From grbarry@students.wisc.edu Tue Jun 27 20:08:43 2000
Date: Mon, 19 Jun 2000 23:49:59 -0500
From: Glen R. Barry
Subject: BIOD: Mexico's Lacandon Forest on Brink of Extinction
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WORLDWIDE FOREST/BIODIVERSITY CAMPAIGN NEWS
Mexico's Lacandon Forest on Brink of Extinction
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Forest Networking a Project of Forests.org, Inc.
http://forests.org/ -- Forest Conservation Archives
http://forests.org/web/ -- Discuss Forest Conservation
06/19/00
OVERVIEW & COMMENTARY
So many of the Earth's special places, the ecological heritage of the
Planet, have been and are being destroyed in an orgy of consumption
by a few generations of human beings. The real culprits are in the
over-developed World, you and me, not settlers striving to eke out a
living. Only one-third of the tremendous Mexican Lacandon forest,
home to the ancient Mayans, remains; and the rest is likely to be
gone by 2015. Rainforest destruction is a global crisis that
warrants emergency responses and a reallocation of World financial
resources to address. The consequences of rainforest loss will be
felt for the rest of human history.
g.b.
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Title: FEATURE - Mexico's Mayan paradise on brink of extinction
Source: c 2000 Reuters Limited. All rights reserved.
Date: June 16, 2000
By: Monica Ballesca
MEXICO: LACANJA - Its ancient residents, the Mayans, could have never
imagined it, but the verdant paradise of Mexico's Lacandon forest is
on the verge of extinction.
As little as one-third of this pre-Columbian Eden - home to bubbling
springs, monkeys, jaguars and towering trees supposedly imbued with
spiritual powers - is still intact.
After decades of crop burning, forest fires, insufficient
environmental protection and a recent invasion by displaced indigenous
people, the prognosis for this natural wonder in southern Chiapas
state is alarming: 15 years of life.
"In the last 14 years the forest area has diminished by 41 percent,"
said Alejandro Lopez Portillo, head of a government programme that
administers resources in the Montes Azules Reserve in the heart of the
jungle. "That's equivalent to 33,500 hectares (82,745 acres) per year
in the Lacandon jungle."
The Lacandon region comprises some 1.9 million hectares, of which two-
thirds is now pastureland or cultivated for crops.
"Given this tendency, in 2015 the trees and jungle could disappear,"
Lopez said, eyeing one of the gaping holes in the dense forest from
the windows of a helicopter.
During an aerial tour of the region, Martin Gonzalez of the Federal
Prosecutor's environmental protection wing Profepa said deforestation
has been a problem for decades but has accelerated in the last few
years. In 1998 alone, an abnormally strong season of forest fires
destroyed some 25,000 hectares.
MONTES AZULES, HEART OF LACANDON
The government in 1978 declared about 600,000 hectares a "protected
zone," giving the land to the Lacandon indigenous group, considered to
be the purest descendants of the Mayas.
The heart of the protected area is known as Montes Azules (Blue
Woodlands) and is an ancient region of virgin forest. Even its abrupt
ravines and inaccessible areas have not saved it from settlement by
other indigenous groups.
Montes Azules is home to 26 communities - 700 families with an average
of seven members each - who invaded the forest illegally, a government
report says. Many were fleeing violence between pro-government
paramilitary groups and the armed rebel group Zapatista National
Liberation Front (EZLN), which declared war against the government in
1994 to demand improved rights for the Mayan Indians. Others came to
escape poverty.
Profepa estimates that the groups have devastated some 600 hectares
(1,500 acres) within Montes Azules.
"What worries us most is that the invasions are not being halted; on
the contrary, in the last year they've increased," Lopez said as smoke
rising from agricultural fires obscured the helicopter view of the
area.
Montes Azules, with just 0.16 percent of Mexico's land, shelters 28
percent of its mammal species, 32 percent of its bird species, 14.4
percent of fish and 12 percent of reptiles.
Jose, one of the hundreds of Indians who have moved into the jungle,
said the land in the village where he was born is no longer suitable
for cultivation. So he and a friend decided to tap new land at the
border of the Yanqui lagoon.
Jose and his friend Pedro, with their wives and seven children each,
formed the settlement of El Semental about two hours by foot from the
interior of Montes Azules.
After a tough negotiation to convince him the indigenous guides would
not harm him, Jose - with machete in hand, his head covered with a
hood - agreed to an interview by Reuters.
'THEY WILL ONLY REMOVE US DEAD'
"This evil government wants to remove us ... but they will only remove
us dead! No way are we going to leave. The land belongs to those who
work it," an agitated Jose said, paraphrasing famed revolutionary
Emiliano Zapata who fought for social equality at the beginning of the
1900s.
Fearful of the military and police who he says harass his people
ceaselessly, Jose said in halting Spanish that the jungle offers his
community all it needs.
"Here we have pineapple, papaya, beans, corn, coffee and even lemons
to flavor the water we give our children," he said, displaying his
crops proudly. He conceded they lack medications but added, "If you go
to the public hospitals, the government gives you the same pill
regardless of the pain."
Jose and Pedro, admitting they are Zapatista sympathisers, denied that
they are robbing the forest of its trees. "We know how to work the
earth, our grandparents taught us. Yes, we set fires but (other
Zapatistas) come and control them," Jose said, offering a journalist
fresh fruit from his homestead.
"We're not evil, we just want land for our children."
The Lacandon jungle is the stronghold of commanders and soldiers of
the EZLN army, which broke off peace talks in 1996, claiming the
government had failed to observe part of an accord on Indian rights.
The indigenous migration in impoverished Chiapas state has stemmed
largely from their repression by anti-Zapatista paramilitary groups.
Faced with growing migration to the natural reserve, the federal and
state governments last year launched a plan to relocate the
settlements in Lacandon territory.
Lopez said the government helps indigenous people who agree to
relocate from the jungle, including up to 12 acres (5 hectares) of
land per family, a prefabricated house and technical help on crop
cultivation.
So far, just seven of the 26 new settlements in Montes Azules have
agreed to the package; four have started to leave. But for Jose and
Pedro the offer holds little attraction.
"The worthless houses they give you collapse when it rains and the
land provided isn't suitable for planting and isn't enough," Jose
said, noting he had to pass his land on to seven children.
"Here, meanwhile, we have everything we want."
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