Case Study - Honduras

Honduras:

7.6 million people live in Honduras, from whom more than half live under poverty line. The agriculture sector is very important in the country as it generates almost half of its exports. As seen on the consequences of deforestation, it can bring consequences to soil production, leading to a decrease in food production. Combining that to the huge population in Honduras can be a vulnerability to this population and a threat to human security, as food represents a big part of their exports and a decrease in the production rate can mean a decrease in the country's economy, which can lead to an even greater number of people under the poverty line. 

The ruins of Copán contain some of Central America's greatest Maya temples and tombs. Photograph by Kenneth Garrett available at http://travel.nationalgeographic.com/travel/countries/honduras-guide/

Trees once covered the country, but today there is only half of the forest areas remaining, and only 16% are natural forest. Between 1990 and 2005, Honduras had a decline of 37% in its forest-covered area.

According to the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), the drivers of deforestation in the country go from agricultural expansion and illegal logging to fuel wood collection. Another underlying reason is lack of governmental capacity to stop deforestation (Hidalgo, 2011). 

According to the United Nations, approximately 150 thousand families in the 24 poverty cities of Honduras don’t have food due to the drought, which is blamed mainly on deforestation. The delay on the rains led to the loss of agriculture, together with a need to import food from another countries.

The consequences seen in Honduras go from lack of food from soil erosion and break in the water cycle, to the loss of animal habitat, together with loss of living areas of indigenous people, threats of floods and the increase in carbon dioxide emissions (Browder, 1995). 
         There are several threats to human security in Honduras, such as the decrease in food production, which can lead to many consequences, such as conflict between distinct ethnic groups in dispute to food to increase in the already existent inequalities. There is also the danger to the indigenous people, which can be directly affected as their habitat is being threatened, and if destroyed can lead to migration and cultural diversity loss, as this culture will lose their natural habitat and be forced to adapt in different language or dialect as well as different ways of life. In the graph below we can see how Honduras is the first country from South America in percentage of forest lost between the years of 1990 to 2005. 

Graph shows the list of top 20 countries in percentage of forest loss between 1990 to 2005. Graphic by Robert Simmon, based on data provided by individual countries to the U.N. Foreign Agricultural Organization for the Global Forest Resources Assessment Report 2005 available at http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Features/Deforestation/deforestation_update3.php

Work Cited:

Centro de Documentación De Honduras (CEDOH). 2012. HONDURAS: CRISIS POLÍTICA Y SOLUCIÓN DEMOCRÁTICA. Boletín Especial mayo 2012 No.97 available at http://www.cedoh.org/resources/Inicio/Boletin-97.pdf

Serna Hidalgo, Braulio (2011). Honduras: tendencias, desafíos y temas estratégicos del desarrollo agropecuario. CEAPL. Mexico D.F.: Publicación de la Naciones Unidas http://www.eclac.org/publicaciones/xml/4/27884/L761.pdf

Browder, John O. "Deforestation And The Environmental Crisis In Latin America." Latin American Research Review 30.3 (1995): 123. Academic Search Complete. Web. 16 Apr. 2013.