Activists and community representatives say government agencies may be acting on the sly.

 BY MEGAN FELDMAN
 Special to The Herald

 FLORES, Guatemala -- Juan Trujillo had heard rumors of highways planned through his forest hamlet, but he really started worrying when four shiny red 4x4 sport utility vehicles pulled into town last month.

 The men who climbed out said they were doing topography -- for a highway.

 ``It would break the ecosystem and destroy the fauna,'' said Trujillo, president of Carmelita, a northeastern Guatemalan village in the Maya Biosphere Reserve, the
 country's largest protected area. ``It would destroy the pepper, palm and products we live off.''

 Trujillo and Guatemalan environmentalists are alarmed by proposals for roads cutting through the five-million-acre reserve 22 miles from here, with wildlife and Maya ruins covering the northern third of Guatemala near Mexico and Belize.

 FEAR OF DESTRUCTION

 Three months after the presidents of Mexico and Central American countries signed an agreement aimed at integrating trade, transport, tourism, and energy from southern Mexico to Panama, environmentalists fear dense forests of cedar, palms and mahogany will be bulldozed in the quest for a Central American transportation network. Environmentalists and townspeople in this corner of Guatemala say they believe that what supporters call development may mean destruction: clear-cutting for highways.

 The legality of highways running through the reserve is dubious at best, environmentalists say, but they note that the government has allowed for oil exploration and road construction despite laws that prohibit it. So while government officials avoid discussing the possibility of more roads in the rain forest, skepticism among activists is growing.

 Mundo Maya, an official regional tourism organization, recently published maps of routes that would raze thousands of trees; men have been reported mapping roads in the reserve; and the government just announced bidding for over 620 miles of highway.

 ``When you look at all the separate pieces, it's like a puzzle -- and the whole could be disastrous,'' said Ileana Valenzuela, advisor to the Association of Forest
 Communities in the Petén, an umbrella group that incorporates communities in the reserve.

 Paved roads bringing settlers, loggers and tourists into the last intact wilderness area in Guatemala would have drastic effects on wildlife, environmentalists say.
 According to Conservation International, over 13 percent of the reserve was deforested in the last 15 years, mostly from logging, fires and agriculture.

 ``There are jaguars, mountain lions and tapirs that need big areas to maintain their populations,'' said Roan McNab, regional director of the Wildlife Conservation Society. "Roads would threaten their habitats.''

 Mundo Maya, composed of tourism officials from Mexico, Belize, Guatemala, El Salvador and Honduras, published a proposal in June showing three overland "routes'' running north to Mexico through two national parks in the biosphere. The architect suggested paving roads so that travel time between any two points would be less than eight hours.

 And although the Guatemalan government declines to say whether any of the new highway contracts will be for the biosphere, documents from the neighboring Mexican state of Quintana Roo propose to pave the way from Cancún, Mexico, to Flores, Petén, to increase tourism and commerce.

 But representatives of Mundo Maya -- part of a trade agreement dubbed Plan Pueblo Panama and funded by the Inter-American Development Bank -- say the document is
 merely an idea. Lack of funds and environmental impact would likely prevent it, they say.

 "People are paranoid'' Andrés Navia, Mundo Maya project manager.

 Isabel Guzmán, assistant presidential secretary and the trade plan's representative in Guatemala, declined to comment on specific projects planned for the Petén, but
 said many proposals on the table are not feasible.

 "Some of the roads proposed literally cut the Maya Biosphere in two,'' she said. ``We're not breaking out the banner for people to build roads.''

 FINANCING

 As for the rumored roads in the Petén, Humberto Castedo, an Inter-American Development Bank official in Guatemala, said the agency will not finance anything that
 promotes massive tourism in the Petén, or anything that is not supported by local communities.

 But activists and community representatives say government agencies may be acting on the sly. Some say scouts have visited nearby provinces, recruiting thousands of road workers for highways in the Petén.

 "The government and private sector say they want the support of local communities,'' Valenzuela said. ``But when a project idea is rejected, they continue to act
 underground.''

                                    © 2001