As we go to press, one of Belize’s oldest villages, Monkey River, Toledo, is in the midst of monumental crisis. Massive erosion is threatening to wash away as many as seven houses. The shoreline is cutting closer and closer on to the mainland, washing away much of the village’s beach, threatening to undermine the foundation of the village’s school and inundating the cemetery.
“We need to do something urgently,” said Mario Muschamp, chairman of the Monkey River Village Council, and manager of Payne’s Creek National Park, managed through the Toledo Institute for Development and the Environment (TIDE).
Muschamp told us that the Village Council has commissioned the Erosion Committee, chaired by Chris Harris, to help implement both immediate and long-term measures to save Monkey River from the crisis.
Harris spoke with us extensively today about the problem, and sounded the alarm that unless intervention happens fast, a precious part of The Jewel and the homes of seven families will lose ground to invading waters.
Darrel Audinett, project officer in the capacity building program for the Protected Areas Conservation Trust (PACT), said that PACT had financed a study of the Monkey River problem by Galen University, but since that study there has been no intervention to correct the problem.
According to Muschamp, Galen had estimated that it would cost $4 million to restore 1¼ miles of beach, 300 feet wide, but a major dredging project would also be required, as experts say that one major cause of the erosion problem is the fact that the river flow has slowed substantially, keeping back the sediments that would ordinarily replace those lost by waves washing the village’s coastline.
While more detailed studies to determine the root cause of the Monkey River problem have been commissioned by the Village Council, there are theories that pinpoint a mix of reasons contributing to what is evolving from an environmental crisis to one with real social implications for villagers.
Both Harris and Muschamp point to the theory that the diversion of river water for use on banana farms is one factor that has slowed the flow of the river. Another problem is the vast clearing of lands very close to the river’s edge, which also worsens the problem of sedimentation and slows the flow of the river. Another theory points to a dam upstream.
A release from the concerned villagers of Monkey River notes that delays could severely hurt the village.
Harris told us that they have written the Prime Minister, Dean Barrow, as their Toledo area representative, Peter Eden Martinez, has not yet responded to their request for assistance.
Audinett, PACT’s project officer, told us that the Erosion Committee continues to keep them updated, and at last report an additional 12 feet had been washed way in only two days. He noted that while erosion is nothing unique to Monkey River, the pace at which it has been occurring in that community is uniquely rapid.
According to Audinett, PACT still remains committed to assisting Monkey River and to the success of this initiative to combat the erosion, but the scale of the problem requires intervention on a wider scale, including urgent help from the Government, and mitigation from other land users that are fueling the problems they are now experiencing on the beach.
Mario Muschamp, village council chair, underscored the need for a quick intervention, but more importantly, a long-term solution to ensure that the cycle of erosion, two decades in the making, does not continue to eat away an already small village and home to 190 Belizeans.