Honduran Environment Undersecretary Malcolm Stufkens and other officials have been holding broad consultations on the possibility of joining the Escazú treaty. (Photo by Lucía Martínez, UN)
Honduran President Xiomara Castro made her first major environmental-policy move less than three weeks after taking office, issuing a Feb. 15 executive order that prohibits further open-pit mining concessions in the country. Now her administration appears poised to act on its next big green-policy objective: to make Honduras the 26th nation to sign—and the 14th to ratify—the first region-wide environmental treaty in Latin America and the Caribbean. The treaty, informally called the Escazú Agreement after the Costa Rican town where it was adopted in 2018, promotes public access to environmental information, decision-making and court proceedings to ensure broad social consensus on development. Protection of environmental defenders is also an important focus of the treaty, whose formal name is the Regional Agreement on Access to Information, Public Participation and Justice in Environmental Matters in Latin America and the Caribbean. Improving this protection is seen... [Log in to read more]
