Local NGO Works To Preserve Honduran Jewel

Volunteers Annie Johnson and Clare Riley dig holes for tree planting on steep mountain slope in La Tigra National Park 

 

By LYNN CHOTOWETZ

Honduras needs La Tigra National Park. The government needs it to boost low tourism numbers. Tegucigalpa relies on it for clean drinking water. Tired citizens need it as a reachable escape from daily life. And several native villages call it home.

But preservation is a tough job. Tourists leave footprints, and villagers don’t appreciate compromising their land and their lifestyle. So when the Ministry of Natural Resources passed the operation of the park to a local Non Governmental Organization in 1993, they, Amitigra, were left with a big task.

Christopher, a La Tigra park warden, works to dig a new septic storage inside the park. 

Nine years after receiving the reigns, Amitigra says it has helped bring the park closer to a state of sustainability.

Recalling the park when it was released from government control, Manuel Lopez, Amitigra’s Executive Director, said, “They didn’t have the capacity to maintain the park. They didn’t have any kind of control of the visitors. [Visitors] could go in for free, with their guns, drinking alcohol, with loud sound equipment, taking a bath in the main water source of the park. It was a complete disaster.”

When the park was created by parliament in 1980 Lopez says the government was unaware of several villages located within the core zone - the park’s main water production area. No plans to address the villages were made, and the agriculture-dependant people continued to work their land using the slash-and-burn method – a practice integral to native farming, but contrary to park preservation.

Lopez says the issue of park preservation in the midst of villagers’ livelihoods is complex, but says Amitigra’s conservation work is designed with the intention of encouraging village participation. By including and educating the villagers in the preservation he hopes to keep everyone happy. “But it takes a long time to convince them,” he says.

Christopher, one of the 25 Amitigra wardens, lives just inside the park’s east boundary in the small community of El Rosario. A few scattered houses, a pulperia, and a two-story wooden lodge with a kitchen and radio transmitter, El Rosario serves as Amitigra’s in-park coordination base, and has been Christopher’s home for 23 years.

At 34 he shares his small house with his mother, father, brother, sister-in-law, and nephews. In simple, patient Spanish, Christopher explains the importance of maintaining the water sources and wildlife in the park, while also respecting the need for villagers to live off their land.

Walking the narrow dirt roads that wind around the sides of La Tigra’s pine covered mountains in his ball-cap and brown “La Tigra National Park” shirt, Christopher stops almost constantly to talk to villagers. An hour long walk to reach a re-forestation site is turned into a two hour walk, but smiles and friendly “holas” mean he has a place to fill his water-jug in the afternoon sun or store his tools before the long walk home.

Volunteer work is also a part of Amitigra’s preservation strategy. Recruiting volunteers from placement organizations in Great Britain, France and Canada, Lopez says volunteer work is a key to sustainability. “It’s two-way work,” he says. In exchange for experience in a special protected area, Lopez says the volunteers provide valuable help to Amitigra’s efforts. “We accept volunteers so we can learn from them, and so we can teach them,” he says.

Amitigra has been working with volunteer placements for several years, and has recently begun a relationship with a U.K. agency, I-to-I. Offering six-week conservation internships to volunteers, I-to-I currently has its second group of volunteers bunked in at the El Rosario lodge.

The shared rooms are small, the showers are freezing, and the work is hard, but the four female volunteers say they are enjoying their experience in the mountains of La Tigra. Lopez says the volunteer tasks are designed according to Amitigra’s priorities, and that means the work isn’t always glamorous.

Shoveling wet soil into small plastic bags, and making tree holes with a pick on the steep, overgrown sides of a mountain may not be what she had in mind, but Annie Johnson isn’t about to back away. “I came here expecting to do some hard work,” she says. “We’ve shown that girls can get mud in their hair and break their nails.”

Ambitions and ability aside, Lopez says he worries about the women’s safety, and has kept them from participating in certain projects because he felt the work was too difficult. Volunteer Liz Gascoyne says she notices Amitigra’s tendency to limit the women’s involvement.

“They’ve got a lot of girls here,” she said. “And they’re not used to girls doing manual work. But we’ve told them we don’t care, and now they’ve made us work.”

Lopez estimates that Amitigra has improved overall park conditions by 80 percent, and says they plan to continue the strategy of maintaining the park with help from local residents, employees and volunteers.

“We’re kind of like pioneers,” says volunteer Kasia Brooks. “Just by being here we’ve accomplished something for Honduras.”