Honduras Environment Profile 2012

Compared to countries such as Costa Rica, environmental awareness is severely underdeveloped both among state officials and within society as a whole. Legal and other obstacles often hinder civic engagement in environmental issues, including the programs of NGOs. Environmental sustainability is on the national agenda only in a rhetorical sense, or when seeking to fulfill foreign donors’ expectations. The state’s mining and energy policies do not seriously take ecological considerations into account, as can be seen in a 2008 National Congress decision to purchase 205 megawatts of carbon-based energy (“energía sucia”) from a Guatemalan consortium. The donor community initially applauded a new forestry law implemented in early 2008. Since then, enthusiasm has largely vanished: The new agency created by the law to administer the country’s forests (including the issuing of logging permits), the Instituto Nacional de Conservación y Desarrollo Forestal (ICF), has in practice been no more transparent in its procedures than its predecessor, the corruption-ridden Administración Forestal del Estado-Corporación Hondureña de Desarrollo Forestal (AFE-COHDEFOR). In fact, the former head of AFE-COHDEFOR, Santos Cruz, was appointed deputy director of the ICF.