On an island with its most valuable resources underwater, a motor boat is a necessity for ensuring compliance with environmental laws. But the agency responsible for compliance has no boat or funds for gasoline because of non-payment of fees. (Photo by Wendy Griffin.)

By WENDY GRIFFIN

The key to high quality tourist development on the Bay Island of Guanaja is protection of the natural environment that people come to see. The principal areas of concern, according to Guanaja's Mayor Sherral Haylock, are garbage, sewage and fishing.

When Hollywood star Christopher Lambert, one of the investors in the Iguana Bay resort project, came to Guanaja, he told the mayor that he was most concerned about garbage. The mayor also identified this as a number one priority.

Parts of Savannah Bight are below sea level. There are tons of garbage on the wetlands, attracting flies and animal pests like rats. People who live there keep their windows shut because of the smell. It is also a likely breeding ground for dengue and malaria-transmitting mosquitoes. The mayor says she fears Guanaja could become famous as a capital of cholera rather than tourism.

During Hurricane Mitch, a seawall broke and the ocean carried the garbage to other sites around the island, which distressed snorklers. The residents of Savannah Bight say the problem is caused because municipal workers dump the garbage in town instead of at a safer site already identified out of town.

What the mayor would like to do is buy two incinerators -- one for the Savannah Bight area and another by the canal for the keys. The cost for both is only Lps. 270,000. Although the Environmental Management Project of the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) is supposed to help the municipality with its solid waste management, it has not. "The Environmental Management Project has nothing for Utila and nothing for Guanaja," said Mayor Haylock.

Mack Bacca, a promoter for the Bay Islands Conservation Association, said it is difficult to get any funding for Bay Islands environmental projects because other funders say, "But it says in the IDB proposal that they are doing that." The mayor's best hope to buy the incinerators is using some money designated for dredging the canal.

The she would like to close the old dumps, put sea sand on top of them, and hope that pine seeds placed in the sand will sprout. The U.S. Geological Service was out on Guanaja looking at mangroves, but they did not offer the municipality assistance with the problem of an empirically designed wetland landfill. "Their help would be very beneficial," said the mayor.

Originally, all three Bay Islands were to receive sewage treatment plants under the IDB program. Now, the IDB program will only conduct the study for the sewage system on the keys and the mayor has been told that U.S. Agency for International Development will hopefully help with the sewage system later. The environmental impact study already done for Savannah Bight's plant is no longer valid, because it was conducted before the damage caused by Hurricane Mitch.

In the IDB proposal, it is noted that in the Bay Islands there is a limited capacity for enforcing laws, imposing penalties and exercising supervision on environmental issues. The responsibility for this supervision is divided between the municipality, the Honduran Forestry Development Corporation (COHDEFOR), the General Department of Fishing and Aquaculture (DIGEPESCA), and BICA-Guanaja, the local environmental NGO. In other parts of Honduras, this plethora of agencies has led to conflicts over who can enforce and make policy in protected areas.

All sectors agree that both commercial and artisanal fishing are having an impact on the environment. Honduras has established a veda or closed season from March 15 to August 1 to help lobsters, conch, and other species reproduce safely. This veda is routinely violated, which is part of the reason fishing yields have decreased by more than 50 percent since 1974.

"People say they are going to Jamaica, Colombia or Bahamas, but they don't," said Mayor Haylock. They go to the lobster banks in the off season. They have a permit for conch and they come back with 5,000 lobsters. The Honduran Coast Guard does not patrol fishing waters and so Jamaican, Nicaraguan and Colombian boats fish there in the off season."

A fisherman from Mangrove Bight said, "Oh, we get a line and reels and fish. We spear fish. We fish for lobster and conch. We know it is illegal, but no one is enforcing it."

Guanaja authorities are in the process of establishing a Guanaja Marine Park. The IDB project is responsible for preparing the environmental impact statement. In Savannah Bight, IDB employee Sheila Henry headed a meeting to discuss fishing in these limits with local fishermen. Henry, a representative of the Native Bay Islands Professional and Laborer Association (NABIPLA) in Guanaja, is an example of the cooperation between the NGO and IDB that began at the end of January, says former NABIPLA President Unwin Ebanks.

The overfishing is affecting the quality of diving on the reef. "We used to have a wonderful reef with fish and critters. At one dive site you might see one turtle, four yellow tail snapper, grouper, several moray eels. Now, you only see coral," said a local divemaster.

The decline in the quality of diving affects the ability to police the island. BICA has no boat to supervise violators. The Guanaja Hotel Association was given the responsibility of collecting and managing a $10 per foreign tourist environmental impact fee to protect the reef. Since the tourists complained they were tired when they get to the airport, it was agreed the hotels would collect the fee and turn it in.

Over four years they collected $15,000 and with the money installed reef relief buoys at 31 dive spots around the island. However, since Mitch hotels have not collected the fee. "We know it is the law, but the tourists complain when they say that they paid this fee and then saw people killing lobsters right on the reef in the closed season," said one hotel manager.

In the United States, management is paid by a combination of government subsidies from taxes and user fees -- hunting and fishing permits, entrance fees, logging permits, camping fees, and payments by concession owners like restaurants and gift shops.

In Honduras, environmental NGOs that manage parks rely heavily on international funding. BICA-Guanaja promoters have tried to get the use of the Environmental Management Project boat to police the reef, "but instead of lending it to us, the person in charge of the boat is using it to hunt eels, which he sells in Savannah Bight."

Julius Rensch, a former president of the Guanaja Hotel Association, said "we have the solution right here. Both fishing and tourism generate dollar incomes."

But the question of how to get private companies to pay for public damage continues to challenge Honduras' environmental organization. It is more common to use public debt, such as the $24 million IDB loan, to pay for repairing damage or even just studying it, while private companies privatize the profit.