Environmental Human Rights: News & Updates

The Maya Q’eqchi’ community of Agua Caliente is nestled in the mountains surrounding Guatemala’s Lake Izabal, in the sacred Valle del Polochic. Located in the municipality of El Estor, Izabal, Agua Caliente is also known for its abundant deposits of nickel. These riches have for decades made El Estor a target of looting by multinational corporations seeking to exploit and profit from the land and resources. This case against a particular Fénix nickel marks the first time the Guatemalan state has faced judgement in an international court for violating the ancestral land rights of Indigenous communities. The court’s ruling could force the Guatemalan government to finally recognize the Q’eqchi’ people’s collective rights to their ancestral lands and their right to protect their natural resources from exploitative megaprojects—including the destructive open-pit Fénix nickel mine that stands on the banks of Lake Izabal.

For 8 years, residents of Azacualpa, Honduras, have been fighting the illegal destruction of their 200-year-old Maya-Chorti cemetery by the mining company MINOSA. Now, the cemetery has been destroyed completely, violating a sentence made previously by the supreme court to stop all exhumations and destruction of the cemetery.

2022 started in Honduras with everything in place for a new start. Xiomara Castro won the election with a clear mandate for change and even in Congress, the opposition alliance together with some Liberal Party dissidents could have reached a simple majority. But this in not the story of this month. Last month, several human rights defenders were murdered, the Guapinol water defenders are still in detention, the Congress is splitting in two and on top of everything, the Omicron-wave is hitting Honduras and its public health system. Read Daniel Langmeier's full report on January 2022 in Honduras.

The Guapinol Water Defenders are a group of community members local to the Guapinol and San Pedro Rivers, who protested against the US-backed mining company "Inversiones Los Pinares" and their illegal and environmentally harmful operations in the protected area of the Carlos Escaleras National Park in September of 2018. They have since been accused by the company on false claims and unjustly imprisoned for over two years, waiting for the trial to start as the Honduran state has ignored international calls for their release. Now, finally, after several postponements, their trial is getting close to the end. Here is a summary of what the trial has looked like so far and the most important events from each day.

Read the description of James Phillips' new book, called "Extracting Honduras", on the "colonial extractive relationship of Honduras to the United States", and the link to order it. The author provides a detailed account of how the frenzied extraction of natural resources at the core of both the Honduran political economy and its colonial relationship to the United States created massive community displacement, dependency, poverty and vulnerability, and encouraged, over time, growing official corruption and violence, gang recruitment, drug trafficking, militarization of Honduran society, and the systematic repression of all popular protest and resistance.  These were the proximate conditions that now encourage people to flee the country, a decision that is often a matter of survival for the human spirit as well as the body

U.S. military training bestows prestige and power on its recipients when they return to their home militaries. After graduating from West Point Military Academy, Roberto David Castillo became an officer in the Honduran military and used his military and government positions to directly benefit his corporate pursuits. When Castillo and the criminal structure he was a part of could not silence environmental activist Berta Cáceres through intimidation, criminal charges, or bribery, he used his military skills to coordinate her murder. The issue is not only what is being taught to the graduates of West Point, but the fact that a prestigious U.S. military education bestows significant power and prestige on elites from Central America and other countries, without any accountability for what they use that power and prestige to do.

More than a month after being forcibly and unlawfully evicted, campesino landowners in the Bajo Aguán region of Honduras regained possession of their lands. This is only the latest in repeated attacks on rightfully held land at the hands of corrupt judicial authorities working in the interests of large agribusiness and mining companies. That the campesino landowners will now be able to return home, is a huge victory. The recent election of Xiomara Castro has given many of our partners and Honduran society reason for hope as a step towards accountability and real democratic change for the first time in the years since the 2009 coup. However, President Castro is already facing significant challenges and political conflict within her own party.

A new study shows the impact the warmer climate will have on cultivating coffee, avocados and cashews, and on the farmers doing so. Of the three crops, coffee will be hit hardest by warming: The study model foresees an overall decline by 2050 in the number of regions where it could grow. For cashews and avocados, results were more complicated. Certain growing regions would experience declines in those crops while others, such as the southern United States, would likely find more land better suited to tropical food crops like cashews and avocados. By predicting decades in advance how agriculture will change, scientists can help farmers know what to expect, and can advise policy makers on how to encourage farmers to use more efficient growing methods like cover crops to prevent erosion or planting new crops when needed.