Alternative Approaches and Problems in Protected Area Management and Forest Conservation in Honduras

Honduras, with a forested area of between 4.5 and 5 million ha (40–45 per cent of the total land area), is probably the Central American country with most forest left. Just over half is estimated to be broadleaf, and the rest coniferous. As in other countries in the region, deforestation has been very rapid over the last 30 years; Utting (1993) estimates that Honduras lost about 25 per cent of its forests between 1964 and 1986; while USAID (in Schreuder, 1992) puts the loss at a third between 1964 and 1990. Deforestation of broadleaf forest was in a range of 65 000 ha to 80 000 ha (3–4 per cent p.a.) — at this rate all the broadleaf forest would disappear within 20 years. This reflects a government policy of frontier expansion, as shown by agrarian reform, credit, road construction and tenure policies (Brockett, 1990). Treating the more remote areas as an-escape valve for the landless has evaded the politically difficult process of redistributive land reform. Structural adjustment and recent neo-liberal economic reforms have if anything deepened this trend.