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WORLDWIDE FOREST/BIODIVERSITY CAMPAIGN NEWS

Potential Darien Gap Road Threatens "Motherload of Biodiversity"

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Forest Networking a Project of Ecological Enterprises

http://forests.org/

11/30/97

OVERVIEW, SOURCE & COMMENTARY by EE

Cable News Network reports on the continuously looming threat to the

forests of the Darien Gap, where the forests of Central and South

America meet. This center of biodiversity lies in the path of the

last unfinished portion of the Pan-American highway.

g.b.

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RELAYED TEXT STARTS HERE:

Title: Pan-American Highway's missing link, Controversy surrounds

effort to extend road

Source: Cable News Network

Status: Copyrighted, contact source for reprint permissions

Date: November 25, 1997

Byline: Gary Strieker

The Darien Gap is said to contain a "motherload of biodiversity."

DARIEN GAP, Panama (CNN) -- Here, where Central and South America come

together, lies a rain forest containing one of the richest ecological

regions on Earth. It's also an obstacle to the completion of the Pan-

American Highway, more than 16,000 miles of continuous road from

Alaska to the tip of South America.

The only missing link is a 54-mile stretch through two national parks

-- one in Panama, the other in Colombia -- that contain the Darien

Gap's more than 3 million acres of unspoiled wilderness.

The region is a "motherlode of biodiversity ... (and) ... one of the

most important tracts of forest remaining in the Americas," says

Hernan Arauz of ANCON, a private, non-profit organization dedicated to

the conservation of Panama's natural resources.

Road completion debated

Supporters of the highway cite both symbolic and economic reasons for

completing it. It's outrageous, they say, that at the dawn of the 21st

century the Americas are still not united because of a few miles of

missing road.

But it's an argument ANCON opposes. "We don't need this road," says

Juan Carlos Navarro, another member of the group. "We don't want it,

and we will never have it."

Completing the Pan-American highway here, say conservationists, would

attract thousands of poor immigrants looking for land and guarantee

annihilation of the remaining forest. Leaders of indigenous Indian

tribes in the gap fear the influx of immigrants would destroy them

economically and culturally.

Conservationists also point to the nearest stretch of the highway,

already completed as far as Yaviza, Panama. The area, heavily forested

only 20 years ago, is now mostly stripped of timber for miles on both

sides of the highway.

Many local farmers seem unconcerned by the controversy, saying they

just want the existing road improved so they can use it in the rainy

season to get their produce to market.

Panama's government in no rush

Latin American diplomats have called for completing the highway, but

Panama's government, concerned about political and drug-related

violence moving north from Colombia, seems to have given the project a

low priority.

In fact, many Panamanians are comforted by having the Darien Gap as a

buffer zone on the Colombian border.

Other factors working in favor of highway opponents:

* Many Panamanians are comforted by having the Darien Gap as a buffer

zone on the Colombian border.

* There's no money for building the road anytime soon, and the United

States is no longer interested in financing it.

* Good travel alternatives, especially coastal shipping.

"The people who still talk about a highway between Panama and Colombia

were passed by history ... They're dinosaurs," Navarro says.

So the Pan-American Highway may remain incomplete for some time to

come.

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