Ecobreves – HONDURAS: Reforesting the Capital's “Lungs”

By IPS Correspondents and - - Reprint | | Print |

TEGUCIGALPA, Sep 8 2007 (IPS) - Fruit and timber trees — 300,000 of them — have been planted over the past two years on Juan A. Laínez hill, once one of the Honduran capital's main green spaces, and environmental “lungs”. The reforestation will help recuperate and preserve the flora and fauna that were plentiful there in the mid-1900s. More than 4,500 meters of pipeline were installed for drip irrigation, due to the desertification of the area.

“We are planting 89 species of trees, among them mahogany (Swietenia macrophylla) and laurel (Cordia alliodora),” army Maj. José Zelaya, head of the forest brigade behind the project, told Tierramérica.

With more than one million inhabitants, Tegucigalpa has a serious lack of trees due to population growth and the subsequent clearing for construction and the household use of firewood. In the past 15 years the city's average temperature has risen as a result, say experts.