SATIIM, the Sarstoon and Temash Institute for Indigenous Management made history when it partnered with the National Garifuna Council to assume management and control of the Sarstoon Temash National Park, a 41,000 acre spread adjoining 5 communities, 4 of them Ketchi, and one Garifuna.
Well tonight we can report that the project is now moving ahead with assistance of international partners. Yesterday SATTIM, with funding from the British High Commission and the Global Environmental Facility opened a new pier at the village of Barranco and a new monitoring station at the mouth of the Temash River in the Toledo District. 7NEWS made the long journey to the Toledo coast to find out about the importance of these projects.
Alfonso Noble Reporting,
Residents of Barranco and neighboring villages gathered to witness the cutting of the ribbons inaugurating a $14,000 pier for Barranco. The pier was funded by the British High Commission through its confidence building initiatives between Belize and Guatemala. Greg Choc is the Executive Director of SATTIM. That is the organization that co-manages the Sarstoon Temash National Park and put the project together. Choc says the pier was erected to foster better relationships with the border villages in the area of both countries.
Greg Choc, Executive Director
"You know there's a road that comes from Punta Gorda to Barranco but a large majority of the community still use the sea as the access to Punta Gorda. They continue to do traditional fishing and certainly a lot of the trade, between Punta Gorda and Barranco and the neighboring town in Guatemala, occurs through this and we see that this is one way where we have put in the facility that will help to foster and promote greater trade and economic activities between the neighboring communities in the area."
Paul Palacio,
"This is very good for us, for us to visit and its good for the people because they come from Barranco to visit us and they need the pier, they need the pier. People from Sarstoon, the fishermen that are living there, they come and sell fish with us sometimes and they really need the pier."
While the pier was put in place to foster and in fact allow for more movement of people into the area, a couple miles down the Toledo coast, an $18,000 monitoring station has been set up for quite the opposite reason. It is funded by the Global Environmental Facility small grants fund and the monitoring station.
Greg Choc,
"We have management responsibility for the Sarstoon Temash National Park. It is isolated, it is along the Guatemalan border, we're about fifteen minutes from the Guatemalan border here, and its been a major challenge to establish management presence in the area."
And that presence is necessary because of the constant assault that the national park comes under on a regular basis. This net that spans the mouth of the Sarstoon River is evidence of the illegal activity that takes place in the unmanned border area of the national park. A vandalized sign, where a portion advising people in Spanish to stay out of the park further highlights the need for greater vigilance in the area.
Lt. Col. Omar Pulido,
"At present we have significant illegal logging in this area. We have been supporting Forestry (Department) in anti-illegal logging operations and we believe that supporting SATIIM in personnel
here, at least temporarily, for a limited amount of time, will help to protect and ensure the safety of the SATIIM Rangers as they try to enforce the law, to protect our environmental facilities against illegal logging, against the harvesting of Xate, flora, fauna, iguanas, and other things like orchids."
And because of these assaults on the national park, Pulido says that the new station will now put in place law enforcement presence and capability.
Lt. Col. Omar Pulido,
"This is a significant presence, it ensures the presence of law and order. Just being present here will deter illegal activities. The main concern right now is the significant illegal logging that is happening along the Temash River. By our soldiers being here, it will ensure that whoever is doing illegal activity, whether it be Belizeans or non-Belizeans, that they realize that we are very much interested and prepared to enforce law and to preserve our national sovereignty."
Greg Choc,
"That will be primarily used by our rangers. We are also creating the inter-agency unit with all the agencies in Toledo, Police, BDF, Customs, to collaborate and ensure that illegal activities that occur in this region is reduced and we can only achieve that if we work closely with the police, the BDF, and certainly having a facility in the park will help us to have overnight patrols and have facilities for the person to stay at the station."
In the end both projects put in place will serve distinctive and almost completely opposite roles. One will foster greater movement of people to and from the area while the other will hopefully prevent the unmitigated plundering of the bountiful natural resources of the area.
The pier which was funded by the British High Commission in belize comes at a cost of $14,000 while the monitoring station which was funded by the Global Environmental Facility comes at a cost of $18,000. The station will be manned by park SATIIM park rangers.
