Ecobreves – HONDURAS: Towns Defend Olancho Forests

By IPS Correspondents and - - Reprint | | Print |

TEGUCIGALPA, Jun 2 2003 (IPS) - The residents and mayors of four municipalities in the northeastern Honduran department of Olancho have joined forces to prevent the pillaging of their forests, which have suffered unregulated and illegal logging. In Salamá, Jano, Gualaco and La Unión, a six-year ban on logging has been decreed. Now marches to Tegucigalpa are being organized to press the national Congress to impose a similar ban for all of Olancho.

The department is one of the country's largest and suffers severe ecological degradation, manifest in the destruction of forests, say activists.

“In those areas there are no more forests. It has all been devoured by logging companies and fires. So the people of four municipalities decided to unite to prohibit the plundering of their trees,” Leonel Casco, of the North Olancho Environmental Front (FANO), told Tierramérica.

Honduras loses some 100,000 hectares of forest each year to illegal logging activity and to forest fires.