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Collaborative on Global Children's Issues

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The Collaborative Forum

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March 28, 2022

Responding To: Innovating Protection for Children at Risk in the Americas

From Distress Migrants to Environmental Stewards: Youth Engagement in Conservation Training as Displacement Mitigation in Honduras

Marisa O. Ensor, Adjunct Lecturer, Georgetown University Justice and Peace Studies Program

Introduction

A combination of unemployment, poverty, food insecurity, and violence is driving many young Hondurans to the Mexico and U.S. borders in search of a better life. Rather than attempting to make a living in the risky agriculture sector, an option made increasingly less viable by the adverse effects of natural hazards, environmental degradation, and climate change, or seeking poorly paid and unreliable employment in already oversaturated urban labor markets, many choose to leave their country. Turning to an illicit trade would be the only other economic alternative.

Additionally, weak social bonds, exclusion from local decision-making structures, and the perception that they are not valued as members of their own communities are further pushing Honduran youth towards pathways of violence and migration. A common strategy among rural youth is to first seek better conditions by migrating to larger urban areas within the country, resorting to cross-border migration only after socioeconomic or environmental conditions worsen.

Several recent initiatives are broadening the range of options available to young Hondurans by promoting nature-based solutions to the main problems affecting youth, including engagement in conservation and climate-responsive agribusiness training, with promising results. Expanding young people’s capabilities and facilitating their pursuit of sustainable livelihoods is expected to both strengthen the country’s socioecological systems and help reduce the drivers of distress migration.

The Context of Youth Displacement

Distress migration is a common response to rural livelihood instability, limited opportunities, and inadequate resource access. Almost 28% of Honduran youth, including 42% of young women, are neither employed nor pursuing further education. National statistics estimate that Hondurans’ educational attainment is limited to an average of 6.6 years of schooling, with children and youth living in remote communities experiencing greater financial and geographic barriers to accessing even basic education.

These challenges result in, and are compounded by, deteriorating security conditions (including high levels of structural, gender, political and criminal violence), as well as one of the world’s highest per capita murder rates. Disenfranchised youth are particularly vulnerable to gang recruitment. At the same time, the government’s Mano Dura response to gang activity has contributed to the youngsters’ alienation from law enforcement personnel, exacerbating their mistrust of legal and political authorities and widening the gap between political institutions and Honduran youth.

Rural-dwelling youngsters face additional livelihood constraints. World Bank data indicate that approximately 43% of Hondurans live in rural areas, where over 60% of households subsist below the national poverty line. The primary economic activity—small-scale, low-input agriculture—has been traditionally constrained by inheritance practices that often result in land fragmentation, a reality inhibiting the sustainability of the rural economy for youth, as acquiring additional land can be financially unattainable for them. Furthermore, agrarian households are becoming increasingly vulnerable to the impacts of climate change, extreme weather events, and associated seasonal food insecurity.

Environmental, socioeconomic, and security considerations are, in fact, interdependent. Climate change combined with the El Niño phenomenon directly impact agriculture by exacerbating drought and rainfall variability. Changes in the onset, duration, and intensity of rainfall are destroying crops and decimating rural livelihoods. Rural residents, especially subsistence farmers, are particularly vulnerable to environmental change in Northern Triangle countries; those in Honduras have been severely impacted.

As climate change continues to decimate rural livelihoods, young people are migrating in higher numbers to cities seeking work. If employment is unavailable, their limited options include turning to the informal sector and engaging in gang-related activities. If these interlocking factors are not addressed, violence and high crime rates are likely to continue. The resulting pervasive insecurity already constitutes a primary driver of mass migration in the region, with up to 40% of Northern Triangle asylum-seekers reporting direct violent attacks on themselves or other family members as a reason for fleeing the country.

As I was able to ascertain during my latest field trip to Honduras in the summer and fall of 2021, Honduran rural youth are facing increasingly daunting challenges in accessing meaningful employment opportunities. Rural labor markets across the country, and especially along the Dry Corridor, are characterized by low productivity, significant informality, and high levels of unemployment and underemployment. This is particularly the case for those under 24 years of age, who comprise more than half of the country’s unemployed population. The patterns of distress—usually undocumented—migration that Honduran youth typically engage in creates concerns about their well-being and safety. Implementing high-quality, youth-specific interventions in rural Honduras is critical for leveraging the country’s young population as an asset for, rather than an impediment to, long-term sustainable development, thereby reducing the push factors leading to distress migration.

Brief Overview of the Projects

The Youth for Conservation project, locally known as JPC after its name in Spanish—Jóvenes para la Conservación—is designed to equip Honduran youth with both technical and interpersonal skills through training in natural resource management and conservation. Much of JPC’s activities are centered around the cloud forests of the Celaque National Park, which encompasses the Departments of Lempira, Ocotepeque, and Copán. This region of western Honduras is part of the Dry Corridor and is particularly susceptible to extreme weather events, with long periods of drought followed by intense rains that severely affect the livelihoods and food security of local populations. Economic opportunities in the areas covered by the JPC program are scarce, leading to high rates of both rural-to-urban and cross-border distress migration.

Established in 2017 with assistance from the USDA Forest Service and funding from USAID, the JPC program is modeled closely after the celebrated Youth Conservation Corps program in the United States. In Honduras, young JPC participants are gaining technical skills to manage forests, protect watersheds, and broadly conserve nature. In November 2021, a new cohort of 89 young Hondurans graduated from JPC, joining a rapidly growing roster of alumni. Many of these graduates are putting their new skills to practical use as employees of various Honduran national parks, among other opportunities.

Initial assessments suggest that this program appears to be more successful at reducing participants' expressed desire to migrate than those more narrowly focused on preparing youth for a restricted and volatile labor market. Furthermore, the activities promoted by JPC in Honduras are promoting climate-adaptive strategies while reducing dependency on nonrenewable natural resources and fostering environmental stewardship. As the forests and wildlife are protected, pressure on forest resources is alleviated and the livelihoods of local people improve, as do their resistance to the adverse environmental and climatic changes that are contributing to youth displacement.

Another promising initiative is the Youth in Agribusiness: Ensuring the Employment of Tomorrow project implemented by the Honduran Red de Institutos Técnicos Comunitarios (Red-ITC; Network of Community Technical Institutes) and partners. Established in 2019, this project aims at developing youths' technical capacities to facilitate their entry in the labor market and promote their access to environmentally sustainable employment. To date, almost a hundred youth, 40% of whom are young women, have received technical, environmental, and agricultural training.

Program activities seek to provide young people with different opportunities in environmental stewardship. The program currently operates in western Honduras—also part of the Dry Corridor region—providing education, internships, and vocational skill development to participating rural youth. Climate change adaptation, water and soil management and conservation, and specialized trade skills such as coffee roasting, horticulture, fish farming, and beekeeping are among the activities being promoted.

The project partners with the Honduran private sector to connect young people to formal employment. Training in interpersonal skills like leadership and teamwork aims to help young people reach their goals regardless of the career path they choose. Its long-term goal is to contribute to harnessing the country’s large demographic dividend and reducing the drivers of distress migration.

Project Outcomes: The Way Forward

The positive approach to youth programming evident in these and similar projects currently being implemented in Honduras sharply contrasts with the zero tolerance Mano Dura tactics that law enforcement authorities have favored in their treatment of “at risk” youth, especially those suspected of gang involvement or other forms of criminal behavior. Seeking to offer a more constructive alternative to the many risks and challenges faced by most rural youth as they navigate limited social and livelihood options, these interventions are not just delivering marketable skill development opportunities. Just as importantly, they are also offering positive youth-adult interactions and developmentally appropriate structures to young participants and encouraging pride in environmental stewardship.

Both JPC and Youth in Agribusiness demonstrate a commitment to empowering local young women—not just young men—in traditionally male fields such as conservation, forestry, and sustainable income-generating activities. Female participants report that participation itself expanded their sense of personal agency, facilitating their livelihood pursuits both within and beyond conservation and agriculture. It also affirmed their sense of personal worth and instilled in them the confidence to overcome the marginalization and exclusion they have often faced. Expanding capabilities among rural youth in ways that would facilitate their pursuit of meaningful and sustainable rural livelihoods contributes thus to mitigating the main drivers of distress migration.

Small, localized programs like the JPC and the Youth in Agribusiness projects cannot, on their own, change the pervasive socioeconomic, political, and environmental circumstances that shape Honduran youth’s challenging realities. Preliminary findings nevertheless indicate that both initiatives are helping provide would-be distress migrants with some of the professional tools and personal skills they need to create their own alternative opportunities and drive positive change in their communities, thereby reducing their need to pursue a meaningful future elsewhere.

Dr. Marisa O. Ensor is an environmental anthropologist currently based at Georgetown University’s Justice and Peace Studies Program and an affiliate faculty of the Institute for the Study of International Migration and the School of Foreign Service. She has been conducting fieldwork on the political ecology of environmental hazards and displacement in Honduras since the immediate aftermath of Hurricane Mitch in 1998, with a focus on gender and youth dynamics.

Other Responses

Juan Pacay
Wuqub' Tz'ikin

Juan Edwin Pacay Mendoza, Coordinator of the Kajib’ Ix Program, Vida Digna Collective Association; Maya Tz’utujil, Family-Community Organizer | March 28, 2022