After eight months of hearings, the Honduran Secretariat (ministry) of Environment and Natural Resources announced the two-year permit renewal for the controversial Mexican company Gas del Caribe, which operates in the Atlantic region of Omoa, in the Honduran northwest. Deputy environment minister Jhonatan Laínez told Tierramérica that the renewal is conditioned on the payment of a fine of more than 600,000 dollars and the implementation of measures to mitigate pollution and to provide benefits for the Omoa community.

Laínez said the National Environmental Consultative Council issued the resolution after an intense period of investigations “and any other recommendation that is proposed should be heeded by the company.”

Gas del Caribe has been criticized for contamination for more than eight years, but in the last two weeks the company launched an aggressive campaign against the environmental groups, which in turn have announced more protests against the permit renewal.