We, the representatives of local communities and organizations of Miskito, Tawahka, Native Ladino, Garifuna and Pech people of La Mosquitia, together with municipal governments, churches, national environmental and sustainable development organizations, following a meeting in the town of Ahuas, in the Department of Gracias a Dios, Honduras, and pursuant to analysis of the plans and procedures related to the proposed construction of the Patuca II hydroelectric dam, declare the following:

CONSIDERING: That the Panda Patuca Power Company and governmental authorities are promoting the development of the Patuca II hydroelectric at an accelerated pace, without the required procedural transparency and without having appropriately consulted with the people potentially affected, either directly and indirectly;

CONSIDERING: That the environmental consultants WCI-Bioconsult are contracted and paid to conduct the Environmental Impact Assessment study by the very company that wishes to develop the project, leading to potential conflict of interests;

CONSIDERING: That governmental authorities and representatives of the Panda Patuca Power Company and WCI-Bioconsult, are publicly pronouncing construction of Patuca II as an established fact, without having completed the legally required actions necessary to authorize the project;

CONSIDERING: That imminent plans to open a new access road to the proposed dam site, in order to initiate geotechnical drilling, will give rise to accelerated colonization of the area, and would effectively initiate the project;

CONSIDERING: That, to date, steps of the process taken to bring this project forward have violated international treaties and national laws such as Article 346 of the Constitution and Articles 4.1, 7.1, 7.3, 7.4, 13.1, 14.2, 15.1, and 15.2 of International Work Organization’s Agreement No 169 about Indigenous and Tribal Peoples and the Presidential Resolution 1118-92;

CONSIDERING: That the Constitution of the Republic of Honduras obligates the State to protect and conserve indigenous peoples and their cultures;

CONSIDERING: That the indigenous peoples of the region have a way of life closely bound to the environment and natural resources;

CONSIDERING: That similar hydroelectric projects elsewhere, without exception, have had drastic negative effects on the environment, territory, habitat and culture of indigenous peoples;

CONSIDERING: That the Patuca II hydroelectric project would negatively affect the Mesoamerican Biological Corridor, including the Patuca National Park, the Tawahka Asangni Biosphere Reserve and the Rio Platano Biosphere Reserve and the communities therein, that for their natural archeological, cultural and scientific richness form part of the world’s heritage;

CONSIDERING: That the Mesoamerican Biological Corridor--of which the Honduran Mosquitia forms a significant part--represents the largest continuous tract of forest in Central America, and that the government of Honduras has entered into international agreements for its protection, would be divided in two should the dam be constructed;

CONSIDERING: That the World Bank is being mentioned as a source of financing for the Patuca II project as well as for the protection of the Mesoamerican Biological Corridor, and as such constitutes an internal contradiction of the policies of this institution;

CONSIDERING: That the construction of hydroelectric dams elsewhere in pristine tropical forests, their associated road construction and the arrival of large numbers of construction workers have given rise to intercultural conflicts, the social disintegration of local indigenous communities, and the colonization of the forests by agricultural, ranching and forestry interests. These actions have resulted in the cultural and physical destruction of indigenous peoples, their ancestral territory and biodiversity;

CONSIDERING: That there exist energy conservation and generation possibilities that have already been explored by ENEE and private developers to provide alternatives to meet the national electrical demand yet these were not objectively taken into account in a transparent process for finding sound solutions;

CONSIDERING: That the majority of the energy that would be produced by the Patuca II project would not be destined to meet national demand but rather would be exported to regional markets, with the sole objective of creating profits for multinational companies;

CONSIDERING: That the Patuca II project does not represent an alternative to the national energy crisis that the country faces in the next few years;

CONSIDERING: That the Patuca II project does not represent a long term solution to the national energy situation while its negative consequences on the affected communities would be permanent and irreversible;

CONSIDERING: That the protection of cultural and natural resources represent a vital national interest;

CONSIDERING: That we live in a country governed by laws.

THEREFORE: We declare before the national and international community:

We endorse the Catacamas Declaration issued on the 15th of May 1998;

We demand that the Panda Patuca Power Company and the governmental authorities act with transparency and respect to the Constitution of the Republic of Honduras, national laws, and Agreement 169 on Indigenous and Tribal Peoples of the International Labour Organization (ILO);

We demand an independent, objective, and ample Environmental Impact Assessment that includes the effective participation of our communities in its design, execution and evaluation stages, considering not only the first but also the second phase of the Patuca II project, the data collection phase of which should cover at least a year in order to generate reliable information;

We declare that the affected communities are not willing to be the subject of a false participatory processes, as mere window dressings, as the Panda Patuca Power Company and WCI-Bioconsult pretend;

We call upon the World Bank to investigate and resolve the contradictions it might incur by financing the Patuca II project;

We call upon the organizations of the Honduran society and of the international community to join us in the defense of the laws of the state, indigenous peoples and of natural resources that are considered part of the world’s heritage and threatened by the intentions to develop the Patuca II dam.

We dedicate this Ahuas Declaration to the memory of our friend Carlos Antonio Luna, a community leader, environmentalist and Catacamas councilman, who was brutally assassinated May 18th, 1998 for having confronted illegal timber harvests and working to halt the colonization and destruction of La Mosquitia. In name of the state of law, we demand that the responsible authorities carry out a serious investigation in order to punish the factual and intellectual perpetrators of this crime according to the law.

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             We, the representatives of the different guilds, parent-teacher, ecological and other community organizations and associations and religious groups together in a general assembly analyzing the importance of the Mesoamerican Biological Corridor, this 28th of August 19988, in the Community Development Center, CEDECO, based in the community of Delicias of Cuyamel, pursuant to analysis of the plans and procedures related to the proposed construction of the Patuca II hydroelectric dam in our Biological Corridor proclaim to the Honduran people and Government authorities, the following:

CONSIDERING: That the construction of the Hydroelectric Project PATUCA II would affect us, the inhabitants of the area, in those matters which concern our moral, spiritual, cultural and economic bases in the region.

CONSIDERING: That our participation as Honduran citizens and inhabitants of the area has not been taken into consideration even though we will be the ones to receive the direct impact of this project.

CONSIDERING: That the government has not issued any information about the project in direct violation of every citizen’s rights and international treaties concerning the conservation of protected areas.

CONSIDERING: That a survey conducted by interested parties in building this project lacks veracity due to the fact that their representatives only presented positive impacts of the project.

CONSIDERING: That the PATUCA II project constitutes a threat for the Mesoamerican Biological Corridor as a wildlife refuge and home to different ethnic groups.

CONSIDERING: It is each Honduran’s duty to protect national monuments, reserves and national parks within the Mesoamerican Biological Corridor that form part of the world’s heritage in three main areas: the Patuca National Park, the Tawahka Asangni Biosphere Reserve and the Rio Platano Biosphere Reserve.

CONSIDERING: That we inhabit the area of influence within the natural reserves of the Mesoamerican Biological Corridor, an area defended by our friend CARLOS ANTONIO LUNA LÓPEZ, without anyone responsible for his murder as yet to be apprehended and punished.

THEREFORE WE AGREE:

1.- To form a multi-institutional coalition wherein our objective will be to protect this natural reserve and pronounce ourselves against the construction of the Patuca II Hydroelectric Project that is totally noxious to national ecology.

2.- That we have not be included in the participatory processes concerning the construction of this project that negatively affects the human population as well as the environment.

3.- That the results of the survey conducted by parties interested in constructing the Patuca II Hydroelectric Project will be biased in their favor due to the fact that surveyors only exalted positive impacts of the project while conducting said survey, neglecting to mention the negative.

4.- That the execution of Patuca II will only damage native culture and socioeconomic development.

5.- In the case that the environmental study conducted produces negative results inasmuch as national interests as stated in national laws protecting natural reserves and world heritage site are concerned, declare ourselves against these results.

6.- Demand that Honduran judiciary authorities resolve the murder of CARLOS ANTONIO LUNA LÓPEZ thus lending the Honduran judicial system credibility

7.- Petition national authorities to unite with the real interests of Honduran citizens and not with a select group of individuals.

8.- Petition the government to conduct a careful analysis of other areas where electricity can be generated without affecting the local population.

Declared on this twenty-eighth day of August in the year nineteen hundred and ninety two, in Delicias of Cuyamel, in the Municipality of Catacamas, in the Department of Olancho.

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