Ecobreves – HONDURAS: Soldiers Guard the Forests

By IPS Correspondents and - - Reprint | | Print |

TEGUCIGALPA, Apr 29 2006 (IPS) - For the past three months, some 2,000 soldiers from the Honduran army have been guarding the principal ecological preserve locations around the country to prevent illegal logging. They also have been dismantling illegal sawmills and starting a program of reforestation. Gen. Romeo Vásquez, commander of the army, spoke with Tierramérica, explaining that, under presidential mandate, environmental protection is one of the new roles to be performed by soldiers.

So far this year, they have participated in fighting 258 forest fires and have closed down 583 clandestine sawmills. In June they will begin reforestation efforts, which will include “the planting of five million trees countrywide,” Vásquez said.

President Manuel Zelaya Rosales announced a week ago that he will be “unyielding” with those who harm the forest, who he threatened to bring in “chained and shackled” from the country's interior mountainous areas.