HONDURAS:
The Fight to Put
Forestry Law in Action
By Sonia Edith Parra*
LA CEIBA, Honduras ,
(IPS/IFEJ) - The battle
that broke out decades
ago in Honduras over
illegal logging has now
shifted to establishing
the legal framework for
the new Forestry Law:
Protected Areas and
Wildlife, long delayed
in Congress.
Three days after
approval, a law must go
through the review
committee, and then it
is signed by the
president and published
in the official gazette.
In the forestry bill's
case, the National
Institute of Forest
Conservation and
Development (ICF) is to
draft the law's
standards within a
period of three months.
The bill was passed by
Congress on Sep. 13, so
there is no explanation
for the delay, Aída
Romero, of the Democracy
without Borders
Foundation, told this
reporter.
According to Ana Lanza
of the congressional
Secretariat General, the
delay is due to the fact
that there are nearly
200 articles to codify
in this piece of
legislation.
Behind the slow-moving
process is pressure from
the timber industry,
which is why it took
eight years to get the
law passed, said an
activist who requested
anonymity.
The declared annual
exports of timber to the
United States total
three million dollars,
but true sales reach 6.8
million dollars, or 226
percent more, according
to Andrea Johnson, who
monitors illegal logging
for the London-based
Environmental
Investigation Agency (EIA).
Britain and Spain import
Honduran timber worth
100,000 and 1.3 million
dollars, respectively,
but the real sums are
1.6 million and 2.6
million dollars --
another illustrative
case of illegal logging
and sales.
The participation of
communities in forestry
consultative councils,
the regularisation of
forested lands -- with
demarcation of areas of
protection,
conservation, community
management, water
resources -- and prison
sentences of up to 15
years for environmental
crimes are some of the
noteworthy items in the
controversial law.
Establishing the law's
standards is essential
because that is where it
can either be
implemented correctly or
have its spirit
completely changed,
according to the
Democracy without
Borders Foundation,
leader of the Coalition
for Environmental
Justice, involving eight
Honduran environmental
groups.
Faced with the delay in
the process, the
Foundation presented the
Congress-approved text
to the correction
committee along with
some suggestions so that
the process would not be
further bogged down,
says Romero.
The Coalition plans a
dissemination campaign
so that the communities
take on the role that
has been given them in
the consultative
councils.
It will also keep an eye
on the law's
codification process,
which will be in the
hands of the executive
director of the ICF,
created by the law to
replace the
much-challenged COHDEFOR,
the forest development
agency.
But the Coalition will
abandon the process if
the ICF post goes to
Ramón Álvarez, current
general manager of
COHDEFOR, whose term has
been the subject of
corruption complaints,
said Romero.
Álvarez himself invited
the Coalition to
participate in setting
the law's standards,
when as head of COHDEFOR
he opposed reforming the
forestry legislation,
stressed Romero.
According to a 2005 EIA
study, there is a
network in Honduras that
forges permits, hands
out bribes, issues false
land titles and uses
intimidation tactics,
and which implicates
politicians, COHDEFOR,
timber companies,
sawmills, truckers,
loggers, police and
other officials.
Companies like José
Lamas SRL, Maderas
Noriega, Sansone, Serma,
Derimasa and Yodeco are
the main lumber
suppliers for buyers in
the United States and
Europe, including Aljoma
Lumber, Home Depot and
Intergro, according to
the EIA report.
The text states that
most illegal trade
involves pine and
mahogany species, among
others, which come from
the Olancho and
Mosquitia departments
and the Río Plátano
Biosphere Reserve, in
the Honduran north and
east.
The EIA says that 80
percent of the mahogany
trees and 50 percent of
the pine logged in
Honduras in 2004 were
cut illegally. In the
1990s, the country lost
10 percent of its forest
cover.
Honduran biodiversity,
concentrated in107
protected areas that
cover a total of 27,000
square kilometres, is
threatened by
deforestation.
In 1996, UNESCO (United
Nations Educational,
Scientific and Cultural
Organisation) declared
the Río Plátano
Biosphere "threatened".
Meanwhile, the Olancho
Environmentalist
Movement (MAO) and the
Campamento
Environmentalist
Movement await
implementation of the
new forestry
legislation. Their
conservation work has
been met with threats,
intimidation and the
deaths of eight members
since 1997. The most
recent were two
activists murdered Dec.
20, 2006.
Víctor Ochoa, of MAO,
said in an interview
that "the government
institutions have
remained passive and
complicit in the illegal
logging in Olancho. The
forestry law is not
obeyed. Institutions
like COHDEFOR are
corrupt, and their work
has been to legalise
what is illegal."
(*This story is part of
a series of features on
sustainable development
by IPS-Inter Press
Service and IFEJ-International
Federation of
Environmental
Journalists.)
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