Rigoberto Sandoval Corea: We aspire to a Forestry Law with a vision for Honduras

Rigoberto Sandoval Corea:
We aspire to a Forestry Law with a vision for Honduras

Honduras demands the immediate approval of a new Forestry Law with a vision for the country, a law that will be instrumental in the development of Honduras, states Rigoberto Sandoval Corea, the former director of the Honduran Department of Forestry Development (COHDEFOR).

Sandoval Corea is one of the most knowledgeable professionals in Honduras in this area. During his post in the Liberal administration of Carlos Roberto Reina (1994-1998), he operated COHDEFOR as an ethical institution, in the process earning the enmity of groups who had been accustomed to taking advantage of forestry resources without any controls.

Sandoval Corea is now the principle advisor to the Honduran Agroforestry Alliance (AHA), the first grouping of Honduran civil society interested in the approval of a Forestry Law that responds fully to the interests of the country.

In his interview with REVISTAZO.COM, Sandoval Corea explained why the Forestry Law is of vital importance to the life of the nation. He believes that Honduras has committed the historic error of seeing itself as an agricultural country instead of a forested country, and that misperception has favored the destruction of natural resources.

87.7% of Honduran territory is forested and only 12% is arable. Despite that, the national legislative infrastructure has been oriented to policies for agriculture and ranching instead of forestry management. 137 legal instruments now regulate agricultural and forestry practices, but many of these laws contradict one another.

Sandoval Corea says the current legal framework is very good, but only if it is managed by honest persons, professionals who stay apart from politics. With the prevailing institutional framework, he insists, it would be possible to do many things, but the first the institution must be cleaned of corruption and politicization, to make it a space for technicians and not for politicians.
The ideal would be to approve an environmental agroforestry law, says Sandoval Corea, but for now he is asking only for the approval of a Forestry Law that includes Protected Areas and Wildlife, which would be a great achievement in itself.

Politics is an obstacle
He acknowledges that in the process of coordinating and approving the new law, political interests have arisen to block the process.

"The politicization of the institution that manages the forestry sector (COHDEFOR), the interjection of political parties in the National Congress and the politicization of forestry resources" have been obstacles to the process, he says. He adds that it is not publicly well known that "the resources of the forests are used to pay and buy political favors and that brings corruption, a scourge that has had great impact and must be cleaned."

The politicization of the forests has permitted a very few social sectors to benefit from the resources in an indiscriminate manner. These same sectors now want to ignore the good use and management of the forest, though it could represent a principle source of income for the future of the country from both tradition and non-traditional products of the forest, Sandoval Corea indicated.

He said that the renewable resources of the forest are a treasure we have in Honduras and with good management we could become the forest basket of Central American, not the granary many sectors try to make us into.

AHA's Proposal
Sandoval Corea says of the proposal AHA submitted to the Congressional committee that he is hoping for the creation "of a law for the small farmers, for the indigenous, for the lumber companies, for Hondurans. The law will not carry any one group's stamp in particular."
"It is a law with a vision for the country, not a law to determine groups or interests," he says. The proposal seeks a Social Forestry System that should be considered a tool to incorporate the small farmer, the community, the management and integrated use of the forest.
He said that the most relevant points of the proposed law put together by civil society are:

· CATEGORY OF THE SECTOR: Elevate the category of the forestry sector (now it is a subset of the agricultural sector).
· INSTITUIONALIZATION: Provide the institution that manages the forests with autonomy, independence and its own budget. Require the director to be responsible directly to the President. Suggest, therefore, the transformation and strengthening of COHDEFOR.
· BUDGET: Approve a separate budget for COHDEFOR
· SELF-FINANCING: Create a Forestry Reinvestment Fund, a Municipal Forestry Management Fund and a Protected Areas Fund with the purpose of generating institutional self-financing. The State should allocate a minimum of 10 million lempiras (about $625,000) to capitalize the funds, which would then renew themselves. The funds would be managed by committees comprised of governmental and non-governmental sectors to guaranteed transparency.
· MANAGEMENT PLANS: Establish a Forestry Management Plan as the principle instrument for managing the forest. The Management Plan is a legal technical instrument that contains the norms and criteria for managing the forest and that specifies the necessary tasks to ensure the sustainability of the forest.

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