Countering Corporate Lawfare in Honduras
Huddled under the shade of large trees and tarps erected to block the hot, late morning sun, community leaders, mostly women, settle into plastic chairs chatting with one another. As more cars arrive and everyone waits for the activity to start, people laugh and greet one another with a familiarity forged in their many hard years of resistance against a solar energy project in the community.
It is January 4, 2025, the start of another year in Los Prados I, a small, rural village in the southern department of Choluteca, Honduras. Every year, the gathering brings together key actors from across southern Honduras to commemorate the resistance camp, launched eight years ago, that managed to stop the installation of a large-scale solar energy project in the community’s backyard. The 53 MW project, also called Los Prados, belongs to the Norwegian company Scatec ASA and the investment company KLP Nor-fund Investment AS, jointly owned by the Norwegian development finance institution Norfund and KLP, Norway’s largest pension fund. While the resistance succeeded in halting the project’s advance on the lands adjacent to the communities of Los Prados I and II, at least two of the five concessions that are part of the Los Prados megaproject now operate in another nearby community.
“Over there,” says Leonardo Amador, extending his arm. He motions to the other side of the road, where the community once maintained its 24-hour resistance camp. “That’s where they wanted to put the solar panels—in that whole area almost all the way to that small hill in the distance. From what we understand, it is also of interest to mining companies now.” As we chat, Amador takes a handkerchief out of his back pocket to wipe the beads of sweat from under his sombrero. Choluteca is one of the hottest parts of the country.
For years, as former president of the elected community council or patronato, Amador led the resistance against massive solar energy projects, or what he calls “a sea of tin cans.” As a result, he and others in the resistance have faced threats and trumped-up charges aimed at silencing them. Since 2017, nine people from Los Prados I and other nearby communities who face ongoing charges have had to sign into court on a monthly basis. Others originally accused along with the nine resolved their legal troubles by signing an agreement to stop participating in protests.
