The Audubon Society today broke a long silence and spoke out against cruise tourism mega projects in and around Belize City that raise serious environmental concerns. They are Stake Bank and North Drown Caye as well as the Carnival Cruise Terminal at the Port of Belize. A release says the Audubon is extremely concerned over the "wanton disregard for environmental laws." Advocacy manager for Audubon Tanya Thompson explains that it is time for her organization to condemn these acts.
Tanya Thompson, BAS
"There are development projects that are going on without having an EIA and without going through the permit process. We have particular concerns, yes. Those concerns are regarding two development projects, three actually. One is the proposed Carnival cruise terminal at the port. The second one is regarding the Stake Bank terminal and that I think is supposed to be for Royal Caribbean and there is a third project, a North Drown Caye development, and those two projects are related, there are being done by the same developer.
These three projects, they did work without going through the permitting process and without going through the EIA process. Yes both projects, Port and the Stake Bank projects, have done EIAs now however in terms of the port project, it took four years before an EIA was done and in that time, they did extensive dredging and land reclamation. A stop order was issued by DOE, the developer chose to ignore that stop order and continued working. He has done an EIA now and we congratulate him in doing that EIA. But a lot of the impacts that he has caused, because of dredging, has already been done."
Alfonso Noble,
You have been seeing this happening and I know you all have been monitoring the situation but this is like far gone because the development at the port is, with regards to reclamation, near completion and the one at Stake Bank, if I am not mistaken, is almost complete as well. This is kind of too late.
Tanya Thompson,
"It is never too late. Yes we may have moved too slowly in terms of coming out and publicly stating what is the problem, other people have done so. The DOE has been doing a good job in trying to get these developers, reign in these developers, to ensure they are operating within that process and we have been working with them to ensure that happens but we are seeing that it is not happening. Where they are getting permission to go ahead and do what they are doing, we don't know. One of the strategies that we think is important is to create awareness within the Belizean public of what is occurring in the environment. As you are aware, these projects have the potential to have detrimental impacts on people's health, the resources that people depend on for their livelihoods, and so it is important for them to be aware of what is going on."
There is a consultation with residents of Port Loyola to take place tonight at the Port of Belize compound tonight concerning the Carnival Cruise terminal.
