Information reaching our newspaper from conservationists in southern and western Belize confirms that Guatemalans are venturing further inland to illegally exploit the nation’s untold wealth, and particularly valuable hardwoods in Belize’s near pristine jungles, in multi-million dollar exploits that use peasant farmers and loggers, some armed with deadly offensive and high-caliber guns.
The lands in question have been placed under legal protective status in Belize, restraining even locals from freely using the area for hunting, harvesting, or settlements; conservationists have noted, however, that Guatemalans are feeling very much at home, living, farming, logging, poaching, and even swindling gold and archaeological artifacts from the country’s most important forests, especially the highly prized Chiquibul.
Amandala has been reporting on this phenomenon of expanding incursions since 2007. At that time, it was reported that 8,000 acres inside both the Caracol Archaeological Reserve and the Chiquibul National Park had been illegally cleared. In 2008, the estimated raping was increased to over 10,000 acres of once virgin forest. The affected area is now estimated to be larger than the nation’s commercial capital, Belize City.
A recent report released by Friends for Conservation and Development (FCD) on Tuesday, November 8—detailing BZ$5 million in losses from illegal logging in the Caracol Archaeological Reserve alone—calls the situation “a time bomb.”
The acreages over which the Guatemalans continue illegal logging operations has been increasing exponentially, with the acreage nearly doubling for the first half of 2011, compared to the first half of 2010, according to the FCD report.
It explained that the area of influence was about 12,000 hectares by mid-2010 but grew to 18,167 hectares by December 2010, only 6 months later. That area of influence mushroomed to 26,642 hectares by July 2011. This is equivalent to 66,000 acres or 103 square miles.
Meanwhile, incursions continue to pose a threat in southern Belize, where conservationists last month came across a large 6-tarp camp set up by Guatemalans who made themselves at home inside the Bladen Nature Reserve, leaving behind their clothes and provisions, although such activities are expressly forbidden under Belizean law.
Lisel Alamilla, Executive Director of Ya’axché Conservation Trust, told our newspaper Tuesday that, “[What] we can state categorically is that we have found them further in than we have in previous times.”
She told us that the last incident involved an incursion 20 kilometers (or 12.5 miles) into Belize.
“They are as far in [as] from the Supreme Court [in Belize City] to the International Airport [in Ladyville],” she demonstrated.
Last week when KREM News’s Cecily Cambranes probed Prime Minister Barrow on what the government is doing to address the continued incursions that are moving more inland, Barrow responded: “I don’t know where you get that from!” claiming that the information supplied to him has not indicated incursions further into Belizean territory than before.
Barrow, the head of the National Security Council, responded that, “At the National Security Council meetings, which are held monthly, we keep a close eye … there is a record made and presented so that we know exactly what is happening at the particular trouble spots, and if there have been any new incursions.”
He said that they don’t have anything to suggest that the Guatemalans are coming further inland.
As a follow-up to that conversation, Amandala on Tuesday requested updates from both Ya’axché Conservation Trust, which co-manages Bladen Nature Reserve in Toledo, and Friends for Conservation and Development (FCD), which co-manages the Chiquibul National Park in Cayo.
Both YCT and FCD confirmed that the Guatemalans are coming more and more inland. FCD went further to release its report to the press, dated November 3, 2011, and titled, “The Chiquibul Forest: Cross-border Illegal Logging – A Case for Urgent Action”, in which it described the situation in the Chiquibul as “a time bomb.”
The extent of the incursions appears to be far graver out west than in the south. FCD notes that there are Guatemalans living inside the Chiquibul National Park who serve as bases for illegal activities inside Belize. They have their plantations and farms inside this park, as well as other areas along Belize’s western border with Guatemala.
One especially troubling case that FCD pointed to is that of Rigoberto Gutierrez, who, FCD confirmed, “…continues to live inside the Chiquibul National Park.” They also said that he “is known to encourage loggers to operate in the area and is a dangerous person even to security forces.”
Belizean officials have said that the removal of Gutierrez—who has a plantation-style concrete home near to the border, but on the Belize side—would have to be done under the auspices of the Organization of American States (OAS). This is the same agency that has been asked to conduct a verification exercise into allegations in August that a Belizean security officer shot a Guatemalan on Guatemalan soil on the day that a search operation was conducted at Gutierrez’s residence.
Belize Defence Force sources had told our newspaper that one of the children at Gutierrez’s place went to a nearby Guatemalan village, San Jose Las Flores, which defends Gutierrez, to request help, and armed men came on motorcycles, one of them brandishing an offensive AK47.
Barrow told KREM News, “It is simply impossible to prevent people from coming across.”
He said that government moves to dismantle any structures that are put up; however, there is a protocol agreed to in the adjacency zone, as well as provisions for an OAS verification process.
Once the exercise has been exhausted, said Barrow, then Belize moves to dismantle the settlements or destroy the crops that are there.
FCD’s report points to a noteworthy enforcement problem in western Belize. The report also notes that illegal Guatemalan loggers are less than a mile away from the main highway leading to the Caracol Archaeological Reserve.
In August, the FCD reported a 42% rise in illegal logging activities inside the Chiquibul Forest and put a value of $15 million on illegally extracted mahogany and cedar leaving the country for next-door Guatemala.
Over a span of 55,000 acres and up to 10 kilometers or about 7 miles into Belize, they have observed the illegal harvest of mahogany, cedar and other woods, the organization has previously told us.
FCD said, “…the illegal logging has continued to increase dramatically and incessantly despite all efforts and arrests throughout 2011.”
They point to “improper documentation of the detention” as the primary reason why of the 30 people arrested and detained during the first year of surveillance, starting in 2010, 90% of them were not charged.
They also caution of reports to them that indicate that “drug cartels operating in Peten, Guatemala, are moving closer to the western border, particularly in the southern region of the Chiquibul/Maya Mountains Biosphere Reserve, Peten, Guatemala.”
FCD comments that, “…more and more illegal Guatemalans feel ownership of the Chiquibul Forest.”
The incursions pose an especially difficult problem for Belize in light of the fact that Guatemala continues to claim that at least half of Belize from the Sibun to the Sarstoon belongs to that country but was stolen by Britain. The incursions are increasingly common in that part of Belize which Guatemala has alleged is its original territory—a claim that Belizean authorities flatly deny as unfounded.