A park under threat from human activities. Credit: Inforpress Centroamericana

Report
Lachuá, a Corner of the Guatemalan Jungle Resists
By Roberto Samayoa

The Laguna Lachuá National Park aims to be a model of sustainable development in a unique ecosystem, but it is surrounded by threats.

GUATEMALA CITY, Sep 22 (Tierramérica).- Guatemala’s Laguna Lachuá National Park is a small corner of the Central American jungle that has withstood the advance of oil exploration, monoculture crops and road building, providing experiences in sustainable development under the indigenous people who live there.

The park extends across 14,500 hectares in the central department of Alta Verapaz and is the heart of a larger eco-region of 55,000 hectares that is home to the Q’eqchies peoples.

In their language, “lachuá” means “foul-smelling water”, referring to the trace of sulfur. Located in the Ixcán zone, on the “Northern Transversal Strip”, it is believed that the area remained safe from depredation because it was used as a hunting range by the Guatemalan army.

Today it is administered by the National Forest Institute (INAB), the Ministry of Agriculture and by the National Council for Protected Areas (CONAP).

Ten years ago, driven by the World Conservation Union (IUCN), the Lachuá project emerged, and is carried out by these entities, involving communities and the municipality of Cobán, with support of the government of the Netherlands.

The integrated participatory development model, with the 55 indigenous communities in the area, has led to positive results, project coordinator José López told Tierramérica.

The Q’eqchies are entrusted with preserving 1,994 hectares of forest, and for their work they received 82,000 dollars from INAB in 2006-07. In the same period, forest production from 1,290 hectares brought in more than 617,000 dollars, said López.

Tourism routes were developed in El Peyán Canyon, Rocjá Postila, the Salinas Nueve Cerros estate and in Laguna Lachuá. Furthermore, the community members particpated in planting 9.6 hectares of pineapple and in selling the fruit. The goal is to reach about 50 hectares, with harvests providing a livelihood for 110 families.

Some 200 people work with 2,000 beehives that produce honey, with plans to expand to 5,000 hives that would provide income for 300 families.

Also planted in the area are avocado, lemon, orange, chili and cacao. In 2006, 70,000 cacao seeds were imported and planted on 98 hectares, providing a marketable crop but also increasing the absorption of carbon dioxide, the principal greenhouse gas.

In the Chixoy River, the residents raise tilapia fish, with the aim of harvesting 60,000 adults every six months.

In 2005, the indigenous communities created two Community Development Councils (COCODES) responsible for improving access to the eco-region, building eight schools, administering a scholarship fund and providing electricity to three communities.

The following year the Lachuá Park was declared a Ramsar wetlands site by the United Nations, due to its important role as habitat for animal species, especially migratory birds.

But this is no Garden of Eden. There is heavy pressure in the area to expand farmland, drill for oil and build highways.

Destruction in the area began in the 1970s, according to Luis Solan, in his study “Northern Transversal Strip: Neo-Colonization On the March”, when high-ranking military officers and business executives “dedicated themselves… to the accumulation of land in order to open the way for livestock and the exploitation of lumber resources.”

The invasion of the land has not disappeared, although López was cautious with respect to the land that belongs to the protected area, saying that they have not had problems so far.

In the park’s buffer zone, where the project are being carried out, 90 percent of the indigenous people are landowners. If more rural settlers establish themselves there it would be illegal seizure of the territory.

There are six communities facing this situation, both in the buffer zone and in the heart of the park, according to Raúl López, from the Agrarian Affairs Secretariat. “None of those cases is recent,” he told Tierramérica.

Two communities, which only work in the buffer zone, will be relocated. The other four occupied the land after it was declared a protected area, so “there is the possibility they will be expelled,” he said.

According to Solano, oil palm – to produce biodiesel – is grown on 55,000 hectares in Guatemala, but there are plans to expand to 150,000 hectares by 2012. Monoculture is advancing with the purchase of communal lands. The farmers who sell off their land then move elsewhere to settle other land.

Green Earth Fuels, property of investment funds The Carlyle Group, Riverstone Holdings and Goldman Sachs, this year acquired more than 25,000 hectares in La Soledad, Rubelsanto, Playitas and Ixcan – the latter three located near Lachuá.

In López’s opinion, lands that were previously open fields today are used to grow oil palm, and the project has committed the growers and the energy company in the same board, which “allows concerted action among all parties.”

Furthermore, the Truestar Petroleum Corporation holds the license for exploiting crude oil in Tortugas and Atzam, 20 kilometers west of the Rubelsanto oil fields, also located near Lachuá.

In September 2005, PetroLatina Energy also obtained a license to operate in Tortugas and Atzam in an area of 31,000 hectares that includes areas of the buffer zone and near the heart of the park.

Meanwhile, the plan to build a highway through the Northern Transversal Strip has been postponed. For now it is a gravel road that would be turned into a 330-km highway as part of the plans for connecting Mexico, Guatemala, Belize and Honduras.

The project, granted by the government to the Solel Boneh company, does not include considerations for preserving the environment, nor does it question that the planned path would pass through the core of Lachuá park.

The current road follows “the edge of the park, which does not affect wildlife because it does not have much traffic,” CONAP deputy secretary Gerardo Paiz told Tierramérica.

Modifying the route “depends on the government’s political posture, given that the conservation of protected areas is gaining more importance day by day,” said López.

Carlos Salvatierra believes that “if we don’t conserve and ecologically recuperate other areas that are interconnected with Lachuá, it will be isolated and that endangers teh quality of its ecosystems.”

One of the problems for Guatemala’s protected areas is “their lack of connection and the reduced size of many of them,” he told Tierramérica.

López and Salvatierra agree that this model could be replicated in other places if it involves the local communities in the management of the natural resources.

When the Lachuá project draws to a close in 2009, its continuity will have to be taken up by five local organizations: the two COCODES and three farm partnerships, through the Lachuá Fund, which was set up in 2007 and unites the communities of the eco-region’s 55,000 hectares.

* IPS correspondent.