Ecobreves – HONDURAS: Military Protection of Forests

By IPS Correspondents and - - Reprint | | Print |

TEGUCIGALPA, Feb 11 2008 (IPS) - The Armed Forces of Honduras has sent 2,000 soldiers to protect the natural resources of the entire country as part of the government project “Life for Nature”. The troops will be in the country's main nature reserves, where they will monitor the forests from land, air and sea to prevent illegal logging and lumber shipments, the chief of the armed forces, General Romeo Vásquez Velásquez, told Tierramérica.

The highest concentration of military presence will be in the Plátano River biosphere, declared a Natural Heritage of Humanity Site by UNESCO.

In the past five years, an annual average of 100,000 hectares of forest were damaged by fires, but that rate fell in 2007 to 40,000 hectares, thanks to military operations, according to Vásquez Velásquez.