***********************************************
WORLDWIDE
BIODIVERSITY/FOREST CAMPAIGN NEWS
Latin
America Rainforest Update
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Forest
Networking a Project of Ecological Enterprises
April
25, 1995
OVERVIEW
& SOURCE
Following
are four Latin American Rainforest News Briefs provided
by the
Tropical Conservation Newsbureau of the Rainforest
Foundation. The first details Honduran plans to develop
the area
immediately
adjacent to one of Central America's largest parks.
The
second discusses the Global Environment Facility's (GEF)
efforts
to date in the region. The third
discusses efforts to
protect
a crucial Costa Rican Biological Corridor.
And the fourth
discusses
an innovative Guatemalan trust to fund local
conservation
efforts. This was posted in econet's
rainfor.general
conference.
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/**
rainfor.genera: 162.0 **/
**
Topic: Latin America News Briefs **
**
Written 10:06 AM Apr 25, 1995 by canopy
in cdp:rainfor.genera
**
This
information may be used as is or edited, with or without
credit
to the Tropical Conservation Newsbureau.
PRESIDENTIAL
DESTRUCTION DECREE
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 reserve joins two other
Honduran parks
and the
Bosawas Biosphere Reserve in Nicaragua to form the largest
biological
corridor in Central America. It
protects hundreds of
endangered
plant 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 the colonists, who will
cut and
burn forest in order to plant subsistence crops and cattle
pasture.
The
nonprofit group Mosquitia Pawisa (MOPAWI) opposes 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, Apdo. 2175, Tegucigalpa,
Honduras,
504/37-7210; Charles Luthin, Lighthawk, USA,
505/982-9656.
GEF
SEEKS NGO GUIDANCE
The
concept was lofty, captivating and sure to create controversy:
Establish
a fund that would give developing countries financial
support
for projects designed to relieve pressure on the global
environment. After a three-year pilot phase, the
Global
Environmental
Facility (GEF) was made a permanent organization
last
July and is now working hard to respond to its critics.
A
cooperative venture among national governments, the World Bank,
the
United Nations Development Programme and the United Nations
Environment
Programme, the GEF has authorized more than $755
million
for environmental projects in 71 developing countries. But
developing-country
governments and conservation groups have
claimed
that industrialized countries and the World Bank have far
too
firm a grip on the fund.
In
response, GEF administrators are meeting with
developing-country
governments and non-government organizations
(NGOs)
to get their advice about how GEF funds can be more
democratically
disbursed. At a March meeting in Rio de
Janeiro,
Ian
Johnson, assistant chief executive officer of GEF, told
representatives
of Latin American governments and NGOs, "This is
not a
public relations exercise. This is a
genuine attempt to get
substantive
intellectual input from government, academia and
NGOs."
Charlotte
Elton of the Panamanian Social Action and Studies Center
reports
that the meeting was very encouraging.
"GEF is a
tremendous
experiment," she says. "This
is an agency that seems
to be
sincerely interested in input from nongovernment sectors,
far
more so than traditional agencies. GEF
is very keen on
communications,
networking, and horizontal decision-making, on
getting
everyone involved and capturing the imagination. "GEF
supports
projects that address climate change, biological
diversity,
international waters and depletion of the ozone layer.
At the
urging of developing countries and NGOs, the fund added
land
degradation to the list. Countries in
Latin America that
have
received GEF funds include Argentina, Belize, Bolivia,
Brazil,
Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Cuba, Dominican Republic,
Ecuador,
Guyana, Jamaica, Mexico, Peru, and Uruguay.
Contacts:
Ian Johnson, GEF, 1818 H St., NW, Washington, DC 20433,
USA,
202/473-6923; Charlotte Elton, 507/26-6602, Panama.
COSTA
RICAN CORRIDOR
If so
inclined, a monkey could travel from Costa Rica's southern
Caribbean
coast 40 miles inland to the top of the continental
divide
without ever leaving the treetops. The
journey cuts
through
nine ecological life zones -- from beach and mangrove to
rainforest. A coalition of local groups is working to
protect
this
rare "biological corridor," which connects wildlife refuges,
indigenous
reserves, national parks and private land.
It may be
the
only place in the tropics where an intact forested transect
running
from sea level to more than 12,500 feet can still be
preserved.
Biologists
say that these greenways are important for wildlife,
like
birds and butterflies, that make "altitudinal migrations.
"The
corridor, which is already dangerously narrow in some places,
is
pressured by rapidly growing communities and Costa Rica's two
biggest
industries: bananas and tourism.
Lawyer
Rosa Bustillo heads the corridor coalition that serves as
project
coordinator; each participating group makes its own
decisions. "It's a completely grassroots
effort," she says.
"We're
here only to provide support, guidance and legal and
technical
assistance."
Contacts:
Rosa Bustillo, Av. 8, Calle 11-13, #1154, San Jose,
Costa
Rica, 506/221-2900. In the U.S., Randy
Curtis, The Nature
Conservancy,
703/841-4864; William McLarney, ANAI, 704/524-8369.
TRUST
FOR CONSERVATION
Working
together, conservationists in Guatemala developed an
imaginative
yet practical way to solve the biggest problem all
nonprofit
organizations face: how to keep promising projects well
funded. Since 1993, a cooperative comprised of
several local
nongovernment
organizations (NGOs) has given $200,000 worth of
grants
to 27 conservation projects.
The
cooperative, called the Guatemalan Environmental Conservation
Trust,
works with a $875,000 endowment, garnered from private
donations,
including the Withly Foundation of Great Britain and
the
World Wildlife Fund-U.S. The trust's
governing board, which
decides
how the money should be spent, includes
representatives
from
four Guatemalan NGOs: the Interamerican Foundation for
Tropical
Research, the Mario Dary Foundation, Defenders of Nature
and the
Foundation for the Defense of the Environment of Baja
Verapaz,
as well as
WWF-U.S.
The
trust considers proposals from any conservation group in the
country. "We look for projects that take into
account natural
resource
protection and rural populations," explains Juan Mario
Dary,
trust president and son and namesake of an environmental
martyr
murdered in Guatemala 14 years ago.
Dary
believes the trust has markedly advanced conservation efforts
in
Guatemala because it helps free NGOs from the burden of
searching
for funds. "The Guatemalan
conservation community can
make
the most intelligent decisions about what our priorities
should
be, not an institution based thousands of miles from here,"
he
says. "We can best judge whether a
project is making progress
and
deserves continued financial support."
Similar
conservation trusts have been established in Honduras and
El
Salvador.
Contacts:
Juan Mario Dary (502-2/680383) or Erick Cabrera (502-
2/310904),
Av. La Reforma 0-63, Zona 10, CP 01010,
Guatemala.
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