The Honduran Ministry of the Environment declared this Monday a state of environmental emergency deforestation in the Río Plátano biosphere, located in the city of La Mosquitia, an area adjacent to the Caribbean Sea.
The Secretary of State for Natural Resources and the Environment, Lucky Medina Estrada, argued that the measure is due to the large number of deforested hectares within the protected area, which is why the State has decided to intervene to protect the local flora and fauna.
The official reported that so far those responsible for the damage are unknown, but that the authorities are working to find the culprits.
For his part, the Secretary of Defense, José Manuel Zelaya, made public the decision to intervene in the areas of high dredging of rivers and added that environmental protection operations will be carried out.
Zelaya explained that, for these purposes, the powers of the mayor’s offices to issue permits for the exploitation of natural resources will be limited.
The leader of the Defense portfolio outlined that they carried out overflights to the Mosquitia, to identify where exactly the environmental was and it was found that the departments of Francisco Morazán, Olancho, Gracias a Dios and Yoro are the most damaged nationwide.
Likewise, the head of the environment, Lucky Medina, emphasized that in Honduras about 28,000 hectares are being used for mining extraction, a task that the State is supervising in detail.
On the other hand, annually there are more than 3,000 hectares of forest affected at the national level only by forest fires, according to data from the Armed Forces
It is worth mentioning that this weekend, the Environmental Cabinet held a meeting headed by the presidential adviser and former president of the Republic, José Manuel Zelaya Rosales, which was attended by the aforementioned Ministers of Environment and Defense, the Chief of Staff of the Armed Forces Jose Jorge Fortin.
Also present were the Secretary of Agriculture and Livestock, Laura Suazo; the Secretary of Energy, Erick Tejeda; the head of Science, Technology, and Innovation, Luther Castillo; among other officials.
