[Aztlan] Letters Needed: Crisis on the Usumacinta

[charles golden]

Dear Listeros,

Many thanks to Dave Pentecost for posting the links to news reports on 
the Sierra del Lacandon and Piedras Negras. 

I wanted to write to emphasize the situation is dire. 

This could be the moment in which Piedras Negras is lost to the looters 
for good, and the remaining portions of the park are burned or logged 
out.  I have worked in the area since 1997, and I have experienced all 
the many, many problems that plague the Usumacinta.  I have never seen 
such a crisis.  
Previous attacks on Piedras Negras or on the park authorities were 
sporadic and limited to one location.  The current situation represents 
a concerted, multi-pronged attack designed to cause the Guatemalan 
authorities to abandon the park - a plan that has, for now, succeeded.  
The Usumacinta is now a free trade zone for looters, loggers, and narcos.

I want to ask, on behalf of my friends in the Defensores de la 
Naturaleza, administrators of the park, who are valiantly trying to get 
the Guatemalan government to respond to this crisis, and on behalf of 
the Instituto de Antropologia e Historia in Guatemala which is similarly 
trying to protect Piedras Negras that  you write to your representatives 
in congress and to the US ambassador in Guatemala City encouraging them 
to take action.  In the past, political and economic support from the 
United States through the Embassy has been successful in getting action 
from the Guatemalan government.

You can e-mail Ambassador James M. Derham at AmCitsGuatemala at state.gov

If you have any questions please don't hesitate to contact me.

Thank you,
Charles Golden
cgolden at brandeis.edu