Honduras Environment News

Satellite monitoring shows Olancho has lost roughly 500,000 hectares of forest cover between 2001 and 2025—about one-third of Honduras's total loss—with permanent agriculture, not wildfires, identified as the primary driver.

Armed Forces halted illegal mining on seven hectares in Brazo Seco, Santa Bárbara, seizing two excavators, mining equipment, and fuel while protecting the Chiquila River basin from further degradation and contamination.

Sweden's development agency SIDA will provide approximately €270,000 (about $295,000) in humanitarian assistance to Honduran communities affected by drought.

Honduras is using cloud seeding to combat a devastating drought in Central America's Dry Corridor, intensified by El Niño and climate change, as the region seeks emergency measures to restore rainfall and protect crops.

Infrastructure Minister Aníbal Ehrler and municipal leaders from Yoro met with community representatives to coordinate efforts addressing sediment buildup in the Cuyamapa, Humuya, and Ulúa rivers, which threatens five municipalities and requires environmental recovery and flood-risk reduction.

Roatán's municipal government is evaluating a technology that transforms non-recyclable plastic waste into construction products such as bricks, tiles, and roof sheets, with the aim of reducing landfill burden.

Oil exploration by foreign companies in Honduras's La Mosquitia region has split Miskito communities, with one faction accepting a promised $400,000 annual payment for development while others claim they were deceived during the consultation process and fear damage to fishing resources.

The National Congress's environmental committee met with Honduras's forestry institute to assess the bark beetle infestation affecting 488 hectares in Yoro Department; officials say rainy conditions are providing time to implement control measures before the pest spreads.

A juvenile green sea turtle died in Roatán after being struck by a boat propeller in a protected lagoon, prompting the Roatán Marine Park to call on captains to observe speed limits and maintain safe distances from marine life.

The municipality of Santos Guardiola announced a new ordinance prohibiting plastic use, effective January 1, 2027, aimed at protecting the environment and public health, with a grace period for businesses to clear existing inventory.

Honduras has renewed environmental permits for petroleum exploration off the coast of La Mosquitia in Gracias a Dios, extending operations by High Power Petroleum Honduras across 17,628 square kilometers until April 2031, a decision that has divided local Miskito communities over environmental and development concerns.

The PlantatónHN initiative, backed by Televicentro and Emisoras Unidas, distributed 4,500 saplings across Honduras's two largest cities while launching electronic-waste collection to advance reforestation and environmental education.

Honduras's $750,000 cloud-seeding program, designed to combat drought, has finished its originally planned 20 flights and will carry out two additional missions using 180 liters of remaining silver iodide, for a total of 22 flights.

José Osman Fajardo Ardón was found guilty of unlawfully constructing a two-story home (146 square meters) in the El Merendón protected zone, causing damage to water sources and wildlife habitat, with sentencing to follow.

A UNESCO mission will visit Honduras late 2026 to assess conservation efforts at the Plátano River Biosphere Reserve, Honduras's largest protected area, which remains on the World Heritage in Danger list due to illegal land occupation, poaching, and deforestation linked to organized crime.

A severe drought in southern Honduras forced 214 shrimp farms to suspend operations, prompting the National Aquaculture Association to cut its 2026 production target from 159 million to 146 million pounds as high temperatures and prolonged low rainfall raised Gulf of Fonseca salinity levels.

Honduras has completed 18 of 20 planned cloud-seeding flights over nine drought-affected departments, with results to be assessed once the final two flights — pending suitable weather — are done.

A Tegucigalpa man was sentenced to four years and six months in prison and fined 9,000 lempiras (about $360) for unauthorized farming, illegal pond construction, and tree-cutting in the Guacerique River watershed, a protected area that supplies the capital's Los Laureles reservoir.

World Vision reported that 60.9% of farming families in the Dry Corridor of Honduras, Guatemala, and El Salvador lack sufficient food reserves, with 85.2% hit by erratic or late rains.

Honduras is deploying 350 technical teams to georeference over 100,000 coffee farms to comply with the EU's deforestation regulation, which requires proof that exports did not come from land cleared after December 31, 2020—critical since roughly half of Honduras's coffee goes to Europe.

South Korea will provide $500,000 in humanitarian assistance to Honduras to help communities affected by El Niño-driven drought that has left about 620,000 people in severe food insecurity.

Environmental prosecutors are investigating the unauthorized clearing of a road through a protected water-source buffer zone in Morazán, Yoro, where inspectors found illegal logging to create vehicle access.

Honduras's Congressional Environment Commission announced it will meet Thursday with the Forest Conservation Institute director to plan action against the pine bark beetle, which has already damaged pine forests in four departments.

South Korea will provide $500,000 in humanitarian aid to Honduras to support communities devastated by an El Niño-driven drought that has left about 620,000 people facing severe food insecurity, particularly in the southern dry corridor.

The Honduran Navy planted 2,000 cedar and acacia seedlings across two hectares in Puerto Lempira's Pusuaya sector to restore forest cover, protect water sources, and conserve the Mosquitia region's natural heritage.

Honduras is mobilizing 350 technical teams to georeference coffee farms and issue non-deforestation certificates required by the European Union's deforestation regulation, which affects roughly half of the country's coffee exports to Europe.

Honduras granted a 2013 oil concession covering 35,256 square kilometers of Caribbean waters in La Moskitia, a UNESCO World Heritage site, without consulting the four indigenous peoples living there, violating international law.

CaribX (UK) Limited, a British company with no prior oil experience, holds 55% of a hydrocarbon-exploration concession in Honduras's Moskitia as the non-operator alongside Bermuda-based H2P as the 45% operator, yet six years of exploration results remain undisclosed to the public.

Over 40 years, the Gulf of Fonseca communities of Cedeño and La Puntilla have lost up to 100 meters of coastline to sea-level rise, destroying homes and businesses and driving residents—many of them young people—to migrate to the United States.

Experts from Mexico and Central America called Thursday for a regional strategy to combat the screwworm, a parasitic larva that infests livestock and threatens the region's cattle industry.