Ecobreves – GUATEMALA: Forest Fires Destroy 563 Hectares

By IPS Correspondents and - - Reprint | | Print |

GUATEMALA CITY, Mar 18 2006 (IPS) - – Guatemalan officials are alarmed by the 96 forest fires that have consumed 563 hectares — 211 in protected areas — throughout the country so far this year. The fires have most affected the capital, the departments of Zacapa and Jalapa in the east, and Sololá, Totonicapán and Chimaltenango in the west, said Josué Morales, director of the National System for Prevention and Control of Forest Fires (SIPECIF).

Morales explained in a Tierramérica interview that 42 percent of the fires were the result of criminal activities, and the rest were from the burning of fields, or accidentally started by loggers or hunters.

SIPECIF figures indicate that in 2005, fires consumed 34, 157 hectares. The government set aside 4.2 million dollars to confront the emergency.

According to the environmental group Trópico Verde, Guatemala loses some 60,000 hectares of forest each year, and reforests just 14,000.