Guatemala this month announced the termination of a controversial contract for oil exploration in a coveted national park. In a move that environmentalists described as historic, Energy and Mines Minister Raúl Archila also said the government would not open the contract area or any other protected land to future exploration. Basic Resources International won a contract in 1992 to explore a nearly 475,000-acre (192,000-hectare) tract that includes the bulk of Laguna del Tigre National Park, a core area of the Maya Biosphere Reserve. Environmentalists and some government officials have maintained the contract was illegal because Guatemalan law expressly forbids resource extraction in national parks and core areas. However, legal challenges to the contract did not succeed. Once the project’s exploration phase ended in... [Log in to read more]