Illegal trafficking of macaws, parrots and other animals continues virtually unchecked while governmental authorities stand by and do nothing.

By JON KOHL

Special to Honduras This Week

"El famoso Steiner," grumbles Francisco Lopez, director of the La Ceiba Airport, as Ricardo Fito Steiner enters his office.

"Not so famous, actually," he answers in a low voice, eyes scanning the floor.

"Famous because of the article," responds the graying administrator, surpassing even the coldness of the air conditioning. Fito knew perfectly well that his recently published article, fed by his tiny bit less recent denouncing of the airport for doing nothing to stop the wildlife traffic, would earn him no friends around here. When Fito perceived an environmental infraction, nevertheless, he does not hesitate in reacting.

But Fito Steiner, volunteer director of AMARAS, the wild bird rescue center in La Ceiba, does not only pursue civil servants who gesture against Nature. This mildly-statured Honduran pursued a National Police sergeant for carrying a macaw from Palacios in La Mosquitia to the very Ceiba airport where Fito now had to defend his criticism. Without doubt, moreover, his most intrepid act was when he united with other environmentalists to speak out against the anti-environmental business magnate, Miguel Facusse.

These at times risky techniques, backed by rock-solid principles, showcase Fito at the vanguard of a very challenging battle. His charge, AMARAS (Spanish for Association for the Environment and Rehabilitation of Wild Birds) -- once a dreamchild of Central America in terms of rescue infrastructure aimed at taking on the illegal trafficking of birds, in recent years has suffered in conditions sufficiently deplorable to merit its own rescuer. For better or worse Fito landed in the exact historic moment to rescue the center and at the same time stare in the eyes of a much more menacing problem: illegal trafficking of animals in Honduras.

Born in Olanchito, Fito showed early signs of animal release at a young age, without knowing that this habit would one day dress him in a fame in this area throughout Central America. "We've always had animals; our house was a small zoo," recounts Fito. During the 1980s, "It began to bother me that my mother had animals in cages. When you are born, you see animals in cages. But I went into the mountains and saw birds fly free, I wondered why, then, did they have to be cages."

The first bit of evidence of his future role came when his father converted a pool for humans into a pool for animals. He totally enclosed the pool with chicken wire and placed a meter-long gift crocodile in it. Several times it escaped. His father made Fito capture the animal using a pole and lasso. Eventually, Fito's mother began to fear that this monster would eat the children and Fito was dispatched to carry out his first release. He threw the crocodile in the Aguan River. History was made.

After taking off for CURLA to study agronomy in 1980, his father asked Fito to return to help him only one year before he earned his degree. In 1990 he left to seek his apicultural fortune in Salvador. The only problem was his destiny wasn't there.

By this time and beyond the knowledge of Fito, Honduras' dark infamy as a country of voracious traffickers and equally malevolent corruption convinced President Callejas to issue Decree 0001-90 that prohibited the commercialization of birds, reptiles, and mammals until studies were undertaken to verify the possibility of sustainable harvests. The miserable situation even caught the eye of the U.S. Humane Society, which soon thereafter decided to construct the first animal rescue center in Central America.

"We were so jealous every time we watched environmentalists flying over our heads on their way to Costa Rica. We thought, 'this is the first time that an international environmental organization is paying attention to us here in La Ceiba. This is Hollywood. The Big Leagues.' I was so ignorant," admits Pepe Herrero, who wore the hat of CEO of Marranitos Meat Packing Company and founder and president of the Cuero y Salado Foundation that managed the wildlife refuge of the same name. The Society asked him to donate a hectare of his farm to build this new rescue center at the feet of Pico Bonito National Park. They signed an agreement in which the Society would pay all the costs for three years and then at which point the Foundation would assume total control.

When Biologist Sergio Midence and colleagues of the defunct RENARE (part of the then Ministry of Natural Resources) entered the warehouse in San Lorenzo, they were shocked to discover 25 scarlet macaws, the national bird of Honduras, trapped in large chicken mesh cages. Sergio observed, "There were no food leftovers, they did not have perches and they showed signs of stressed behavior." That was one of the first and biggest confiscations after the famous Decreto 0001-90. Although they sent the macaws to the metropolitan zoo, the booty ended up being divided among military officials, prominent politicians, Facusse and the Sheik of Kuwait.

The solicitor general for the environment, Clarisa de Vega, says that if you use the quantity of formal complaints that are now in her office as a measure, trafficking has definitely become worse in recent years. And she should know as she is now involved in charging the General Director of COHDEFOR -- the Honduran Forestry Development Corporation -- for abuse of authority for giving illegal permission to harvest wild animals. Her department is also taking action against COHDEFOR's director of the Wildlife Department for the same violation, except in this case for illegal timber harvesting. If that weren't enough, she is investigating COHDEFOR's second in command on similar charges.

Knowing nothing about trafficking or about AMARAS, Fito returned between 1991 and 1993 and ended up in La Ceiba, working with the Bosques Atlantida Project, only 2.5 km from AMARAS along the main highway. It was not until 1994, when AMARAS wanted to do a release on Bosques' property, that Fito first become involved in this noble act. He had the responsibility of bringing the parrots to the site. After that event, he volunteered from time to time to do releases and to take food to AMARAS. During this time, he was also vice president of the non-profit organization that managed Pico Bonito National Park, but he didn't invest much time in that either. Not until the following year, when a miraculous event would not only change his life but almost take it as well, was Fito literally knocked into the world of conservation.

On 30 June, 1995, Fito got in his car and left to pay the workers at Bosques. As he approached the off road to the property, a car followed him from behind. And behind it a trailer truck. The second decided to pass the car, increased speed and began to pass. Fito at that same moment signaled and turned left. The truck driver didn't see Fito until he smashed into his truck sending it for three flips before finally ending upside down, wheels spinning in the air.

Fito was paralyzed from the waist down. Though he apparently recovered after 12 days in the hospital, it wasn't until a month and a Tegucigalpa MRI later that he realized that one of his vertebrae had been broken. One North American doctor told him, "I don't believe it. There is no way you should be walking based on these X-rays and MRI images." With nothing but a miracle to attribute, Fito had recovered with no surgery. But one aspect, however, had changed forever.

While in the hospital, it occurred to him, "I think we should all leave some kind of trail in life. I have to do something for my country given that I will soon have more time." A few days later, the president and fiscal of Pico Bonito arrived at his bedside. They asked him, "Do you want to be president?" To date, Fito still maintains this high office.

In La Ceiba at the beginning of 1994 AMARAS became sick. For various reasons the Humane Society pulled out, leaving a broken dream to fend for itself. With the simultaneous desiccation of the director's salary, in June 1996 Fito took charge of AMARAS. Despite this sudden impoverishment of AMARAS, Fito had not yet begun to fight. Besides being the volunteer director of AMARAS, he was also volunteer president of Pico Bonito and volunteer director of REHDES, a consortium of five conservation groups on the North Coast.

AMARAS had sunk into disrepair. Fito entertained the hope of rescuing the center in 1998 when USAID, by way of COHDEFOR, had promised Lps. 200,000 to construct a quarantine and multiple use building, fully outfitted. But last November, USAID, frustrated with COHDEFOR, suspended all funding. "This sent us to hell," Fito grimaces. Although Fito at times had to cover AMARAS's costs out of his own pocket, he did it with remarkable willingness.

He also became involved in what he called the 'dirty work' of AMARAS: the act of confiscation that was really the government's responsibility but which, for the most part, didn't do it. One time, Fito discovered a person who wanted to sell an ocelot. He approached the person and played the role of buyer. "Wait for me an hour while I go to the bank and get out Lps. 1,000." Instead of coming back with money, he came back with agents from the Department of Criminal Investigation (DIC) and confiscated the cat.

Even as AMARAS degraded, Fito's name rose, first in La Ceiba, where he earned the attention of many people as super straight and a bit nutty; thereafter, he began to make international appearances. He visited Nicaragua, Belize, and Costa Rica, three times representing his different organizations. But in the world of animal rescue, Fito is considered the expert in Honduras. Alvaro Posada, director of the International Humane Society in Latin America, says that it is always Fito's name that comes up when anyone asks about rescue in Honduras. The Society asked Fito to help organize The Second Neotropical Congress on the Rescue of Wildlife, in Costa Rica last June.

When Fito returned from the Congress, he marched around his house with a check for $10,000, thanks to the Humane Society and with the promise of more in the future. Fito says that the big guys in the Society "respect me for maintaining AMARAS these two years without any help from them."

There are various developments that shed some light on the unhappy AMARAS. Nevertheless, under the roof of another one of Fito's organizations, Pico Bonito, one of the most respected conservation organizations in the country and pilot park for various international donors such as the World Bank, Fito has been key to unlocking a recent project. Pico Bonito kicked off a process of developing a strategic plan for public use in Pico Bonito National Park. This plan calls for the passing of AMARAS to Pico Bonito (where it already is physically) in order to convert it into the environmental education center for the entire park, as well as being the rescue center for the entire north end of Honduras.

By joining forces with Pico Bonito, there will be much more possibility of having its projects funded. Even more importantly, Pepe Herrero, godfather of AMARAS, president of Cuero y Salado and owner of the property, agrees with this passage, now nearly complete. Fito is conscious of the challenges. He remembers that four years ago, he tried with might to convince his mother to give her birds to AMARAS.

"Mama, I'm the person in charge of AMARAS always telling people that they shouldn't have wild birds as pets. And you have them in the house, making me look like the hypocrite." Although she has relinquished two parrots, the noble scarlet macaw still remains in Olanchito.

While AMARAS does have potential to fledge once again, the most difficult confiscation of his life -- his mom's scarlet macaw -- still alights out of the reach of the "Famoso Steiner."