Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
Elsewhere, smoke and ash from occasional volcanic eruptions can make the atmosphere
somewhathazy,thoughtheworstpollutioncomesfromdry-seasonagriculturalburningand
forestfires.Whenoneconsidersthatmorethanhalfofallenergyconsumptioncomesfrom
burningfirewood,thereasonsbehindthethickhazehangingovermuchofthecountrydur-
ing March and April begin to emerge.
Resource Extraction
Mining activities have made Guatemalan newspaper headlines in recent years, as mining
interests have cast an interested eye upon Guatemalan lands. Although environmental-im-
pact studies are required by law, these often fall prey to government corruption in the form
of payoffs in exchange for a favorable assessment. Threats and intimidation against envir-
onmental groups often attempt to quell any opposition to these projects.
Residents of the Western Highlands town of Sipacapa have demonstrated vehement op-
position to the opening of a strip mine in the vicinity of their town, bringing the case dir-
ectly to the president ofthe World Bank and officials ofthe International Finance Corpora-
tion (IFC), the World Bank's private-sector lending arm. Among the arguments against the
installation of mining activities is the conflict of an open-pit mine with Mayan belief in the
sacredness of the Earth.
Residents of Sipacapa held a referendum overwhelmingly rejecting the presence of a
mineoncommunity lands.Inearly2005,protestsagainstthemine'sestablishment, includ-
ing roadblocks, were broken up by military forces, resulting in 11 people's being injured
and one killed.
More than 550 mining concessions now cover 10 percent of the country. Almost 20 per-
cent of these are for open-pit mining of minerals such as gold, silver, nickel, and copper.
PetroleumextractioncontinuesinthenorthernPeténlowlandsandpartsofAltaVerapaz,
including the Laguna del Tigre National Park, although ecological organizations have long
denounced its negative effects upon the environment. Oil exploration and extraction were
present before the creation of the Maya Biosphere Reserve and have thus been allowed to
continue, mostly in parts of the buffer and multiple-use zones. During the civil war, oil
pipelines became a frequent target for guerrillas sabotaging the activities of multination-
alsinvolvedinresourceextraction.Occupationsofoil-drillingfacilitieswerealsofrequent.
In addition to creating roads through sparsely populated areas, the oil extraction activities
have come under fire because of oil spills in protected lands.
In 2005, the Guatemalan government opened new concessions in an area along the
Petén-Alta Verapaz border said to harbor an estimated 200 million barrels of oil. Guatem-
ala'stotalestimatedreservesamounttoabout2billionbarrels.Guatemalanoil'shighsulfur
content prevents it from being used in the production of diesel or gasoline, relegating it to
use in the production of asphalt.
