By MARIA FIALLOS and JORGE FLORES

TEGUCIGALPA -- The Assembly of Indigenous, Black and Ladino natives of La Mosquitia region this week issued an official declaration criticizing AFE-COHDEFOR, the government institution in charge of protecting and managing the forests, AFE-COHDEFOR.

The statement rejects the discriminating way in which technicians from the Rio Platano Biosphere Reserve and COHDEFOR have excluded these native groups in the design, creation and implementation of the Management Plan for the Biosphere in La Mosquitia which, according to international treaties, has to take the participation of indigenous groups into account.

The aftermath of logging: this clearing near the Wampu River was once covered by hardwood trees.

At the same time, the release condemns the illegal and indiscriminate exploitation of precious hardwoods from protected areas and demands that President Carlos Flores order an independent investigation that includes native observers. It also asks for the removal of COHDEFOR Manager Antonio Ortez Turcios, Regional Director Monico Gonzalez and Rio Platano Biosphere Reserve Director Gloria Zelaya, accusing them of being accomplices of the Atlantic Wood Cartel.

According to Tawahka leader Edgardo Benitez and other base group representatives, illegal trafficking of wood by the government through COHDEFOR is common knowledge in all of the Mosquitia and the rest of the country.

Thousands of board feet of mahogany await shipment downstream.

During a recent tour of the Mosquitia, inhabitants claim that COHDEFOR Director Ortez Turcios publicly admitted major problems with illegal logging in the area. However, according to Benitez, in a meeting held last week with NGOs and environmental groups in Tegucigalpa, Turcios threatened to prosecute for libel anyone who accused COHDEFOR of corruption, saying that all logging was legal.

According to Turcios, wood that is currently being removed from the Biosphere is merely dead trees resulting from Hurricane Mitch. This forced the ethnic groups to form a front, the Environmental Movement MISKUT, which is now calling the bluff and demanding a comprehensive investigation in the region. According to the group, everyone from the director to the lowliest forest guard who earn Lps. 1,000 a month is involved in the wood contraband, and there is ample proof for anyone in the field.

Sources inside COHDEFOR estimate that for every cubic meter of wood that is logged legally in Honduras, six more are illegally taken. The problem lies deep within the state institution where real audits are impossible. All this is based on several legal premises that include: COHDEFOR's invulnerability and the fact that government lands within the Biosphere that should belong to Mosquitia ethnic groups were given to COHDEFOR by the National Agrarian Institute (INA). This leaves communal lands in the hands of the state and the natives without land titles and without legal weapons which, according to them, are their birthright and internationally subscribed.

Another part of the institutionalized scam is the creation of phantom agricultural cooperatives. These reportedly benefit all of their members, which can number in the hundreds. In reality, two or three of the members employ the others at a pittance to cut wood for them.

The signatories of the declaration say they are more than willing to cooperate with any independent investigations. They openly admit to being fed up with state corruption and indifference, and have called upon the international community, including organizations like Greenpeace, to help them with this cause which is of global concern.

There are more than 35,000 native inhabitants in the region and according to the MISKUT Environmental Movement, they will defend their historic right to conserve the Mosquitia. For more information, contact <cidca@sdnhon.org.hn>.