Ecobreves – GUATEMALA: Deadly Attacks Against Ecologists

By IPS Correspondents and - - Reprint | | Print |

GUATEMALA CITY, Jul 8 2006 (IPS) - At least 115 environmental activists, technicians and workers have been the subject of violence, kidnapping and even murder in the last 16 years in Guatemala, says a report by the Center for Environmental and Social Legal Action (CALAS). “We wanted to know specifically how risky the situation is for this group in Guatemala, where there are no guarantees for protecting the environment,” CALAS director Yuri Melini told Tierramérica.

In the most recent case, members of the National Council of Protected Areas, the police and army were held for several days in June by a heavily armed group in Sierra del Lacandón, in the northern department of Petén, bordering Mexico.

In November 2005, forest rangers Mario Pop and Julio Vásquez were abducted and have not been found. The two worked at the biological station of the private Universidad del Valle in Atitlán volcano, west of the capital, Melini said.

That same month, a technician from the National Forestry Institute and a soldier in the Maya Biosphere Reserve, also in Petén, were murdered.