By SUYAPA CARIAS

Authorities of the Ministry of Natural Resources and the Environment (SERNA), the State Forestry Agency (AFE/COHDEFOR), the German Cooperation (GTZ), the U.N. Development Programme (UNDP) and the World Wildlife Fund last week presented the new Mesoamerican Biological Corridor Project (CBM) in Tegucigalpa.

The official event followed four years of planning and coordinating efforts through the Central American Commission of Development and Environment (CCAD), a member of the Central American Integration System (SICA), with the participation of the Mexican government.

The goal was to develop a collective conservationist strategy aimed at saving the rich biodiversity from Calakmul in Southern Mexico, to El Darien, Panama, given such dangers as forest fires, land and sea contamination, the expansion of the agricultural frontier, large-scale agro-industrial investments, mineral exploitation, and indiscriminate fishing and hunting.  It is estimated that this area alone harbors 10 percent of the world's total biodiversity.

With financial assistance from the Global Environment Fund (GEF), the World Bank and GTZ, it was possible to design a program through a regional office in Nicaragua, as well as local offices in each of the eight countries involved.

SERNA Minister Xiomara Gomez de Caballero said that in addition to promoting new administration models for protected areas, the CBM also intends to promote water basin management, to restore degraded lands, to maintain productivity in different ecosystems, to promote adequate handling of pasture land, and to optimize agricultural and livestock productivity.

"All this has the objective of improving business opportunities and living standards, as well as conserving biodiversity and the quality of environmental services," said Gomez de Caballero.  According to the minister, the biological corridor project covers about 21 percent of Honduran territory, equivalent to more than 1,500,000 hectares.

In fact, studies show that Honduras has 7,524 vascular plant species, around 2,000 known insect species, nearly 715 bird species and 228 mammal species.  There almost 100 reptile species, and a equal number of amphibian species.

Sonia Suazo, the project's national representative, said they will first deal with high priority zones.  In the case of Honduras, these are the Gulf of Fonseca, the Trifinio Reserve, the Gulf of Honduras and the Tawahka and Patuca Reserves.  "It is imperative to correct many inadequate practices concerning forest, agriculture and waste management," she said.

 Meanwhile, CBM regional representative Theresa Zuniga said conservation is only one of the issues CBM is addressing.  "What good would it be for our developing countries that have many large immediate needs to conserve nature if we don't derive economic benefits from it?  There are hundreds of products produced by our ecosystems that already have a market value, and we have many others that we still haven't learned to value or know their potential."

Among these environmental services, she mentioned the contribution of forests to water production for the nation's cities; carbon fixation and ecotourism.  "There are investment opportunities for all, from international corporations to the must humble rural inhabitant."

Finally, WWF regional representative Miguel Cifuentes, presented a television awareness and educational campaign sponsored by that institution, whose slogan is: Mesoamerican Biological Corridor, Naturally United.

EXO-EXCHANGE -- It's a fact of nature: As sure as the sea crashes onto the beach and then drags slowly away, the sands of the Caribbean are altered every minute of the day.  It's a fact of economics: The countries and territories of the Caribbean depend on their beaches for important sources of income, mainly from tourism.

Since the mid-1980s, the Coast and Beach Stability in the Caribbean project (COSALC) has been working with government officials in the Caribbean to help them maintain the economic value of their nations' beaches even as the sands shift beneath their feet.  After a strong emphasis on science and training, COSALC now plans to focus on education and influencing attitudes.

COSALC is a joint project of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) and the University of Puerto Rico's Sea Grant College Program.  The project assists island nations to minimize beach erosion, reduce storm impacts, and respond to rising sea levels.  While nature can severely alter shorelines, the biggest threat to Caribbean beaches is human development, according to COSALC coordinator Gillian Cambers.

"We know that beaches are not static, but this was seldom taken into account as coastlines in the Caribbean were developed for tourism during the past few decades," she explains.  "If you spend a little bit extra and do development the right way, you can have beaches plus economic growth."

A simple but needed change, she suggests, is to stop building hotels directly on the beach.  She says that while technicians with government agencies and conservation groups understand the need to manage beach development, "many politicians believe that too many regulations about where hotels can and cannot be built may frighten off developers."

To broadcast the message that beaches must be managed, COSALC is providing equipment and training to environmental and media agencies in Anguilla, St. Lucia, and Granada, so that they can produce short video clips about the coastal environment.  "To change attitudes and actions, we need to reach the people who vote," Cambers says.

To reach future voters, COSALC is working with the Caribbean Sea Project, a UNESCO education initiative, on a new campaign called "Sandwatch."  Sandra Gift, sub‑regional coordinator for the UNESCO‑Associated Schools Project Network, says the idea for Sandwatch came from youngsters who attended a Caribbean Sea Project workshop in Tobago in 1998.  "After talking to one another," she explains, "they realized that their descriptions of the sand on their beaches at home were all very different.  So they decided they wanted to learn more about sand."

In October, the Sandwatch initiative will bring teachers from Caribbean islands, along with Costa Rica, Colombia, Venezuela, and the Guyanas, to the island of St. Lucia.  Teachers will receive training in beach monitoring activities that they can share with other teachers in their respective nations, and then demonstrate to children in participating schools.  Students will monitor pollution and beach erosion for one year, analyze their data, and share the results with schoolchildren in other nations.

Gift notes that an important element of the campaign is to encourage students to work with local communities to solve the beach management problems they identify.

Eco-Exchange is funded by the New York Times Company Foundation and Norcross Wildlife Foundation, with additional support from the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation. Its website is <http://www.rainforest-alliance.org>