Ecobreves – HONDURAS: Confiscated Lumber Turns Into School Equipment

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TEGUCIGALPA, Oct 11 2010 (IPS) - Fifty percent of the lumber that Honduran officials seized from smugglers or illegal loggers will be used for school equipment, according to a reform in the Forestry Law approved by Congress. The wood and the fines charged to the offenders will be used by primary schools. Inmates in Honduran prisons will turn the lumber into desks and other school equipment, lawmaker Lena Gutiérrez, of the governing National Party, told Tierramérica.

Supervision and delivery of the materials will be the responsibility of community forest councils, according to the reform law Congress passed unanimously on Oct. 5.

The Honduran government loses an estimated six to eight million dollars annually in fiscal revenues as a result of illegal logging.