|
Hurricane Mitch Relief Catalyst Grants Recipients
See other recent Catalyst Grant recipients
Hurricane Mitch pummeled Central America in late October and early November 1998, leaving behind some 9,000 dead and countless homeless, injured, and starving residents. The powerful storm's impacts were particularly devastating due to deforestation and improper land use in the region. The Rainforest Alliance established a special Hurricane Mitch Relief Catalyst Grants program to provide emergency aid and help conservationists plan, rehabilitate and educate, so that damage from future storms will not be so severe.
Fundación Parque Nacional Pico Bonito (FUPNAPIB) in Honduras: $3,025 in November, 2000
The Pico Bonito National Park in Northern Honduras encompasses 17 main watersheds and a tremendous diversity of ecosystems and wildlife including a large number of endangered and nearly extinct flora and fauna. FUPNAPIB supervises the protection, conservation, and appropriate use of natural resources inside the park including the prevention of soil erosion, flood protection, and environmental education. FUPNAPIB is using its grant to strengthen its education and recreation program in the northern buffer zone of the park by rehabilitating an education center damaged by Hurricane Mitch. This center will serve as a meeting place and classroom for the training of students, agroforestry producers, and members of local rural and semi-rural communitites in an effort to improve awareness and management within the buffer zone.
Fundación Calentura - Guaimoreto (FUCAGUA) in Honduras: $3,025 in October, 2000
The protected areas of Capiro National Park and Lake Guaimoreto Wildlife Reserve are located in the southeastern part of the city of Trujillo in Colon State, Honduras, one of the areas hit hardest by Hurricane Mitch. A Catalyst Grant is allowing FUCAGUA to refurnish two environmental centers located in the protected areas to provide an indoor training space for students from the region. FUCAGUA's environmental education program is part of a project that involves incorporating the local community into the management of the parks. Other components of the project include conducting educational field trips, delineating the critical zones of the protected areas, implementing a patrol system, establishing agroforestry systems, and promoting ecotourism.
Fundación para la Protección de Lancetilla Punta Sal y Texiguat (PROLANSATE) in Honduras: $3,000 in August 2000
PROLANSATE will use its grant to renovate and rehabilitate a Visitor Center partially destroyed by Hurricane Mitch. Before the storm, the center served over 3,000 people per month including students and both national and international tourists who came to the area to learn more about its tropical environment and biodiversity. The rehabilitation will include repairing the center's façade, painting its walls and roof, purchasing three books, and constructing shelves to hold brochures and other materials.
Fundación para el Ecodesarrollo y la Conservación (FUNDAECO) in Guatemala: $3000 in August 2000
The objective of the project is to promote support for protected areas and appropriate management of natural resources in Izabal, Guatemala, through a radio campaign which will inform and sensitize the population to the link between destroying rainforests and natural disasters. To do this, FUNDAECO will design, plan and implement a radio campaign through which they explain the causes of natural disasters, tell what to do in emergencies, promote agroforestry techniques and the importance of protected areas in preventing natural disasters. The spots will be taped in Spanish and Kequcji (local indian language), which are the two dominant languages in the region. The programs will be run on different radio stations that operate in Izabal. A radio campaign was chosen since it is the most utilized form of communication in the zone.
Fundación Mario Dary in Guatemala: $2,500 awarded in November 1999
A narrow finger of land called Punta Manabique juts into the ocean on the Caribbean coast of Guatemala. Fundación Mario Dary (FUNDARY) works with the villages on the point, to help them manage and protect the area's resource rich lagoons and estuaries. Hurricane Mitch's relentless rains caused damaging flooding on Punta Manabique. FUNDARY used their Catalyst Grant to purchase an outboard motor to replace one ruined by the floodwaters. The conservation group and community members were then able to resume patrolling Punta Manabique's waterways. The grant also paid for a radio transmitter and batteries for the mayor's office in the village of Motagua, so the community will be able to radio warnings and ask for help in case of any future emergencies.
Centro CONADES in Nicaragua: awarded $3,000 in December 1999
The watershed area in the Río Coco region of the Caribbean coast was impacted by intense flooding from Hurricane Mitch. Centro CONADES is using its grant to purchase seedlings and seeds of fruit, firewood, and other trees to be planted as part of a reforestation project to combat the erosion resulting from Hurricane Mitch. Tree species such as a coconut palm hybrid that is resistant to a disease that has already killed thousands of African coconut palms along the coast is being planted in an effort to strengthen a reforestation and environmental education project CONADES already has underway.
Fundación Ecologista Hector Rodríguez Pastor Fasquelle (FUNDECO) in Honduras: awarded $2,500 in December 1999
The communities of Buenos Aires, Bañaderos, Tomalá, Las Brisas, and La Unión are in the buffer zone outside National Park Cusuco in Honduras, a park which the foundation helps manage and protect. FUNDECO is using their donation to repair a road that connects the three communities with a principal highway. The road was destroyed by landslides right after Hurricane Mitch and is still in serious and dangerous disrepair. This inaccessibility has greatly isolated these small villages, and residents are unable to bring their crops to market. The damaged road is also used by the staff of the Foundation and park guards to reach the protected area.
Fundación Parque Nacional Pico Bonito in Honduras: $3050 awarded in September 1999
The small communities of San Marcos, Santiguito, and Las Camelias, along the northern Caribbean coast of Hondurs, were hit hard by Hurricane Mitch. These villages lie outside Pico Bonito National Park, which the Pico Bonito National Park Foundation helps manage and protect. The foundation is using their Catalyst Grant to establish and maintain tree nurseries in San Marcos and Santiguito and to supply materials and tools for an existing nursery in Las Camelias. Due to deforestation in the region, the hurricane caused numerous landslides, which resulted in even further loss of forest cover. Reforestation of the area is vital. The foundation is also giving training workshops to local villagers so they understand the importance of reforestation and why they need to help protect their natural resources.
PROLANSATE in Honduras: $3,000 awarded in September 1999
The Foundation for the Protection of Lancetilla, Punta Sal and Texiguat (PROLANSATE), a local conservation group, has worked for many years to protect the estuaries and mangroves of the northern coast of Honduras, the area that was probably hardest hit by Hurricane Mitch. PROLANSATE is using this grant to help members of the Melcher 6 1/2 community to rebuild their primary school, which was completely destroyed by the storm. The village lies just outside Jeanette Kawas National Park. The school will also be used as a community center, where PROLANSATE will give environmental education workshops to encourage villagers to participate in the protection of the national park.
One of the local schools being repaired by PROLANSATE in Honduras. |
CEASDES in El Salvador: $2,921 awarded in September 1999
The communities in the El Tamarindo estuary, in the southeastern Gulf of Fonseca, depend on the environmental services provided by the mangrove forests, as do most other coastal communities in El Salvador. Unfortunately, the residents have been using these resources unsustainably. To worsen the situation, this area was hit hard by Hurricane Mitch. Most of the 3,800 residents had to flee the storm surge, and hundreds of homes were either seriously damaged or lost. Mangroves act as buffers against storms, but deforestation in El Tamarindo left the communities vulnerable. A Catalyst Grant was awarded to the Center for Environmental and Social Research for Sustainable Development (CEASDES), a small, nonprofit group in El Salvador, to conduct research that will establish a community strategy for the conservation and sustainable use of the El Tamarindo estuary. Local residents are helping to develop this strategy, which CEASDES will share with government agencies so it can be adopted in other coastal communities.
The Alistar Foundation in Nicaragua: $3,000 awarded in August 1999
This conservation group has been working closely with the Miskito and Mayagna indigenous communities in the Bosawas Biosphere Reserve, which is in Northeastern Nicaragua and one of the largest intact pieces of rainforest in Central America. The most fertile lands in the reserve are along the Coco River, which is where the indigenous people have been planting their subsistence crops for generations. Because of upstream deforestation, the Coco River overflowed during Hurricane Mitch, flooding thousands of acres of land and washing away virtually all crops, along with hundreds of homes. The indigenous communities are now more determined than ever to protect the forested reserve. A Catalyst Grant was given to Alistar to buy a boat and outboard motor (Alistar will provide funds for fuel) that will allow a recently formed team of volunteer indigenous forest guards to patrol the reserve, on the alert for poachers and illegal logging.
Above: Villages like this one, which lie just outside Bosawas Reserve were hard hit by Hurricane Mitch.
(Photo © CM Wille)
Right: Inside the Bosawas Biosphere Reserve.
(Photo © CM Wille) |
|
 |
MOPAWI in Honduras: $3,350 in May 1999
This conservation group, whose name is an acronym for Mosquitia Pawais, or Development of the Mosquitia, has worked in the Mosquitia region of Honduras since the 1980s. La Mosquitia is home to the Miskito, Pech, Tawahka, and Garífuna indigenous groups and is the site of the Río Plátano Biosphere Reserve, one of the largest protected areas in Central America.
The Rainforest Alliance gave an unsolicited Catalyst Grant to MOPAWI to support the group's efforts to assist communities devastated by Hurricane Mitch. Thousands of indigenous people lost homes and virtually all their crops when the Patuca River flooded thousands of acres. The main mode of transport in the region is via the Patuca River and its tributaries. MOPAWI is using the grant to help rebuild a dock lost in the high waters.
CODDEFFAGOLF in Honduras: $3,000 awarded in January 1999
The Committee for the Defense and Development of the Gulf of Fonseca (CODDEFFAGOLF in its Spanish acronym), a nonprofit group, rushed emergency supplies to the Pacific Coast, where the group has long worked to protect the valuable natural resources of the Gulf. The Rainforest Alliance gave this unsolicited Catalyst Grant so that CODDEFFAGOLF could continue its emergency-relief efforts.
Above: Villages along the Gulf of Fonseca in Honduras were flooded after Hurricane Mitch's relentless rains.
(Photo © CM Wille)
Right: After Hurricane Mitch, CODDEFFAGOLF brought aid to residents of the small towns along the Gulf of Fonseca.
(Photo © CM Wille) |
|
 |
See other recent Catalyst Grant recipients
Catalyst Grants Program
About | Catalyst Grants Recipients
Guidelines for Applicants: English | En Español
Grant Application Form: English | En Español
Catalyst Grants Donation Form
Back to Conservation Programs
Search | Site Map | Home
Contact the Rainforest Alliance: canopy@ra.org
|
|
