ENVIRONMENT

By WENDY GRIFFIN

The Patuca River, which stretches from the Mosquitia coast to Olancho and whose tributary the Guallambre continues into El Paraiso, is the king of eastern Honduran rivers. It is navigable for more than 200 miles by canoe and cuts through three large protected areas: the Rio Platano Biosphere Reserve, the purposed Tawahka Asangni Biosphere Reserve and the Rio Patuca National Park.

The use of the Rio Patuca as the main water highway of eastern Honduras began in pre-Columbian times. Large archaeological sites on the Rio Patuca's tributaries, such as the Rio Pao, the Rio Aner, and the Rio Wampu, were connected by trade routes to places further upriver. There are petroglyphs showing canoe travellers upcoming rapids.

In the colonial times, the Patuca River continued its importance. Colonial reports are full of stories decrying the illicit trade between English merchants on the North Coast and Hondurans in the center who secreted out untaxed gold along the Guallambre River and then up the Patuca. This trade route through the valley of Jamastran almost to Danli was dominated by the Tawahkas, who communicated with the Spanish in "la voz azteca" or Nahuatl, according to documents in the Honduran National Archives.

Today, the only accesses to the Tawahka communities are still by this river. There are buses from Juticalpa to Agua Caliente and from there it is possible to catch motor canoes going north to the Tawahka area. The other option is to walk half a day from Culmi to Rio Lagarto and then raft down the Wampu to the Patuca. Most tourists fly into Aguas and then take the motor canoe south on the river to the Tawahka Reserve.

The river route is used for heavy cargo. For example, Basilio Ordonez, a Tawahka from Krautara, remembers travelling 19 days on the Patuca and up the Guayape to Catacamas as he and his father bought cement. The Patuca area drains a huge rice growing area. Rice is transported up to Barra Patuca where it is sold for use in the mainland or the Bay Islands.

The Patuca travels through several different ecosystems. Much of the lower river passes through llanos, a natural occurring savannah that is particularly striking around Ahuas. There are still enough trees to be greeted by the screams of many monkeys. Although turtles for soup are still common in the river, the previously abundant alligators now seem scarce.

The lower Patuca is part of the buffer zone of the Rio Platano Reserve, which was recently made larger. Ladinos coming across the Rio Platano Reserve have already reached Ahuas. For those who wish to visit, there are accommodations, restaurants, an airport and a Moravian clinic at Ahuas.

As you travel along the river, you will see the trabajaderos or areas where the Miskitos plant. The Coastal lands of the Mosquitia are notorious for their lack of fertility, so to plant Miskito families travel 2 or 3 days inland by canoe. This makes land titling very difficult. Also, many coastal Miskito children miss months of school as they live out on their trabajaderos part of the year to help plant, weed and harvest.

Continuing upriver to Wampusirpe, you enter the forest area. Most people stay at a hospedaje run by the Cruz family. The Miskitos here, though, will tell you that to really see the rain forest, you need to continue on to the Tawahka area.

The Tawahka reserve that borders on to the Rio Platano Reserve is an amazing stand of rain forest with a biodiversity of plants greater than the Amazon valley, reports ethnobotanist Paul House. The Tawahkas have an incredible knowledge of plants -- around 131 species of plants for wood and over 300 species of medicinal plants. They know the tree species whose fruit the peccaries like to eat, and the species whose leaves are the favorites of iguanas.

Paul House theorizes that their knowledge of the ecosystem is so great they still inhabit their original homeland. This is not true of most Honduran Indians such as the Miskitos, the Pech, the Tolupanes, the Lencas and the Chortis. The Tawahkas were at the confluence of the Guampu with the Patuca in the 1600s when Spanish missionaries first entered the area, and they are still there today. The question is for how long.

Legislation to create the Tawahka Biosphere has been presented to Congress where, according to one Spanish-language paper, it sleeps the sleep of the just. In the meantime, the biosphere and the Tawahkas themselves are threatened by a proposal to build a dam. The Patuca II hydroelectric project would create an artificial lake 42 km. long on part of the Tawahka Reserve and continuing into part of the proposed Rio Patuca National Park.

Approval for the proposed Rio Patuca National Park is also stalled. This park, which would connect with Nicaragua's national park system, is a key link in an international ecological corridor project for which Honduras has received a significant amount of funds. The Rio Patuca park is under pressure for wood for cigar boxes, cattle ranchers, farmers who use slash-and-burn methods, and coffee growers. Plans are to put another hydroelectric plant near Nueva Palestina, called Patuca III.

Edgardo Benitez explained that the purpose of the dam is not to generate electricity for Honduras. The Honduran government is considering destroying miles of pristine rain forest, dislocating its smallest Indian tribe, burying gold fields and archaeological ruins, contracting more the US$1 billion in foreign debt to produce electricity for export. The money received from exporting the electricity will not even benefit the country, as it will have to be used to pay the debt to build the dam.

Several NGOs, including Association Asang Launa, FITH, MASTA and MOPAWI, have coordinated a series of meetings to discuss this project at a national and international level. Honduras has received millions of dollars for development, eco-tourism, conservation and investigation of the area that the current proposal is to put underwater. This should make people wonder about the wisdom of investing in conservation here, and what Indian land titles really mean.

El Chile: ancient forest, bio reserve in danger

By JORGE FLORES MCCLELLAN

Special to Honduras This Week

Honduras is nature at its best. That is, the few places that have been left untouched. Optimism is human nature at its best, but it is a dwindling state of mind in the face of overpopulation and ignorance.

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We had travelled for two hours from Tegucigalpa toward El Chile Mountain and were now on a good dirt road running east from Guaimaca. The pine forests seemed immense and the biological reserve we were to visit loomed on the horizon like a sleeping giant. We had crossed crystal clear rivers and brooks and had stopped several times to make video shots for a documentary for the National Institute for Environment and Development (INADES), a private non-profit organization dedicated to the preservation of El Chile and other reserves. We had seen few cars and houses and the closer we got, the more optimistic I felt. Suddenly, not one but two huge trucks appeared, carrying beautiful but dead old pine trees. They almost drove us off the road, but I got good video pictures of them before they disappeared down the road. The men riding on top of the logs looked away from the camera with a shy, guilty gesture or stared back with a menacing look.

Suddenly, I felt and knew there was more to the horizon of woodlands than a quiet, picture-perfect landscape. Logging is eating away the best of the country. My thought was, "We are so naive and optimistic, it hurts. We are all giving silent approval to deforestation. We are like sheep being lead to the slaughterhouse."

We reached San Marcos de Guaimaca at the foot of El Chile, a town of about a thousand people dispersed on the surrounding hills. We were late for an appointment with the local council; ready to discuss the conditions of the Biological Reserve in regard to their own lands, crops and water.

Surprisingly, the discussion turned out to be an intelligent, sensible conference of questions and answers, the answers being more reasonable than my best expectations. Most of the community leaders expressed their honest opinions to Roberto Vallejo, executive director of INADES, and Leonel Marineros, biologist and regional director; and all agreed on being anxious for a clear demarcation of their land, so that logging would not take place inside the reserve.

They expect a clear definition of their rights to the wealth of water from the reserve, which will soon be diverted to Tegucigalpa. To our delight, most of them agreed vehemently that the El Chile Biological Reserve has to be perpetually protected, even from neighboring villages, and they demanded prompt action.

About 10 percent smaller than La Tigra National Park, El Chile contains a vast but shy biodiversity, comparable to the best of unspoiled tropical rain forests. The birds sing everywhere but are seen nowhere, except if you look hard and silent, like a hunter would.

My guides were Leonel, a 35-year-old biologist with a vast experience and knowledge about the biological reserves in Honduras and Costa Rica, and Noe Pinoth from San Marcos de Guaimaca, a farmer and plunderer of nature like most campesinos.

Leonel explained they work with limited funds donated by the DOEN Foundation from the Netherlands as he was pointing out the rarest and most valuable lifeforms and the grey areas that mark the limits between the reserve and the farmlands. He showed me plants that are known to be medicinal and small animals my untrained eye had missed.

The sight of rivulets and streams coming down from the jungle-covered top mesmerized me with their hypnotic crystal clear reflections. I could sense the forest closing in on me as we advanced, as if it was studying me and my camera, a new kind of intruder, deciding whether to let me continue or not, until the path stopped right smack into a wall of friendly but unyielding vegetation. So I said thanks and turned around, going back to town.

There is no infrastructure for deepwoods studies or eco-tourism. The paths are hidden and few and usually traversed only by hunters with dogs. As a result, the forbidding mountains of 2,200 plus meters are out of bounds and their foggy tops can only be seen from far away, as nature and the new laws intended them to be. Also, a few spooky legends keep men out of most of the reserve.

Fear is the best deterrent for invasion and destruction. It should be instilled into the hearts of men in these desperate and crucial times. Measures are needed similar to those employed in African reserves, where park rangers carry automatic weapons with orders to shoot on sight illegal hunters.

Also, it is high time to defend the most beautiful treasures in the universe, regardless of whether science-fiction books may have led us to believe our planet is plain and common, or whether we are just indifferent to the destruction of pure nature forever.

Back inside the forest, far away, I could hear an axe cutting wood and every so often, the wind carried voices, distinctly those of young people. Also, several big jets flew over, only a few miles above. The enchantment was broken.

I could see that the buffer zone is in excellent condition and the biologist confirmed it. There are still vast pine forests (currently being logged), and on several sides of the mountain range, the pine line converts into broad-leaf forest without interruption.

These mountains are part of what is called the "parteaguas continental" or continental divide, which means that the waters flowing from them drains into both oceans; on the one side through the mighty Patuca River to the Caribbean, soon to be dammed or damned, and on the other, through the Tegucigalpa-polluted Rio Choluteca, into the Gulf of Fonseca on the Pacific.

The high point of our expedition, apart from the encouraging conversation with the locals, was on the other side of the mountain; two hours away on a forbiddingly bad road, the only deterrent for loggers. It was the waterfall of Pinuelas, one of several on the range. It is a white flowing gash in the middle of a shiny green plush carpet. The looks and sounds from it caused me to stand frozen in my tracks, leaving me behind my guides.

At the bottom of the cascade I spent a lot of time just gazing, remembering often to videotape the best angles, of which there were plenty. The water was cold coming down the lichen-covered rocks and the biologist forbid us all to bathe in it since it is the source of water for many communities that do not treat the water.

El Chile is beautiful. That is the strongest impression I retain. This mountain is one of the few that has not been fully raped. One can see the difference right away simply because of its inaccessibility. And it should be kept that way. If you come here, be careful and help out. Be brave, at least, speak out openly against deforestation and hunting. Some of the villagers will agree, others won't. But if we say it often enough, it will break through. If creatures and plants can live by symbiosis, that is, one helps the other, than, we as human beings can transmit our knowledge and sensibility about nature to others by osmosis.

About 50 communities surround the biological reserve, and their populations are growing so fast that they can only be envied and feared by nature. The illiteracy rate is 32 percent and too many teenagers are mothers. This generation is already large enough to extend to and destroy our wildlife reserves. We know with certainty what the next generations will be capable of doing. Even with primitive or no medical services, humans tend to thrive and multiply in these prolific gardens, and their eyes often turn to that luscious mountain.

INADES is making ends meet with limited resources to protect and bring to consciousness the needs of El Chile Biological Reserve and other wildlife refuges. A park ranger post and visitors' lodge are to be built soon. This is designed to keep an eye out for human infiltration, to study pristine nature and to provide a chance for scientists and visitors to learn and help.

The villagers are waiting for tourists, which could diminish the need to expand agriculture. But maybe, just maybe, the mountain will allow you to enter into its domain. You never know if the legends that keep men out are true. And, of course, there are always clouds of hungry mosquitoes with diseases, unexpected fog, poisonous snakes, wild beasts...

For more information, call INADES at 233-4511 or write to Apdo. Postal 4160, Tegucigalpa, Honduras.

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