PBI-Honduras accompanies CEHPRODEC at environmental defence meeting

On September 11, the Peace Brigades International-Honduras Project posted, “In August, PBI-Honduras accompanied CEHPRODEC to a meeting with community leaders in the city of Juticalpa, Olancho.”

It adds, “The representatives of several communities in the area expressed interest in defending the environment in one of the most concessioned departments in the country.”

The Office of the High Commissioner on Human Rights (OHCHR) Working Group on Business and Human Rights visited Honduras in August.

With respect to the environment, it reported:

“We heard repeatedly about the lack of transparency and hence lack of confidence of the current system to prevent and mitigate adverse human rights and environmental impacts.  For several years, the State has privileged more flexible regulation governing extractive and energy sectors in order to facilitate licensing and concessions procedures. It is urgent to ensure a regulatory framework firmly grounded in international human rights law and standards, including the UNGPs [UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights].”

PBI-Honduras has explained that CEHPRODEC (the Honduran Centre for the Promotion of Community Development) is focused on “the defence of human rights, in particular on economic, social, cultural and environmental rights.”

On August 30, PBI-Honduras posted, “Yesterday we accompanied CEHPRODEC to an annual march in which hundreds of people from the communities protested against the extractivism that, they say, threaten the territories and natural resources.”

In early August, PBI-Honduras observed with CEHPRODEC a census in the community of Namasigüe in the department of Choluteca intended to support a more open consultation on future mining and solar project concessions in the area.

In March, PBI-Honduras accompanied alongside CEHPRODEC and C-Libre (the Committee for Freedom of Expression) the trial of 13 water defenders from Guapinol opposed to a mine on their territory that has polluted the river.

And in May, PBI-Honduras accompanied CEHPRODEC to San Estebán, a municipality 285 kilometres north-east of Tegucigalpa, for an “assembly on the care of the environment, natural resources and mining” that discussed the impacts of mining on human rights.

PBI-Honduras has accompanied CEHPRODEC since May 2014.