Timber Traffickers Threaten Honduran Forests

BRUS LAGUNA, Honduras Traffickers of illegal wood overpower and outspend the government while damaging Honduran forests, according to Spanish-language newspaper El Diario-La Prensa. Ranger Snyder Paisano, 35, a Miskito Indian, and other indigenous leaders say that in the last four years they have watched helplessly the growth of mahogany poachers and drug traffickers. The intruders destroy the forests of Central America, considered a World Heritage Site by the United Nations and where more than 40,000 indigenous people live. Honduran President Jose Manuel Zelaya dispatched 100 troops to the Rio Platano Biosphere Reserve last year to slow the traffickers. He has spent $5.3 million in the last two years in the effort to fight wood trafficking, according to an advisor to the president. But indigenous leaders say the governments presence is insufficient. Paisano and other indigenous leaders tried unsuccessfully to meet President Zelaya recently when he visited their community to inaugurate a canal. Prosecutors from the Ministry of the Environment say they lack resources to investigate traffickers, especially considering the threats posed by the violent, technologically advanced poachers.