and Fauna of the Fonseca Gulf (CODEFFAGOLF) was published in Late Friday News nr. 53, a publication of Mangrove Action Project (MAP). In 1999, Jorge was one of the seven environmental and human rights activists to receive the Goldman Prize 1999. In his letter he expresses: "Tegucigalpa, Honduras, December 8, 1999 Good News From Honduras!

Last September Canada reached a controversial deal to "buy" oxygen from Honduras within the framework of a "debt for nature" swap and the Clean Development Mechanisms of the Kyoto Protocol. CIDA (Canadian International Development Agency) will "forgive" about U$S 680,000 of Honduras' U$S 11 million debt with Canada. In exchange, a so-called joint implementation office will be established in Honduras to promote tree plantations and monitor forest conservation programmes in that country.

Just one year after the destructive arrival of hurricane Mitch, Honduras is suffering the consequences of storms and flooding that have provoked the evacuation of thousands of peasants and the death of eight people until now. Hundreds of homes and crops have been destroyed. The media reproduce tragic images of suffering people and emphasize in the fury of nature as a cause of such disasters.