Background

Last year on June 20, Padre Andrés Tamayo, leader of the Environmental Movement of Olancho (MAO) led some 3,000 people on a 175-mile march to protest illegal logging in the department of Olancho, Honduras. The ongoing epidemic of illegal logging in Olancho, abetted by official corruption, has devastated forests, causing water-table levels to drop, poverty to rise, and forced farmers from their lands. In addition, at least five environmental activists have been killed for defending the forest. Church leaders and activists have been harassed by powerful logging interests, and a number are featured on an alleged “hit list.”

Leader of the Environmental Movement of Olancho, Padre Andres Tamayo

Padre Tamayo’s “March for Life” (Gran Marcha por la Vida), which started in Olancho’s capital, Juticalpa, culminated in Tegucigalpa, the capital of Honduras, on June 27, 2003. Twenty-seven religious, human rights, campesino, student, and labor organizations supported it. The marchers prepared seven demands that they hoped to discuss with Honduras’ President, Ricardo Maduro, who had campaigned in 2002 on a platform of fighting corruption and similar illegal activity. Instead, they were met at the Presidential House by a small army of anti-riot police, armed with the usual assortment of rubber truncheons, protective helmets, and metal shields. A few weeks later, President Maduro agreed to participate in a round table discussion with MAO and a number of government representatives. Out of that meeting came the decision to set up a commission to discuss MAO’s seven proposals. Though the commission met five times in 2003, no real progress was made.

The beginning of 2004 proved even less fruitful, with the government failing to re-convene the commission. MAO leaders believed the government was using the existence of the commission as a backdrop for its plans to introduce a new forestry law, Ley Forestal de Areas Protegidas y Vida Silvestre, which was structured in such a way that it would weaken, rather than strengthen community involvement in managing local forest resources and tilt ever more favorably towards the logging companies. In March of this year, frustrated at the government’s lack of initiative in reconvening the commission and fearful that the new forestry law would be passed without the consent of local communities, MAO decided to plan a second March for Life, though this year the march would be national in scope.

The goal of the march was to make all Hondurans aware of their right to a healthy environment that guarantees life and resources for current and future generations, as well as to make the protection of the environment a central issue in the government’s policy agenda.

TRIP REPORT HOME
CIP'S OBJECTIVES IN SOLIDARITY WITH THE MARCH FOR LIFE
A PRELUDE TO THE SECOND MARCH FOR LIFE, JUNE 24-30, 2004
HIGHLIGHTS
CIP'S EVENTS
RESULTS
RECENT DEVELOPMENTS POST-MARCH
PROGRAM STAFF AND COLLABORATORS
CIP’S STRATEGY AND NEXT STEPS FOR THE PROGRAM