Sanchis winner of the 2008 Martínez-Márquez Award.

The National Association of Hispanic Journalists have selected “War in the Honduran forests/Guerra en los bosques de Honduras” by Eva Sanchis, of El Diario/La Prensa, as the winner of the 2008 Martínez-Márquez Award for Latin American Reporting.

In a series of three articles, Sanchis profiles the clandestine logging that is destroying environmentally protected pine and hardwood forests in eastern Honduras, and the life and death struggles of hundreds of peasants and indigenous people who stood up to logging interests, corrupt government officials, and narco-traffickers in order to save their homes, woods and livelihoods.

After winning a fellowship to the International Reporting Project at Johns Hopkins University to prepare this project, Sanchis spent almost two months traveling through Honduras to document the bloodshed, violence and corruption associated with illegal logging. Once in the United States, she reunited with some of these peasants who were forced to go into exile escaping from this violence. According to the judges…“this impressive package on such a critical issue facing Honduras was well-researched, with striking photography and strong graphics. The U.S. mainstream press has long ignored the plight of murdered Honduran environmentalists who died fighting to stop the illegal lumber trade.”

“The ‘War in the Honduran forests/Guerra en los bosques de Honduras’ by Eva Sanchis is a sterling example of a new global journalism that reflects the challenges and opportunities of a globalized world. It draws a straight line between violence against peasants in a poor, rural corner of Honduras and the forest of McMansions that dot our suburbs,” says Alberto Vourvoulias-Bush, Executive Editor of El Diario/La Prensa. “We could not be more proud of Eva and her work.”

“I am grateful to the National Association of Hispanic Journalists for recognizing the importance of this project. I hope that this draws needed attention to the poverty and the violence inflicted on peasant and indigenous communities of Honduras as a result of illegal logging –a traffic that can be stopped though more effective regulation of wood imports into the United States and a greater awareness on the part of consumers” says Eva Sanchis, Metro Editor of El Diario/La Prensa.