Document(s) 14 of 20

Social oppression dating back to the Spanish conquest has created a legacy of poverty for the Chorti people of Copán, in western Honduras. Continued domination and exploitation has led to grave injustices and increasing conflict and violence. Population pressures and degradation of the natural resource base have added to the prospect of a grim future for all but a few of Copán’s people. In 1997, following the assassination of indigenous leader Cándido Amador, the Chortis marched on Tegucigalpa where they conducted a hunger strike to publicize their cause. In response to national and international pressure, the Honduran president intervened and decreed the use of public resources for the allocation of several thousand hectares of land to the Chortis. However, this was only a first step toward effective social change and progress in Copán. Community-based natural resource management (CBNRM) efforts initially focused on strengthening the position of the Chortis. After less than 1 year, as a result of participatory processes, disputes have been diffused, and the Chortis are better organized and equipped to advocate their interests in local and national forums. Although many challenges lie ahead, valuable experience and useful lessons have been learned with respect to establishing CBNRM.

In Central America, growing populations and gross exploitation by private interests are placing increasing pressure on the limited and ever-decreasing natural resource base. Furthermore, government restructuring has led to delegated management of natural resources, giving local interest groups and nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) expanded roles. The transition has led to a sharp decline in administrative mechanisms and effective communication among rural stakeholders — agriculturists, cattle ranchers, sawmill owners, environmentalists, government officials, and local communities. Disparities in access to natural resources, lack of consensus, and misinformation are particularly common in rural settings.

This paper draws on the experience of the Network for Collaborative Natural Resources Management (COLABORA) with the Chorti people of Copán in western Honduras. Established in 1994, COLABORA is an informal group of organizations concerned with strengthening community-based natural resource management (CBNRM) processes in Honduras and a member of the regional Meso-American Network for Socio-environmental Conflict Management. Founding members of COLABORA include the NGOs Caritas, Global Village, the Guayape Valley Project, and World Neighbours, as well as Cornell University and the Pan American School of Agriculture (Zamorano). Subsequently, the Honduran forestry agency and various municipal governments have become increasingly involved. Our experience suggests that the establishment of CBNRM can help to resolve disputes and promote more responsible and democratic change by facilitating communication and learning among diverse parties and by placing decision-making power in the hands of stakeholders.

The setting and the conflict situation

The region

Honduras occupies an area of about 112 000 km² in the heart of mountainous Central America. Agricultural commodities contribute about 22% of the country’s gross domestic product, with chief earnings coming from the export of bananas, coffee, cattle, sugarcane, and tobacco. The per capita gross national product is about 879 United States dollars (USD), but income disparity is great: 20% of the population accounts for 64% of the national income. The illiteracy rate is about 43%. Half of the country’s nearly 6 million people are subsistence maize and bean farmers, and 80% of these farmers are considered poor to extremely poor (World Bank 1994).

The vast majority of Hondurans are of mixed European and Native American descent (referred to locally as mestizos) (Newsome 1992). Honduras’ indigenous and ethnic groups have declined to less than 10% of the total population, and today this social group represents the country’s most disadvantaged people (Rivas 1993). Nowhere in the country are poverty and social disparity more egregious than in Copán, especially among the people who are most directly descended from the Mayans — the Chorti.

The city of Copán in mountainous western Honduras has a population of about 6 000 people. However, its Mayan archeological ruins draw over 150 000 tourists annually from around the world (Director, personal communication, 1998¹). Most of the city’s population is mestizo; the Chorti inhabit the villages on the surrounding hillsides (Figure 1).

Figure 1. Copán and its surrounding area in western Honduras.

The Chortis are commonly of mixed Mayan–Spanish ancestry, and only a few dozen retain their indigenous language (Herranz 1996). Nevertheless, their cultural identity is largely intact and, in 1994, the Honduran government officially acknowledged the Chortis as one of its remaining seven indigenous and ethnic groups.

About 8 000 Chortis have been relegated to the hillsides as subsistence farmers and day labourers for local plantation owners (the terratenientes, who are usually of direct Spanish descent) and live in conditions of extreme poverty (Martínez 1997). Illiteracy rates reach 90% and more, the infant mortality rate is about 60%, and more than half of the children are malnourished. The average life expectancy is 49 years for men and 55 years for women. Against continuing social and economic pressure, the Chortis are struggling to preserve their customs and to reconstruct their identity, language, and livelihood.

A history of disparity

In the early 1500s, the Spanish claimed ownership of all natural resources and people in Honduras. The governing rights were distributed to conquistadors (Newsome 1992). As the Roman Catholic Church increased its role in the latter part of the century, it briefly distributed governing rights to native caciques who had converted to Catholicism, but later gave primary control to criollos (descendants of the Spanish, born in America). As a result, six criollo families emerged as large landowners in the Copán Valley (Martínez 1997).

During the 18th and 19th centuries, immigration of criollos and mestizos increased the population of the Copán Valley, further consolidating the privatization of resources and displacing the Chortis from their native land (Martínez 1997). Although the Roman Catholic Church made provisions for indigenous access to territory, many Chortis were forcibly removed from their land. In the early 1800s, the determination of political boundaries between Guatemala and Honduras divided the Chorti nation. In the 20th century, social domination became increasingly institutionalized.

Current social conflict

In the 1950s, powerful landowners purchased thousands of hectares throughout the Copán Valley, extending into Guatemala (Martínez 1997). Many Chorti communities were located in this territory, and their inhabitants were forced to work as farm labourers to survive. As part of the Honduran land reform policies of the 1970s, the Instituto Nacional Agrario (INA, national agricultural institute) provided new land to 3 of the 17 Chorti communities in Copán. Although the redistribution was very limited and the land awarded was largely infertile, the action provided much needed relief to swelling communities.

During the 1980s, rural communities formed farmers’ unions to demand the right of access to land and credit (Martínez 1997). In 1991, more than a dozen union members in Copán were assassinated. Anthropological research and the International Labour Organization’s (ILO’s) Agreement 169 for Indigenous and Tribal Villages of Independent Countries, which aimed to protect and benefit indigenous communities, improve their access to land, health, and housing, and ensure their basic needs, heightened Chortis sense of cultural identity. In November 1994, with the help of the National Confederation of Autochthonous Villages of Honduras and the National Pedagogical University, local leaders created the National Chorti Indian Council of Honduras (CONICHH) to advocate concerns, in particular the recovery of lost indigenous territory.

On 12 April 1997, Chorti leader Cándido Amador was assassinated. Although authorities have still not fully determined the circumstances of the assassination, the events further consolidated Chorti nationalism and incited protests. In May 1997, nearly 1 000 Chortis marched on the Honduran capital, Tegucigalpa, and conducted a hunger strike that captured the attention of the nation as well as that of the international community. They demanded further investigation into the death of Cándido Amador and the restoration of tribal land.

The Farmers’ and Ranchers’ Organization of Copán Ruins (AGRACOR), representing the interests of plantation owners, lobbied the Honduran government to prevent redistribution of land. Among other issues, they challenged the ethnicity of the Chortis. However, despite AGRACOR’s strong ties to members of the Honduran Congress, the media and public pressure demanded presidential intervention to end the hunger strike. The government decided to support the Chortis’ cause and awarded them 2 000 ha of productive land and 200 000 Honduran lempira worth of credit for housing (Table 1) (in 1999, 14.24 Honduran lempira [HNL] = 1 United States dollar [USD]).

In December 1997, the INA transferred 350 ha of the total land awarded to the Chortis, to be administered by CONICHH. However, this move aggravated existing relations among stakeholders for a number of reasons. The government purchased largely nonarable and unproductive land from terratenientes at exorbitant rates (often three times the market value). INA awarded public land, causing problems with the local municipal government, as a result of unclear legal responsibilities. Furthermore, only 5 of 17 Chorti communities received land, and they questioned the actual number of hectares distributed. Finally, the government made no provision for financial or technical support to enable the Chortis to become productive farmers. The Chortis, who had worked primarily as labourers for the last few generations, had lost much of their farming knowledge.

The critical issues

The ongoing conflict in Copán emerged from a multiplex of issues. Discrepancies over ownership and distribution of land divided Chorti communities. The Chortis were also concerned about government noncompliance with the July 1997 agreements and had grown mistrustful. Tobacco farmers discouraged community organization by threatening CONICHH members and excluding them from employment opportunities or access to land. Furthermore, historical social tensions, especially between criollo descendants and indigenous peoples as well as between the urban wealthy and rural poor, aggravated the situation. The principal stakeholder groups and their concerns are listed in Table 2.

Mediating change through CBNRM

Following the violence and protests of 1997, CONICHH sought organizational and technical support from development agencies. Its leaders approached the Catholic NGO Caritas, which was conducting projects in western Honduras and was an active member of COLABORA. Caritas and COLABORA joined forces to help CONICHH ameliorate the situation in Copán.

Intervention

In late 1997, COLABORA representatives began to visit Copán regularly to acquire a cursory understanding of the situation and establish a CBNRM process. The most pressing initial need was to prevent further violence and to establish an environment more conducive to dialogue. As the weaker party in the community, CONICHH and its constituents also needed to strengthen their collective ability to negotiate with stronger parties, in particular the large landholders and other private business interests.

COLABORA responded with workshops and exchanges involving Chorti representatives and organizations dealing with similar situations in other parts of the country (Guayape Valley, Olancho; Las Marias, Olancho; Yeguare Valley; Comayagua). Through visits, participatory research, and workshops to exchange and develop conflict management methods and strategies, COLABORA was able to help diffuse threats of violence and achieve commitment to a long-term CBNRM process (Rios et al. 1998). Table 3 summarizes the activities carried out during this stage.

Following initial CBNRM activities, CONICHH became concerned with ameliorating social conflicts over natural resources, in particular those between landowners (those who sold land to the government and those who did not), Chortis communities (CONICHH members and nonmembers), the municipality, the INA, and the president’s office. As a follow-up step and a means to strengthen their ability to participate in broader decision-making processes, the Chortis identified the equitable distribution and productive use of awarded land as a priority (Figure 2).

Figure 2. CONICHH analysis of relationships among the principal stakeholders with regard to land tenure (arrows, power support).

CONICHH felt that addressing community conflicts over land distribution and management would help resolve the immediate differences between the Chortis, and it would strengthen overall consensus and organization. In view of food scarcity and the approaching May planting season, they requested that COLABORA begin by working with the five communities that had already received government land grants. Between January and April 1998, COLABORA sent a team of three action researchers to help these communities conduct stakeholder analysis and resource assessments, produce collaborative plans, and implement short-term land management projects.

Results

Early goals of the CBNRM process were to facilitate information exchange and to enhance community understanding of the origins of the current situation. Through participatory rural appraisals in the five communities that received land under the May 1997 presidential decree, COLABORA and CONICHH tested assumptions and confronted prejudices. For example, one major source of community concern was over the actual quantity of land distributed by the government; so COLABORA also contracted an external technical team to measure land allocations. Early CBNRM processes helped to clarify misunderstandings and reorient future action (Table 4).

Chorti suspicion and distrust of the national government abated, and CONICHH began to focus on helping communities achieve consensus over use and management of awarded lands. Because of the low fertility of soils and limited production potential, CONICHH and the five communities rejected the option of moving families from communities that did not receive land or of allowing outside families access to it. Instead, they pledged to help those villages win their own land. Furthermore, they decided that

• Land would be distributed based on total area allocated per community, soil fertility, and family size.
• Agricultural land would be distributed to families, but for the approaching emergency season it would be cultivated collectively. Community members would collaborate in planting crops and support additional activities. Coffee plantations that existed on 30% of the awarded land would be expanded and harvested for overall community benefit.
• Forested areas would be zoned according to three use categories: watershed, forest reserve, and timber and firewood extraction.

CONICHH asked the government and local NGOs for agricultural assistance and financial support to enable more productive and sustainable land management. Concerned over the large number of development organizations that claimed to represent Chorti interests, CONICHH established collaboration rules. It proclaimed that NGOs and the government organizations wanting to help the Chorti cause and work with communities must obey the following five articles:

1. Seek approval from CONICHH before contacting communities;
2. Design interventions with community participation;
3. Present an activity plan to CONICHH and receive its approval;
4. Periodically inform CONICHH of project evaluations and progress; and
5. Coordinate efforts with other development organizations to prevent redundancies and methodological conflicts.

CONICHH and Caritas organized workshops for community representatives on how to improve communications between community members and how to enhance organizational capacity. Participants reviewed proposals and chose community projects and implementing organizations by consensus. Subsequently, CONICHH established contracts, agreements with collaborators, and dates for evaluation meetings.

CONICHH reviewed early CBNRM efforts and concluded that effective outcomes were

• Access to new information on community demographics and resources;
• More accurate assessment of awarded land and boundaries;
• Clearer understanding by CONICHH of multiple community perspectives;
• New opportunities for community participation in decision-making processes;
• Alternatives for increasing land productivity and assuring its equitable distribution;
• Alternatives for addressing the needs of landless families;
• Greater consensus on immediate land use and management;
• Enhanced consolidation of organizations and greater ability to articulate and represent concerns; and
• New channels of communication and more positive attitudes among stakeholders toward plans for addressing broader community concerns.

Future challenges and lessons learned

Challenges ahead

Although CONICHH and participating communities feel that the contributions of COLABORA and, especially, Caritas have been positive, clearly the Chortis have only begun to address their needs. Eleven communities still do not have land, and those active in organizing are still denied employment opportunities. The Chortis are aspiring to change a long history of social domination and violence and face severe institutional obstacles, including highly biased social, economic, and political structures. Clearly, the most important and difficult tasks lie ahead.

Table 5 summarizes CONICHH’s immediate plans for the future. First and foremost, the Chortis need to engage the array of actors more fully. In particular, establishing new relations with the terratenientes and encouraging their involvement in CBNRM processes pose new challenges.

Lessons

At the most basic level, COLABORA views CBNRM as a useful tool for not only improving natural resource management, but also evolving systemic, highly complex social arrangements. There is no blueprint for achieving effective CBNRM. By its nature, natural resource management involves multistakeholder situations characterized by diverse perspectives, interests, and needs. CBNRM is necessarily a creative process built on iterative and adaptive learning and action involving a wide variety and ever-changing assembly of individuals and organizations over time. CONICHH and the Chortis have only begun efforts in this area. Nevertheless, through the research in Copán, we gained valuable insight into the mechanics of CBNRM and, from that experience, draw some lessons for our future work that may be useful to others.

At the heart of CBNRM lies participation — not just the presence of multiple actors, but also shared control over decision-making and policy formulation. For those who have worked in community development, in such areas as agriculture, health, literacy, and organization, CBNRM may be just a natural progression in that preparation. We drew heavily on the experience of established adult-education, planning, and conflict resolution methods. Consistent with popular grass-roots development approaches, we used technical themes to take on more social concerns, and we engaged relatively overwhelming structural issues by starting small, that is, addressing more manageable problems before tackling increasingly complex concerns. (For explanations of the general development methods used, as well as other pertinent conceptual matters, please see Korton [1980], Fisher and Ury [1981], Chambers [1983], Bunch [1985], Chambers et al. [1990], Freire [1990], Lee [1993], and Uphoff [1996].)

Because COLABORA’s participation in Copán began relatively recently, the following lessons emerged from the initial stages of CBNRM, in particular problem identification, analysis, and planning.

Encourage local participation and leadership

• Participation was not automatic, but rather achieved. Early on, leaders and communities alike had limited interest in CBNRM. However, small successes, such as the measurement of awarded land and accurate documentation of community interests, enhanced local participation. When people felt heard, their confidence in CONICHH grew, and they became increasingly supportive of the organization.
• Representation in organizations was not always a fact. Healthy scepticism enabled us to see that, although well-intentioned, CONICHH did not necessarily represent the interests of communities. By building capacity, CONICHH was able to engender greater community participation and better represent constituent perspectives in projects and political circles, thereby strengthening the legitimacy of CBNRM outcomes.
• Low-profile leadership was best. Conventional authoritarian leadership can interfere with CBNRM processes. Differences were not effectively resolved if actors did not become fully engaged in learning and action processes and if they did not take responsibility for decisions. Transforming conventional demagogic leadership styles into new, low-profile ones through participation and collaboration permitted more democratic and effective decision-making and overall better leadership.

Address power imbalances and link stakeholders

• Peaceful protests helped to level the playing field. Chorti marches and hunger strikes won significant public attention, both nationally and internationally. Mass media played a decisive role in raising awareness of injustices and pressuring the government to take on issues previously all too easy to ignore. As a result of ensuing government action, the Chortis’ position was strengthened and legitimized.
• Strengthening weaker stakeholders provided for new, more peaceful alternatives. Armed with better information, new analytical skills, and stronger organization, the Chortis no longer needed to resort to drastic measures, such as hunger strikes. In addition, stronger parties realized that power abuses would no longer be tolerated. Under such conditions, stakeholders became increasingly prepared to negotiate with others and collaborate.
• Common ground could be found (or established). Recognizing interests and needs and promoting mutual understanding increased people’s interest in negotiation. Regardless of initial differences, stakeholders have been able to identify or build common ground for dialogue. At the end of the day, poor or rich, we are all humans and share basic needs and concerns that unequivocally link us together.
• Historical and social analysis improved decisions. Intragroup stakeholder analyses, in particular gender- and age-sensitive studies, provided important insight into diverse local perspectives. When solutions included this complexity, constituents were more willing to accept outcomes and cooperate with change and needed action.

Understand legal rights and the limitations of government

• Laws and knowledge of them were powerful tools. ILO’s Agreement 169 clearly had an impact on the Chortis’ cause. CBNRM participants should be familiar with the policies that are created to serve them, such as those governing access to natural resources and human rights, so that they can appropriately advocate their own interests.
• Government action was limited. Despite good intentions, governments of developing countries rarely have the wherewithal to administer their own policies. Pressuring the government can be productive in terms of obtaining contracts, such as the decree awarding land to the Chortis, but agencies were often limited in their ability to execute policy. NGOs that had access to independent funds for community projects played important roles as both advocates and administrators of policy goals.

Mediate creatively, dynamically, and locally

• Local people and organizations were the best mediators. Whereas conflict resolution methods tend to rely on external arbitrators, we found that local human and organizational assets, such as Caritas, were often effective in fulfilling such roles. They often understood histories and were less likely than outsiders to overlook relevant issues. Furthermore, by developing the mediation capacities of local actors, we left behind valuable resources for the future.
• Interveners wore many hats. As stated previously, CBNRM is a highly dynamic process that demands tremendous resourcefulness. Caritas and COLABORA provided diverse types of support to the efforts in Copán, including technical assistance, capacity-building, advocacy, convening, linking, and awareness-raising. Interveners needed to “wear many hats” during CBNRM activities. As problems were resolved and new situations arose, organizers needed to withdraw from or join the mediation process, depending on their relative neutrality, authority, and legitimacy.
• Teamwork heightened flexibility. Rather than having individuals organize CBNRM events, COLABORA used a team approach for planning, facilitating, and documenting activities. Group thinking and coordination sometimes introduced confounding factors and was, therefore, arduous, but the resulting diversity led to improved planning that better reflected the broad concerns of CBNRM participants.

Conclusion

Power imbalances have marginalized the Chortis in Copán and left them vulnerable to exploitation. Historically, this situation has led to nonsustainable exploitation of resources and concentration of wealth, which have disrupted human relationships and contributed to disparagement, protest, and violence.

Through CBNRM, COLABORA helped CONICHH improve relations among Chorti communities and strengthen the participation of its constituent members. As a result, the Chortis began to address priority concerns through models of leadership that increasingly centred on participation and democracy and that contributed to outcomes more consistent with overarching aspirations. After less than 1 year of COLABORA support, CONICHH and Chorti communities became more unified and increasingly able to promote their own interests.

Despite much progress, the bulk of work in Copán lies ahead. The Chortis continue to be unjustly dominated and exploited, and severe economic, political, and social obstacles block further progress. Now that the Chortis are better prepared to enter negotiations with the more powerful sectors in Copán, other stakeholders may not accept the authority and neutrality of COLABORA as a mediating force. Consequently, the network cannot afford to rest on its laurels. COLABORA must continue to search for creative ways to resolve conflicts and enable diverse parties to reach consensus on how best to manage their resources and achieve progress for Copán and its people.

COLABORA has learned that early stages of CBNRM — especially participatory rural analyses and appropriate conflict management training — can help communities, government agencies, NGOs, and other actors to address very difficult and complex issues. This experience demonstrates that innovative multistakeholder approaches to collaborative learning and action hold great promise for social change contributing to more sustainable and socially equitable futures.

Acknowledgments

Caritas and COLABORA are grateful to the numerous contributors to the efforts in Copán. Gilberto Rios, Sergio Larrea, and Myriam Paredes made up the documentation team and facilitated field visits and participatory research with CONICHH leaders Antonio Ramírez, Jesus and Victoriano Pérez, and Dionisio and José Rufino. Octavio Sánchez, Coordinator for COLABORA, and Reina López and Lesbi Valladares from Caritas, provided valuable coordination and logistical support to the documentation team. Daniel Buckles and Gerret Rusnak from the International Development Research Centre (IDRC) provided valuable comments on earlier versions of this paper. IDRC provided financial support for this project. We thank Caritas, the Cornell International Institute for Food, Agriculture and Development, the Cornell Center for the Environmental, as well as the other members of COLABORA, for their continued support for CBNRM processes in Honduras. The authors take full responsibility for any errors or misrepresentations that appear in this paper.

References

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¹ Director, Honduran Anthropological Institute, personal communication, 1998. [back]

Document(s) 14 of 20