Ecobreves – GUATEMALA: Pinabete Tree Traffickers Arrested

By IPS Correspondents and - - Reprint | | Print |

GUATEMALA CITY, Dec 15 2003 (IPS) - Eight people were detained in Guatemala in early December for trafficking in 'pinabete' (Abies gatemalensis), a plant that is on its way to extinction and is used illegally as a Christmas tree. “In police operations with experts from the National Council of Protected Areas (CONAP) we arrested eight people who were illegally moving thousands of trees in trucks,” the council's forestry management director, Fernando Gómez, told Tierramérica.

In 2002, five people were arrested for the same crime, and one was sentenced to five years in prison.

“We have operatives in the west, the southern coast, in Sierra de las Minas (east), and in 20 markets in the capital, because by controlling demand there would be no more depredation of the species,” said the official.

The endangered plant species was once found in southern Mexico, Honduras, El Salvador and Guatemala, but today is found only in this country, where it represents 0.3 percent of the forests.