HONDURAS - One of Central America's largest parks is a United Nations Biosphere Reserve, a World Heritage Site and named in the international Ramsar Convention which safeguards critical wetlands. But none of these official designations has stopped Honduras President Carlos Reina from exposing the Rio Platano Reserve to an invasion by 20,000 families.
Reina plans to settle the farmers in the Sico and Paulaya river valleys, which border the 1.3 million-acre Rio Platano reserve in northeastern Honduras. The serve joins two other Honduras parks and the Bosawas Biosphere Reserve in Nicaragua to form the largest biological corridor in Central America. It protects hundreds of endangered plants and wildlife species and is home to three indigenous tribes: the Peche, Misquito and Garifuna.
"Ecological worries must not deter a country's development," Reina proclaimed, ignoring evidence that the forest is one of the country's main economic assets and shrugging off legislation that protects the zone. Indigenous groups and conservationists oppose the president's plan to open the region to colonists, who will cut and burn forest in order to plant subsistence crops and cattle pasture.
The nonprofit group Mosquitia Pawisa (MOPAWI) opposed the incursion of more colonists without the required land tenure and environmental impact studies. "The river valleys are relatively small areas, just 61,000 acres, most of which is already populated," says executive director Osvaldo Munguia. "The new migrants will not find any available land there, but would have to invade the nearby protected areas."
Lighthawk, the "environmental airforce" based in New Mexico, recently flew Munguia over the area, revealing that colonists have already penetrated the reserve and cleared expanses of forest. "Natural areas can provide much more economically than the yield from cutting trees to plant basic grains," Munguia says. "The Rio Platano reserve is immensely rich in the archeology of unknown civilizations. The potential for ecotourism is enormous."
According to MOPAWI, the government has repeatedly denied land tenure to the 40,000 indigenous residents of the region.
Contacts: Osvaldo Munguia, MOPAWI, Apartado 2175, Tegucigalpa, Honduras.
Phone: 504-37-7210; Charles Luthin, Lighthawk; Phone: 505-982-9556.
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