PBI-Honduras observes court hearing of three accused Los Pinares/Ecotek defendants

Published by Brent Patterson on March 12, 2025March 12, 2025

PBI-Honduras has posted on social media:

“Yesterday [March 11], we observed the initial hearing against three defendants from the company Inversiones Los Pinares/Ecotek accused of #environmental damages to the Montaña de Botaderos Carlos Escaleras National Park. The Municipal Committee in Defense of Common and Public Goods demands #justice and highlights the alleged existence of a criminal structure that would be behind the installation of the company in the national park and the murder of community leaders, such as #defender Juan López.”

The Los Pinares megaproject

The Pinares-Ecotek megaproject has seven components including: the ASP and ASP2 concessions to dig for iron oxide, a thermoelectric plant that would burn petroleum coke (pet coke) to power the operations, an iron oxide pelletizing plant that could produce 800,000 tons of iron oxide pellets in its first year of operation, generating US$190 million in foreign exchange, and the Guapinol River and Ceibita stream concessions that would extract one hundred gallons of water per minute for the pelletizing plant.

Accompaniment

PBI-Canada coordinator Brent Patterson visited Tocoa and Guapinol, Honduras on October 29-30, 2024, to learn more about this case.

A poster of Juan Lopez in Tocoa, the city where he was killed.

The entrance to the village of Guapinol.

The Peace Brigades International-Honduras Project has accompanied the Municipal Committee for the Defence of Common and Public Goods of Tocoa (CMDBCPT) processes and Guapinol River defenders since January 2019.