Ecobreves – HONDURAS: Indians Aim to Generate Their Own Energy

By IPS Correspondents and - - Reprint | | Print |

TEGUCIGALPA, Oct 13 2008 (IPS) - Residents of the indigenous town of Tomalá, in the western Honduran department of Lempira, are seeking resources to build a mini-hydroelectric dam that would generate 10 to 15 megawatts. The plan needs financing worth 30 million dollars. The first backing came from the United Nations Small Grants Program.

The project “isn't as ambitious as it appears, because we have the natural resources necessary to generate energy, like watersheds, micro-watersheds and forest,” Tomalá''s Mayor Antonio Aguilar told Tierramérica.

The community is isolated from national projects of electricity expansions. “We want to reverse that trend, find our own development and, according to the studies conducted, we can even sell the surplus energy to the government,” he said.