by Jessica Sherman, GGF intern
Despite continued threats of violence from timber interests, forest communities and activists staged a six-day march to Tegucigalpa to press the government to halt rampant destruction of the forests of Olancho. A tremendous turnout in this second year of the march seems finally to have gained the government’s attention and galvanized public support.
Environmental activism in Honduras can be a dangerous pursuit. Carlos Arturo Reyes, a Catholic Church representative and a leader of the Movimiento Ambientalista de Olancho (MAO), was assassinated in July 2003 in front of his house. He was a victim, allegedly, of thugs hired by logging interests. According to the National Catholic Reporter, Reyes and other Catholic activists had held a press conference the previous day, warning of threats against environmentalists.
Violence and intimidation have become more common in recent years as Honduran timber companies have become more powerful and more emboldened by government inaction, corruption and complicity. If informal bribery and cronyism werenít enough to ensure free rein to loggers, timber interests now contribute heavily to political parties, with some estimates putting the contribution of timber money to the National and Liberal parties as high as 40 percent of total contributions.
MAO has been working to promote forest protection in Olancho since 2002. Olancho is Honduras’ largest department, with 2.5 million hectares of forest and nearly a quarter of Honduras’ total forest lands. Despite legal limits on logging and timber exports, these rich forests have attracted local and international timber interests and are rapidly being cut. At least half of Olancho’s forests have been destroyed, leading to serious erosion hazards, potable water shortages and desertification. According to MAO, 80 percent of all logging in Olancho is illegal.
In response to illegal logging and the exclusion of the people of Olancho from decision making, MAO organized the second annual “March for Life” in June 2004. More than 3,000 people marched six days and a hundred miles from Olancho’s capital, Juticalpa, to Tegucigalpa. With the support of a coalition of religious, human rights and other organizations, 50,000 marchers from around the country converged on the National Congress.
The organizers called for a moratorium on all logging in Olancho and denounced government corruption and timber industry lawlessness. They demanded an independent evaluation of Olancho’s natural resources and the creation of an independent commission to monitor and evaluate the moratorium.
José Andres Tamayo, a Catholic priest and one of the leaders of the protest, said to the crowd, “We are here to announce to the government and society that the natural resources belong to us, and we will defend them with our lives. . . This is not the end of the march; this is the beginning. For the forests, for the water, for the land, for the air, for life: this march will not be forgotten!”
Padre Tamayo later noted in an interview with NPR, “What we are seeing is that as the natural resources of the country are pillaged, the very lives of the people are more precarious, weak. Their standards of living drop, and their lives are more limited.”
The first march in 2003 was followed by increased violence and the death of Carlos Arturo Reyes. Padre Tamayo and another priest were among the names circulated on a death list, and timber company leaders demanded the government expel both men from the country.
Thanks, perhaps, to increased participation in the 2004 march and a broader coalition of partners, the aftermath this year has been significantly more positive. Government officials agreed to several of the protesters’ demands, promising to address corruption in the National Forest Institute and to restructure the government office that controls mining. However, it did not agree to a total moratorium on logging in Olancho.
MAO’s goal this year is to follow up the public protest with more coalition building. Global Greengrants Fund provided a grant to MAO in September 2004 to organize participatory meetings for community members affected by logging. From there, MAO will be bringing these community interests and concerns to the table in negotiations with government. MAO’s hope is to increase dialogue between rural communities and government, increase local participation in decisions, and to develop forms of community forest management where appropriate. An additional hope is that dialogue and increased participation can help introduce democratic processes to an area that has been traditionally subject to the rule of force.
For the people of Olancho, who have seen enough violence, these efforts offer the promise that their forests and communities won’t be completely destroyed. One marcher, Capolino Moltinaro, was quoted by NPR News: “Without the forests we won’t have life. We’re here to stop the destruction of the forest for our children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren. The forests are disappearing.”