ENVIRONMENT
Honduran Caribbean on a
Tightrope
By Sonia Edith Parra*
TRUJILLO, Honduras (IPS/IFEJ) - The
biodiversity of Capiro Calentura
National Park, on the northern coast of
Honduras, could disappear as a result of
tourism, agricultural expansion and drug
trafficking.
Capiro and Calentura are two mountains
in the foothills of the Nombre de Dios
Sierra, close to Trujillo, capital of
the Caribbean coastal province of Colón.
The park has 7,542 hectares of tropical
and subtropical rainforest, and in it
are 20 micro-watersheds that supply
water to 32 surrounding communities,
including Trujillo.
The park was established after a push
from a group of teachers from Trujillo.
It forms a natural complex with the
neighbouring Guaimoreto Lagoon Wildlife
Refuge, covering 10,387 hectares along
the ocean.
In the last three years, a new threat
has emerged here, as it has along the
entire northern Honduran coast: drug
trafficking.
The natural canal that connects the sea
to the lagoon is now a drug transit
route -- nobody who is not involved in
trafficking dares venture there. In the
refuge's buffer zone there are several
clandestine aircraft landing strips.
According to the United Nations Office
on Drugs and Crime, Central America is
one of the most important corridors for
moving narcotics. In 2007, of the 700
tonnes of cocaine seized around the
world, 91 were intercepted here.
National and foreign drug traffickers
buy up land around the wildlife refuge
to more closely control their illicit
transactions and make use of valuable
natural resources.
"It's sad to see how we are losing the
most valuable thing we have in the
region: our parks and our water sources.
So far we have been able to survive, put
food on the table, but tomorrow -- I
don't know," said a rural worker from
the area who asked not to be named.
In fact, nearly everyone interviewed for
this article spoke with this reporter
only on condition of anonymity.
Living in this area are the Garífuna
(descendants of African slaves and
indigenous Caribs), the indigenous Pech
peoples and small farmers who migrated
here from other parts of the country.
There are more than 60,000 inhabitants,
according to the park's 2007
environmental management plan.
The Calentura and Guaimoreto Foundation
(FUCAGUA), created in 1991 to preserve
manage these sites, worked with the
communities to develop an agro-forestry
project in order to diversify crops.
The project includes gardens to produce
healthy seeds of coconut palms,
decimated by hurricanes and disease, and
develop fruit crops and tubers like the
ñame, and legumes like the balú --
staples of the local cuisine.
Thanks to this initiative, which
reinforces food security, next year the
Garífuna will harvest their first
healthy crop of coconuts.
But it is not all good news. There are
sectors of the park where the howler and
white-faced monkeys, jaguars and deer
can no longer be found. As for the
park's flora, valuable timber, like
mahogany and ceibo seem to have
disappeared.
FUCAGUA's actions have been successful
in protecting part of the park and the
refuge. The foundation utilises the 1992
Presidential Pact 1118, which
established these protected areas.
In November of that year, an executive
order banned resource exploitation and
exploration in the area and instructed
government agencies to delineate the
borders and preserve them. But that
hasn't happened.
Nearly 20 years later, the ambiguous
legal situation continues. Although the
borders were drawn up several times --
the latest in 2006 -- there was no
decree to make them legal, meaning that
the protected area loses ground day by
day.
In the park's buffer zone, land is sold
without title, or the titles are issued
irregularly by the National Agrarian
Institute. As such, cattle ranching and
food crops continue their encroachment.
Although Honduras does have a Natural
Resources and Environment Secretariat
(Ministry) and Forest Conservation
Institute, the protected areas are
administered by non-governmental
organisations through contracts with the
state.
But they don't have state financial
support, and often lack even technical
and legal backing.
Meanwhile, the expansion of tourism
continues unabated as well.
The Canada-based company Life Vision
Properties is building the Alta Vista
and Campo del Mar Nature Park tourism
complexes, complete with private
neighbourhoods in the mountains or on
the beach, in the Capiro Calentura and
Guaimoreto buffer zone.
"Before, foreigners could not buy land
less than two kilometres from the
beaches," a FUCAGUA source said. But
that rule changed with legal reforms in
the late 1990s.
According to Randy Jorgensen, executive
director of Life Vision, the project
promotes economic development in the
area. A few weeks ago, a bulldozer
belonging to the company turned an old
ecological path into a highway.
On Jan. 22 and 25, the government issued
environmental permits to the two
projects. At the time, the country was
still under control of the government
that took power in the June 2009 coup.
FUCAGUA is now trying to get the Forest
Conservation Institute to present the
demarcation of the zone to Congress to
make it legally binding.
To do so, it will use some of the
financing from the sustainable resource
management project of the Mesoamerican
Biological Corridor in the Honduran
Atlantic, provided by the European
Union.
*This story is part of a series of
features on biodiversity by Inter Press
Service (IPS), CGIAR/Biodiversity
International, International Federation
of Environmental Journalists (IFEJ), and
the United Nations Environment Programme/Convention
on Biological Diversity (UNEP/CBD) --
all members of the Alliance of
Communicators for Sustainable
Development (www.complusalliance.org). |
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