Association for a More Just Society (AJS)

Protecting the Forest
& Natural Resources in Honduras

The trees of the field will yield their fruit and the ground will yield its crops; the people will be secure in their land. They will know that I am the LORD—Ezekiel 34:27

Forests in Honduras

Forests cover over half of Honduras, boasting laurel, mahogany, pine, roble (a teak alternative) and more. It has the largest cloud forests in Central America--vast stretches of lush mountains rich in biodiversity and fresh water. The forests are home to many communities of small farmers and indigenous groups, nearly 30 of which contain populations over 1,000. Experts agree that the forests are one of Honduras' most valuable resources. With wise management, the forests could be a renewable resource that would benefit all of Honduras and boost its frail economy.

Unfortunately, current legislation does little to control cutting or to enforce reforestation. Lack of adequate regulations has encouraged traditional slash-and-burn farming, extensive grazing, forest fires and illegal cutting, which have caused widespread deforestation.

AJS Gets Involved
The Association for a More Just Society (AJS)'s Honduran became involved in response to proposed legislation that would have been very harmful to poor rural communities and the environmental health of the forests. In November of 1999, the then President of Honduras, Carlos Roberto Flores, presented a proposal for a new set of Forestry laws, prepared by a group of "specialists," who consisted almost entirely of lumber company representatives. The proposal promised to benefit large lumber companies by selling large sections of national forest as concessions for lumber mills without any requirements for reforestation. Indigenous groups' rights to their ancestral lands would not have been respected and small cooperatives and community groups would have lost access to forest resources. Clearly this type of legislation would have permanently damaged Honduras' forests and driven the rural poor deeper into poverty.

Fortunately, the proposal was refused and word of it reached AJS.

A Successful Coalition
ASJ supported efforts to build an unprecedented coalition of representatives from the government, rural communities, Christian groups, and environmentalists to craft a rational, fair plan for managing the forests. The coalition is called the Honduran Agroforestry Alliance (AHA), and that these widely variant groups have been able to work together for nearly three years is a feat in itself.

The first official achievement of the AHA was to extract an agreement from the government that no proposal for new forestry laws would be presented to Congress until a 17 person committee consisting of representatives from AHA constituents, the government and businesses signed their approval for the proposal. AJS's Honduran partner organization, as a key member of the AHA, was involved in intense negotiation between the various social sector groups and representatives of the government in order to reach an agreement. Then-director of AJS's Honduran partner, Pablo Hernandez, worked feverishly negotiating between the government and community groups, who are often sensitive and suspicious due to the injustices they have suffered in the past. Part of the strategy was bringing the media's attention to this situation. The AJS-supported effort managed to obtain over $30,000 US in free publicity in newspapers, radio and television.

The Fate of Forestry Law
Throughout the last two legislative sessions, many different versions of Forestry Law proposals have been proposed. The work of AJS's Honduran partner organization and the AHA has been crucial throughout this process. AJS's partner has kept the voices of poor farmers, community groups and indigenous peoples at the forefront of the debate, ensuring that the well-being of rural communities and the forest itself stays on the public agenda. This has been possible in a large part due to the dedication to this work shown by Rigoberto Sandoval Corea, former director of the National Agrarian Institute and the Honduran Forest Administration, and Armando Matute, our very hard-working pro-bono lawyer.

Several times it seemed Congress was set to approve a forestry law that would protect and fairly distribute forestry resources to all Hondurans, especially the rural poor and indigenous groups. In one round of negotiations, we believed the law to be presented to Congress was a bill AJS project staff and partners in the Honduran Agroforestry Association had reviewed and found acceptable. However, a different law, one that offered nearly no protection against illegal deforestation and threatened the rights of rural communities was presented. For more details about our concerns with this bill, see the February 2003 edition of Revistazo, entitled The new Forestry Law could bring more deforestation, corruption and poverty to Honduras and the December 2003 edition Consensus Building: A new challenge for the government in considering the Property Law and the Forestry Law.

The Agroforestry Alliance worked very hard to block that bill. The Revistazo edition and many meetings with political party leaders were key to making sure that the harmful legislation would not be adopted. Congressional representatives, many with significant financial ties to the lumber industry, threatened that if this particular bill was not approved, they would not permit any new bill to be approved. However, cooperating organizations representing small farmers, indigenous groups and environmental concerns agreed that the existing forestry law, as flawed as it is, is better than the proposed bill.

Update

On Thursday, September 13, 2007, Congress finally passed the new Forestry Law! The law sets out guidelines for creating a new forestry institution that should be better suited to ensuring that the forest benefits all Hondurans, and more immune to corruption than the corruption-ridden current Honduran forestry agency; the law also provides better protection for wildlife and endangered species.

The Association for a More Just Society will continue to support efforts to ensure that this law is carried out justly, so that all Hondurans can benefit from the forest and so that the forest will be preserved for future generations.