Following up on a newsbreak earlier this week (Hon. Dean Barrow and Channel 7), Amandala contacted CEO Allan Usher in the Ministry of Natural Resources to find out if there was any truth to the story that a sizable portion of the Bacalar Chico National Park in San Pedro Ambergris Caye was up for sale. According to 7 News, “senior sources” had indicated that the government had accepted US$1million as partial payment for 3,000 acres on Ambergris Caye. According to Honorable Barrow (7News archives), buyers had insisted on getting beachfront, so the government had agreed to “put into the mix thousands of acres out of the Bacalar Chico National Park.”
In response to that story, CEO Usher says that GOB does intend to de-reserve and sell a portion of the park, but he was not privy to any other details on the matter.
On another Ambergris Caye matter, Channel 7 reported on October 24 that CEO Allan Usher had confirmed that a deal was in the making for an 8,000-acre parcel on the island “known as the Beltraide Land.”
The Bacalar Chico Marine and Wildlife Reserve, 41 square miles (15,000 acres marine and 12,000 acres land), was declared in 1996. Situated at the northern end of Ambergris Caye, it is separated from the Yucatan Peninsula by a narrow channel dug over fifteen hundred years ago by the Mayas who lived in the area. There are seven or eight Mayan sites in the park, two of which are partially excavated, the more important one being Chac Balam, which used to be an important trading center.
Land and marine wildlife is abundant in the park. Most notable is the fact that two endangered cats, the puma and the jaguar, roam the Bacalar Chico. The park is managed by the Fisheries and Forest Departments.