The Environmental Crisis

Honduras is a country on the breaking point of an ecological disaster. Natural resources have been exhausted to a point where notable and sometimes irreversible changes are beginning to take place. One example is at the Lago de Yajoa, Honduras ’s largest freshwater source. The lake is visibly losing its water level.

The coastline has receded over 300 meters just in the last 30 years and continues to drop rapidly. Another example is in the departments of Valle and Choluteca in the south of Honduras . Due to unconscionable logging practices, these lands have become dry and desolate. Very few things can now grow in these soils because desertification is starting to take hold.

Unfortunately, these are not two isolated examples. All over Honduras one can see signs of environmental problems: depleting natural resources, falling water levels, and poorer soils for agriculture. These factors are worsening Honduras ’s economic situation and lowering an already poor quality of life for its inhabitants. Most people in rural areas are left struggling to survive.

The goal of is to make reforestation both practical and sustainable. That means to demonstrate the usefulness of trees and show the value that trees possess and make the argument compelling enough for people to want to plant them.

Schools throughout northern Honduras have joined our program	Girls at a school in San Pedru Sula

In a country like Honduras , the people who damage the environment most are the people who know the least about it. In the rural communities, most people live for survival. They cut down trees for firewood and construction and make the already receding forests even scarcer. They don’t realize the impact that they are having on their communities and on their eco-systems.

COMIXMUL is a great opportunity to work with this sector of the population. Seventy percent of the COMIXMUL associates are from the rural countryside (including various indigenous groups) and 90% of the COMIXMUL associates stand to make a profit off incorporating trees in their projects. The following objectives are to help meet the goal of reforestation and the COMIXMUL cooperative’s goal of empowerment of and training to its associates.