News

The conservation of the Environment has always been a topic of interest in every level and the States have the obligation of protecting and conserving it. For Honduras, this obligation is found since the Constitution of the Republic in its article 145, which establishes that “The state will conserve the environment appropriate to protect the individual’s health”. It is this way that The State has been responsible of the implementation of all the guidelines to ensure the correct conservation of the Environment through efficient normative and in accordance with the reality.

Inside this range we can found the processes of Environmental Licensing, which aims that the State may have an effective control, monitoring and follow-up of all those projects put into operation by any natural or juridical person, called fabric, mine, farm in any category, a restaurant, building construction, use of water resources, etc. This obligation of supervision and authorization falls on the Secretariat of Natural Resources, Environment and Mines (MI AMBIENTE, by its acronyms in Spanish). However, with the aim of simplifying and accelerate the licensing processes oriented to create a favorable and stable investment climate for the investors, through the Decree 181-2007 published in the official journal La Gaceta on July 16^th, 2010, it is delegated some of the functions of this Secretariat of State to the municipal governments.

In tune with this simplification, the Municipal City Hall of the Central District approved through the Agreement No. 020 included in the Certificate No. 014 from July 19^th of 2017, and recently published in the official journal La Gaceta on October 16^th of 2017, the Regulations for the Processes of Evaluation, Control and Environmental Management in the Municipal City Hall of the Central District, which is already into force and that has for objective to regulate everything concerning to the processes of environmental evaluation in order to maintain a better and adequate use of natural resources in the Central District. In the aforementioned regulation we can find from the regulation principles, the field of its application, permits issuance, license and/or environmental audits, sanctions appliance, classification and/or categorization of the projects, among others.

This regulation without any doubt will come to promote and strengthen even more the labor of environmental conservation that it is up to the Municipal City Hall of the Central District, to achieve in this way a sustainable and adequate use of the natural resources and to improve the welfare of all.

Fredy Castillo Portillo
Senior Associate
García & Bodán
Honduras