A Spain-Honduras debt-to-nature programme managed by the Central American Bank for Economic Integration has formally inaugurated a project to protect Honduras' endangered Emerald Hummingbird.
The project features an environmental services payment component.
It is expected to have a direct social impact on 93,000 inhabitants in nearby municipalities.
1 December 2011: The Governments of Spain and Honduras formally inaugurated a project in Honduras to protect the habitat of the Emerald Hummingbird, a species endemic to the country that is in danger of extinction. The project is supported by a debt-to-nature conversion programme managed by the Central American Bank for Economic Integration (BCIE).
The project, titled “Sustainable Management of Investments and Services for the Control and Mitigation of the Environmental Impact of the San Lorenzo-Olanchito Highway on the Valle del Aguán Very Dry Tropical Forest,” was inaugurated on 1 December 2011. It aims to prevent and/or mitigate the effects that the highway has had on the forest, which is the principal habitat for the endangered Emerald Hummingbird, as well as the effects of other activities in the area, such as pineapple plantations and cattle raising.
The 37.8 million Honduran tempiras (about US$2 million) devoted to the project is part of a BCIE-managed debt-to-nature conversion programme.
The project has implemented an environmental services payment programme for the 19,993-hectare hummingbird refuge, operated through a trust, in which 27 local owners of the land involved in the refuge participate. The BCIE estimates that the project will have a direct social impact on 93,000 inhabitants in the two nearby municipalities of Olanchito and Arenal. [BCIE Press Release (Spanish)]