Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
Environmental Issues
Environmental consciousness is not enormously developed in Guatemala, as the vast
amounts of garbage strewn across the country and the choking clouds of diesel gas pumped
out by its buses and trucks will quickly tell you. Despite the impressive list of parks and
protected areas, genuine protection for those areas is harder to achieve, partly because of
official collusion to ignore the regulations and partly because of pressure from poor
Guatemalans in need of land.
Guatemala's popularity as a tourist destination leads to a few environmental problems -
the question of sewerage and trash disposal around Lago de Atitlán being a major one, and
some inappropriate development in the rainforests of El Petén being another. Infrastructure
development in Guatemala is moving at such a pace, though, that these problems seem
minor compared to some of the other challenges that environmentalists face.
Deforestation is a problem in many areas, especially El Petén, where jungle is being
felled not just for timber but also to make way for cattle ranches, oil pipelines, clandestine
airstrips, new settlements and new maize fields cleared using the slash-and-burn method.
Oil exploration is a concern all over the country - Guatemalans are scrambling to start
drilling in El Petén, as the Mexicans have been doing for years, tapping into a vast subter-
ranean reserve that runs across the border. In his short stint in office, then-president Alf-
onso Portillo proposed drilling for oil in the middle of Lago de Izabal. The plan was
shelved after massive outcry from international and local environmental agencies and some
not too subtle pressure from Guatemala's trading partners. It's a project that's gone but not
forgotten.
Timber, Tourists, and Temples,
edited by Richard Primack and others, brings together experts on the forests of
Guatemala, Mexico and Belize for an in-depth look at the problems of balancing conservation with local
people's aspirations.
Large-scale infrastructure projects are being announced with regularity, often in environ-
mentally sensitive areas. The most controversial of these is the almost complete Northern
Transversal, a strip of highway consolidating existing roads that will stretch from the Mex-
ican border at Gracias a Dios, pass Playa Grande and eventually connect up to Modesto
Méndez, where a new border crossing for Belize is planned. Concerns with the project are
many, as the road passes through sites of archaeological, environmental and cultural signi-
ficance. Local environmental groups fear its construction will facilitate oil exploration in
