TWP partner COEAS fights 6th Forest Fire in Six Weeks
From young to old, members of the Ecological Committee of the Aldea de Suyapa (COEAS) will rise at any hour to protect their land from those who seek to plunder it.
Every fire season is an existential crisis for our friends in the Aldea de Suyapa, Honduras. Since 1987, a volunteer group of community members have organized to protect their centuries-old communal forest from firewood poachers, land grabbers, and the expanding agricultural frontier.
Their pleas are simple - if this forest goes away, so does our principal source of water. Today, with the capital city’s reservoirs at 30% of capacity, and with the 6th major fire in six weeks burning hundreds of acres, their cause is starting to get people’s attention.
None of these fires start from natural causes. Almost all who work to fight them are volunteers. From young to old, members of the Ecological Committee of the Aldea de Suyapa (COEAS) will rise at any hour to protect their land from those who seek to plunder it.
We at @TWP are proud to support this front-line struggle and provide resources to those who fight it. Your donations pay for the simple fire fighting equipment and tools seen in these photos. They pay for a drastically understaffed and under-resourced corps of forest rangers, and provide legal support to fight the illegal occupation of this community’s land.
What’s important to understand is that even without these funds and support, they’d still be out there, in tennis shoes and sandals, machetes in-hand, fighting to protect what’s theirs. With thousands of people leaving Central America per day, it’s critical that we maintain focus on those who choose to stay behind and fight to protect what’s left of this beautiful region.
COEAS - estamos con ustedes! We’re with you...
